ravelda

Seventies, fifties and eighties respectively, I would say. I would also maintain that the late eighties were a fantastic time for restaurants in London, the best far eclipsing what we have today. ← I think the trouble with putting absoulte eras on food like that, food in London has always (in my mind at least) been significantly ahead of the rest of the UK, with perhaps one or two exceptions. Certainly this lag outside of London has shortened over the past 5 or 10 years, but I would say that certainly my experience of the 80's in my home town and other places around the UK that I visited (not to mention the food my parents and their friends cooked for dinner parties in the 80's) was typical of most of the dishes mentioned above.

Your right of course Tim - when I look at any reviews put out from the writer of the paper in my hometown (which I have happily been parted from for 10 years now!) the quality of writing is dire - mind you, so is his knowledge of food most of the time! Also looking at some of the free papers in London, again the writers are amateurish and again lacking any real knowledge of food - thankfully the Metro seem to appreciate the value of decent writing paired with a palette and thus becomes my weekly essential!

You forgot the gooseberry sauce - it makes the dish. I also remember it was the age of the wine bar, quiche and "interesting salads". ← mmm, Quiche Lorraine, happy memories!!

They may well have been 60's and 70's dishes, but they were still prevalent at most of the restaurants outside of London but around the UK when I was a kid, and if you googl 1980's food there is no end of menus and recipe's using the above.

at champignon sauvage last week I had lobster with confit duck heart and nougat foam (post to come). staggeringly good and a bit left field - nougat foam??? also has rosehip sorbet as pre-desert - also fab my own, if limited, contribution to the culinary world was coco chanel ice cream and I can honestly say I've never seen that on any menu ;-) ← I hate you just a little bit for making me want to go back ← Thankfully I am back for a long overdue visit a week on Saturday - the wife has been nagging incessantly about going since I have not yet taken her so I thought it would be a good birthday treat for her! Can't bloody wait! Will post when I get back.

Oooh, also Steak Diane, fondue, arctic roll, chicken cordon bleu, Tiramisu, the obligatory box of wine, babycham, cheese and pineapple on sticks, vol au vonts - oh, the memories!!! (Thanks god things have moved on!)

How about egg mayonnaise - those little half eggs covered in mayo and topped with paprika, or Avocado Prawns, prawn cocktail, trifle, melon balls, duck a l'orange, salmon en croute, heef wellington....

Ask any chef who has ever had a chocolate fondant or tournedos Rossini on their menu!

I tend to agree with John - have yet to have a bad meal on Jay's recommendation (although my meal at Theo Randall was not quite up to the meal he wrote about) - he tends to be very balanced in his judgement. I always find Marina a good gauge as well - she is incredibly fair and to the point 98% of the time not to mention bloody hilarious! Other than that I think it is a combo of giving it a go yourself and relying on people both online and off that over time you have found have similar taste buds to you!

I think that is possibly the most useless ranking that I have seen!! Arbutus better than the Capital, Sat Baines et al!!! Bonkers!

Ah - now that makes much more sense! I think you have a very good point here, there certainly is likely to be a lot of closures, not least new openings that have high rents, a lot of competition and no solid loyal customer base. It is certainly very interesting and difficult times!

Yup. ← Hotel restaurant economics are different from high street restaurant economics. The Renaissance Hotel "needs" a good restaurant to position as a luxury hotel, and as one of Marriott's premium brands it needs a quality restaurant to differentiate itself from others brands in the group. Thus I suspect Pearl is safe. ← I have to say Naebody, I think you are faily off the mark here. A number of very solid restaurants have special offers on the toptable site and use it as a marketing tool. In my opinion to use that as a barometer for likely candidates is just not credible. We for instance have always used the site for bookings - we do limit the number we take on our offers but it generates a lot of business. This year has certainly been a little tougher than last year (mainly over the summer), but so far and god willing for some time to come, the business remains robust, we are full most evenings and at lunch pretty much in line with past years, sure the wine spend from some people is a little lower than before as they are having there expense accounts shaved back, but we, like I am sure many of the other restaurants on toptable doing offers, have a lot of loyal customers who will continue coming and spending. Those restaurants that fail will largely be those that out-price themselves by charging more than is credible and under-delivering.

I've been a couple of times as well - once with Andy when it first opened and had a stupidly long menu and once a couple of weeks back for dinner. The food is very pleasant and as Simon says reasonably priced. I have never seen more than a handful of people there so worry about how long it can survive. Whilst the menu has been shortened, last time I went I thought it was still too long. Service is good although almost too attentive - they all seem so bloody happy just to be serving someone! Ollie has added a nice touch to the very pleasant bread and butter by adding a lovely pork rillette (I think it is pork, but my memoy could be playing tricks!) and cornichons. All in all well worth a visit!

