olicollett

Places like Arbutus and Wild Honey are all reasonably priced, and then there's always St John (although may not match up to your requirements for an anniversary dinner). Depends what you're looking for though, I don't think you'll get away with anything less than £50-60/head for food in a London 2/3* at dinner time, but I could be wrong!

I Finally got around to visiting St John on Friday. I've been meaning to go for years, but never got around to it. Strangely I'm often out in Farringdon on nights out with friends but I never realised where it was! Started off with the bread - as you might expect it is excellent accompanied by some lightly salted and delicious butter. I already knew what I was going to order for starter - yes, you guessed it, the parsley and bone marrow salad. My friend ordered the braised pig's head. The parsley and bone marrow combination was delightful. I was initially surprised at how it was served - although I shouldn't have been, and after an initial struggle I soon got the hang of extracting as much marrow as I could. So often food fails to live up to expectations but it was not the case here, and both myself and my friend nodded in appreciation to our starters. I tried some of the pig's head and was pleasantly surprised - it was light and almost delicate, nothing like what I had expected and it made an excellent starter. For mains I opted for some braised rabbit whilst my friend went for the sweetbreads with peas. The rabbit was very well cooked, but I couldn't help thinking the dish was lacking a little something. It was slightly under-seasoned and I think an extra flavour there could have helped things on a little. My friends sweetbreads were however delicious. Finally dessert - I opted for a raspberry shortcake tart and my friend went for the chocolate slice. Both were excellent, the chocolate slice being the pick of the two. It was baked like a brownie with an almost crisp exterior, whilst at the same time being soft enough to melt in the mouth. All in all a very nice meal and I can now see why it's regarded as one of the top restaurants in the world. I'll definitely be making a return!

Had a nice lunch here on Saturday, although it was eerily quiet. We only spotted about 10 diners in the restaurant during the whole time we were there and the waitress said it was very unusual. I started with some deep fried sand eels with tartare sauce. The sand eels were coated in some kind of mustard/flour combination that worked well to make a simple yet tasty dish to start things off. My friend had the salt beef with pickled cucumber which seemed to go down very well. Next I had lamb rump with celeriac. The celeriac was well done but sadly the lamb was a little on the tough side. My friend had guinea foul with lentils which he thought was excellent, certainly seemed like the better of the two mains. To finish, some elderflower jelly with ice cream. Simple and delicious, as you would expect. All in all, a pretty good meal at a reasonable price. The atmosphere was nice and relaxed there, it's just a shame it was so quiet. The menu is very much along the same lines as St John, which is hardly surprising given the chef's past, and that's no bad thing. I'll definitely consider going again if I'm in the area.

I think it says that most people don't care who cooks their dinner as long as standards remain high. If standards slip, then the problem may or may not be that the "named" chef didn't cook your dinner, and that should certainly be addressed. In that case, maybe the chef really does need to spend more time there, but I don't take that as a given. Of course, if standards don't slip, then I don't care whether the man whose name is over the door ever sets foot in the place. ← Indeed - it's the food that matters to me. In Heston's case, as far as I understand it his role at the fat duck on the food side is coming up with new ideas and tweaking dishes on the menu. Given the amount of change there has been to the tasting menu there of late, I can't see why he could not juggle this with at least one other restaurant without going down the Ramsay path.

I wonder how many 3 *s actually have the chef there at service least 50% of the time though?

Given the way the food is prepared at the fat duck, I really cannot see what difference it would make if Heston is there or not. The important thing in my mind is that he is busy in the development kitchen coming up with new ideas.

Cheers Adey, I think I'll get onto that tonight And maybe finish by August

Went there once 18 months or so ago and the food was excellent. I agree the place is a bit dark, but the food more than makes up for the lack of lighting! I shared an awesome rib of beef between myself and a friend, it was so good I probably could have eaten the lot myself!

He didn't, IMO. That said, I thought it looked the nicer plate but Nigel's ice cream cone was a great wacky finish to a menu that started with scratchings. Don't see either of their main courses making it through to the banquet. ← Quite agree - unless the judges find something that Marcus didn't I think tonight is a foregone conclusion - but I guess we'll see!

Had Mrs W's grandfather's wake at Paul's a couple of years ago. Bottesford is worth visiting for (alongside one of the best churches in the country) its butchers though. Not sure if they still are allowed to slaughter out the back, but the meat, so I'm told, is exceptional Grantham's not THAT far from Sat Bain's surely? ← Good point Bertie, certainly driveable. I've always enjoyed the Olive Branch, been there a couple of times whilst passing through Clipsham. You wouldn't compare it to Sat Bains, but it's still very very good imo.

I think Horridge's downfall was employing a "nutritionist" Anyway. This week - Unless Aidan pulls something out of the bag tomorrow with the dessert I think Nigel's walking away with this one.