So naebody, you think that all those restaurants doing special offes will go bust? Including places like pearl?!

I tend to agree - the top end tends not to be too affected as there are still going to be wealthy diners who are relatively un-scathed by what is going on and still have bags of cash to spend on luxury items and there will still be people wanting to celebrate or go out for a special meal. Historically it has been the mid-market that loose out as people choose to go to the cheaper pub type restaurant in place of the mid-priced restaurant and will continue to go to top end places on special occasions that they have saved up for. Sure they may go a bit less than they would have in the past to expensive restaurants and may spend a bit less on wine, but none the less the middle is most at risk.

I've long wondered how it has managed to maintain its status. I think I have only ever eaten there once and been close to impressed with my meal. If our continental neighbours came over and experienced it I think they would come away thinking food in this country must be awful if Michelin had only managed to award 3 restaurants in the UK with 3 stars and this is the standard!

This is an outrage. Tayyabs actually won? This just proves to me that the Judges-the likes of Maschler, Coren, Durack and Rayner et al, know absolutely sod all about food. Not to mention the hordes who are willing to queue up each and every night for the obviously terrible food that is served up to them. The poor misguided fools. No- I'm sticking with Mr Hayler and I don't care what you say. *Sarcasm mode off* Excellent news for the team. Really delighted for them. ←

Tayyabs has just won Indian restaurant of the Year in the London restaurant awards, full list below: London Restaurant Awards 2008 The results: British Restaurant of the Year - Great Queen Street French Restaurant of the Year - Galvin Bistrot de Luxe Italian Restaurant of the Year - Theo Randall at the InterContinental Iberian Restaurant of the Year - Barrafina Oriental Restaurant of the Year - Aaya Indian restaurant of the Year - Tayyabs Local Restaurant of the Year - Market Award of Excellence - The Greenhouse New Restaurant of the Year - Le Cafe Anglais Toptable.com Best Business Lunch - The Wolseley Outstanding London Chef - Jason Atherton Restaurateur of the Year - Michael Belben Outstanding Restaurant Service - The Greenhouse Outstanding Contribution to London Restaurants - Mark Hix aAIM London Restaurant of the Year - Le Cafe Anglais Best Restaurant Chain - Carluccios Evening Standard 60 under £60 award - Sam's Bar and Brasserie

I had a meal at The Giaconda a couple of weeks ago. All in all it was very pleasant, but not destination cooking. I can't really fault anything in terms of food and service though, the pigs trotter salad was delicious and the steak frites was very well cooked - charred on the outside and blue in the middle. The room itself is slightly odd, as are the toilets which necessitate you leaving the restaurant to go into the main building in which it resides and trekking down some steps into the basement. Well worth trying if you are in the area, especially as prices are so reasonable, but not somewhere I would say is worth making a special effort to get to.

That he's a glutton for punishment? I'd have thought he'd have been better off going back into tutelage for a bit. Catch up on all those lessons he bunked off the first time round. S ← You don't know the half of it - sigh!

If my meals there this year are anything to go by I can only say false! I have had some excellent meals from the set lunch to dinner tasting.

Nice Synopsis Matthew - although I would add that Aikens seems to have tamed down his dishes over the past 12 months and is now a little more focused and traditional in what he sends out. Personally I quite like both places, although if I had to pick between the two, on a good day Petrus would likely win. Interesting to see that Aikens has had to close down his chippie Tom's place as residents complained about the smell of chip fat claiming it had caused a 50% reduction in the value of their properties (oh, the heart bleeds!). As an aside, he never stabbed a chef, he branded him with a red hot palette knife - the stabbing claim was more recent and related to an incident where a chef in his kitchen had to go to hospital to have stitches in his back-side after he apparently managed to slip and land his arse on a skewer being held by a fellow chef (not Aikens apparently, he was according to the reports in his office, not in the kitchen at the time of said incident).

Why oh why can't we have something like Iron Chef or Top Chef in the UK, at least there is a modicum of telnt from the chefs and far less cliched!

I would back River Cafe, Locanda, Semplice, Latium, and Zafferano but would also add Scalini and Vino Rosso. Vino Rosso is slightly off the beaten track being in Chiswick, but the food is good and reasonably priced.

That is a joke question right?!!!