Still hungry after the tasting menu? When I went last year with 3 other blokes some of the others were struggling to finish!

My moneys on Stephen. ← Hope you didn't place a bet I was quite surprised with friday's program - the judges were a lot more enthusiastic about the food than I thought they would be. Roll on next week!

Quite. I should apologise btw because I initially intended to type a short and to the point post but by the time I realised I'd started to rant it was a bit too late, sorry to everyone for slightly going off topic!

"Biodynamic" is a hilarious woo-term that has somehow infiltrated the world of wine. It sounds a reasonable enough term to use, but when you read what it's about it's hilarious that it's become something taken for granted now. From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture Now that sounds daft enough, but then there's the biodynamic calendar based upon an old woman from Germany, with days categorised as "fruit", "flower", "leaf" or "root". And now the supermarkets are starting to support this stupidity: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8008167.stm And as for the idea of it doesn't give a hangover... well if you believe that one

<deleted - gone to a more appropriate place>

yes , the difference between one and two stars is nearly always tablecloths ← Gary - although it was a tongue in cheek comment from me, it may be a more serious point than you give credit for. The psychology of dining is complex, and even "highly trained" Michelin inspectors will find it hard to overcome first impressions. OK Michelin is "all about what is on the plate" but the set up of the meal which includes the staff, room, and supporting paraphanalia does make a difference. IMO it will never disguise bad food, but can lift good food. Food1 - Wishart would be my 2nd best meal, we had a superb meal there as well, and I would agree that it also deserves more. We had a dire experience at LCS, all I really remember is the frosty reception, the amateur service and very brightly lit dining room. As I said above the psychology of dining has a major impact and LCS was all wrong that night. I was reading Mattbites recently and he linked to a bloggers code of conduct which makes the valid point that we should visit a restaurant more than once or twice before making a definative comment. I wish I had both the cash and time to do that. A number of visits would even out and peaks and troughs in the kitchen, hopefully balance any emotional highs and lows, and ensure spouses are not unwell. I am keen to revisit LCS as our experience seems very different to some (but not all); did we simply catch the FOH team on a bad night? Nathan may be in the news this week, but I had been hoping to get there for 18 months and had been following some good reviews like Duncan's. On this visit he was on top form, it is a pity he is so far away from most people as it would be good to get a broader range of opinions. ← In and ideal world, going to a restaurant at least passing judgement would be ideal. This is especially true with restaurants which I had a less than stellar experience from and perhaps deserves the benefit of the doubt. However, I doubt many professional critics (you know the likes of AA Gill, Fay Maschler etc.) follow this 'code of conduct' and give restaurants the benefit of the doubt? On the other hand, some restaurants simply do not offer enough incentives in terms of a constantly changing menu to make it worth going again. A good example of this would be the Fat Duck (and come June they won't even have an ALC menu available come July). After all, you can only his snail porridge that many times.... ← Aren't they adding another tasting menu at the fat duck though? I remember there was talk of it (from Heston himself) a year ago but surely it would make sense to coincide with this?

I would have gone with Nathan but not sure about how his dessert will go down

He does do an amazing job of setting himself up as a prize twunt with the following opener: "To those in the industry, we regard Baines..." In that one snippet of a sentence, he's come across as a condescending prick yet also managed to spell the man's name wrong. Quite an achievement when you think about it.

In fairness to the reviewer, although it was badly written they seem to pretty much agree with me on the dishes, which means they must know what they are talking about That Nik Pure clearly seems to have missed the mark somewhat.

I was able to get my reservations through email at both Arzak and Mugaritz. They were both prompt, helpful and provided options. Arzak seemed to be booked further in advance and only had one opening for dinner. Mugaritz provided several dinner and lunch options. Both were fully booked for the lunch and dinner services on the Saturday we were in town so weekends may be more difficult. ← OK thanks, I'll be around on a few days around the weekend so hopefully I can get a date around then.

Hi, I'm looking at going to San Sebastian for a few days ~28/05/09 - 03/06/09. I was just wondering if I'd have any chance of getting a reservation at any of the top restaurants like Arzak at relatively short notice? Or do I not have a hope in hell? Any advice is appreciated, I'm just unsure as to how difficult it is to get a reservation at some of the restaurants there and I don't want to go on a trip and miss out on such nice restaurants!

Agreed. Interesting to hear his opinion on the 3hr cooked egg though - maybe he didn't know about the judges reaction to Sat Bains' starter a few years back..

The thing is with Heston's style at the fat duck is that it doesn't strike me that he needs to be in the restaurant very often. It would be nice to have another world class restaurant in London (and, well, the UK) and I don't see why he couldn't make it work.

That's pretty much identical to what I ate when I was there - although i think i got in a muddle with another meal, it wasn't a rhubarb dessert i was thinking of it was the lime tart with marshmallow!