dallardice

Impressed to see Carluccio's Islington score a big fat zero: http://www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk/business/carluccio-s-islington-london-272350.html Particularly impressive when their training academy is upstairs from the restaurant: http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/People/Carluccio-s-opens-in-house-training-academy-above-Islington-restaurant (Inspection from March this year)

Domaine de Durban in Beaumes de Venise has an incredible setting with stunning views. Their Muscat is excellent, but I think their vielles vignes red is underrated and very good value. If you're more interested in tasting than the vineyeard itself, and you like rose, there's a wonderful co-operative in the centre of Tavel which will let you taste from all the local Tavel and Lirac producers.

Shame, because it was great when it was in Upper Street. ← I got the impression that Alan and Olga were only ever brought in for marketing purposes - it was never their restaurant, Alan occasionally did some frying and Olga did some front of house, but I don't think they were involved for long, and weren't involved in the design of the kitchens or the menu.

Based on my experience, I'd add Seafish, on Upper St, N1. I'd also take off The Fish Shop on St John St, but it's a while since I've been there since I had several bad experiences...

I was ok with Murano getting a star, but I was disappointed that L'Anima, which I found more interesting and exciting in almost every way, did not get a star as well. Having very easily resisted Ducasse up until now, I am taking advantage over the 20% off your complete bill offer at Toptable to give it a try in a couple of weeks... after all, if it's going to be London's next 3-star...

Hmmm... I'm going this Saturday. Booked on Nov 14. I make that three and I was given a choice of times...

Yep we were there last night. Nice place but it is a short menu for evening meals - good to know it's open out of regular hours - could certainly see me popping in for a quick bite late or early. I was in a comfort food frame of mind - eggs mayonnaise was a retro eggs salad cream, mac & cheese was tasty but not very exciting compared to some of the great versions I've had in similar US places; the rice pudding was excellent.

Had a fantastic tasting menu there a couple of months ago. Ranked as one of the best I've had in recent years; great and interesting wine matches too.

Just as an aside for any City types, Paul now has another shop in the Royal Exchange at Bank.

No tricks - I did call two months to the day and got through in the first few minutes. My partner was trying from the UK too and got 20 minutes of busy tones. I think the restaurant gods just smile on me for special occasions - we got into El Bulli for his 40th a couple of years ago. Makes up for my lack of luck in other aspects of life I suppose...

Sunday night, which certainly is the quietest night for dining in London, so I'm guessing it would be easier than Fri/Sat. Still don't think the restaurant will be empty though!

Don't know what all the row is about reservations for this place. Travelling to CA for a week in late April, we thought we'd try calling this week on the offchance that we might score a table. Called at 6pm UK time, on my third call, I got ringing, selected 3 for reservations, waited a while... (thinking "I'm sure they're going to cut me off")... got through and was offered a choice of three slots for a table for two. So we are off to the French Laundry on the night of my 40th birthday... after only 10 minutes of effort! I realise I was incredibly lucky, but it is worth saying that it's not impossible to get a reservation. Good luck if you're trying, and less than 2 months to wait for me...

Toptable are currently offering 3 courses "plus a sweet gift" for £35 Mon-Fri lunchtimes, until 24 Feb.

Yes, Chris also says that "Alan has a long history in the restaurant business". It definitely looks like Chris might be very good friends with Alan! My main course was good when we ate there but having seen the mussels and lobster in the programme I think we were lucky...

Well I'm saying nothing... it was I reckon about 6 months before filming on tonight's programme...

Today is the last day to download it via the BBC iPlayer www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.

Regret here - had hopes since we were there 5 years ago for SO's 40th birthday, and hoped to do the double by getting a table for mine. Requested any date for a 10-day period in April, lunch or dinner... but no.

Hi there, we are spending our honeymoon in Oz at the end of the year and are looking for a great Christmas lunch or dinner in Melbourne and a good restaurant to watch the fireworks in Sydney on NYE. Any suggestions would be welcomed, but also pointers to resto review sites - in doing our research we've found endless advertising sites which regurgitate marketing content, but if there's a good critical place to read restaurant reviews we'd really appreciate it. Favourites for Melbourne so far are Circa or Vue de Monde but we're not sure if they're open on Christmas Day. Friends recommended buffet at the Plane Tree Cafe in the Hyatt but we'd prefer not to have a buffet. In Sydney the view is more important than the food (we'll leave Tetsuya for another night) but we were thinking maybe Wildfire, Guillaume at Bennelong or Altitude in the Shangri-La... ...what do you think? It's very difficult to be thinking about such things so early, but for both I'm guessing we need to book Sept/Oct time...

Islington visitors ought to note that Angel Mangal, which was rated highly in a number of posts on this site, closed a couple of weeks ago. There's a note in the menu box saying that it is re-opening soon under new management as "Angel Mangal Dips & Skewers" which doesn't fill me with optimism...

The obvious place is the Almeida Restaurant - directly across the road from the theatre and they have a very efficient operation to seat all the post-theatre diners, and the tables are nicely spaced so it's buzzy without being noisy. Since this thread was last active they've revamped the menu to make it more accessible - think it's £22 for two courses, £28 for three. This has come at the expense of some of the more innovative dishes, but the charcuterie trolley and trolley of tarts are still there. £28 for some great charcuterie, a solid main and a range of tasty tarts strikes me as one of Islington's better bargains. Otherwise, post-theatre you are limited, Ottolenghi would probably take you but fails the noisy test. Zaffrani is a new upmarket Indian on Cross St (diagonally across Upper St from Almeida St) where we've had some good meals, but 10.45 might be a bit late for them. Quite refined, hasn't been discovered by the post-pub curry crowd yet. Emni is where La Trouvaille used to be and is doing the same sort of thing with more pretention.

Well I love Polly Vernon and I have to say my meal at the Reindeer last Friday was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, food was good but overpriced, but I decided not to review it because I knew no-one else would be able to get in... so she made me feel good about myself

An all-too brief weekend in Brighton led me to try some of the places mentioned here. Was running in the 10k on Sunday morning so I could eat whatever I wanted without feeling guilty... One Paston Place had excellent food - really knew what they were doing - but the room was deathly. Might have been nice if it was animated by lots of chatty guests, but at 9pm on a Friday night with only 4 tables taken it was a bit precious. Starter of beautifully cooked duck with a chestnut veloute was lovely, main of veal done very nicely. Chocolate orange souffle at the end a bit eggy. Well-chosen short wine list. £167 for two including a £41 bottle of Gigondas. Service dreadfully forma until the end of the meal when we'd a great chat with the maitre d' who has previously worked at the Waterside Inn and Le Manoir. Saturday night (pre-race) was recommendation of our hotel, Sawadee in St James St in Kemptown. Good British Thai - nothing out of the ordinary, flavours very mild, perfectly adequate but not inspiring. Sunday night was Ruby Tate's. First worry was that we were only the second table occupied 9at 8.15pm) but we liked the look of the menu so we stayed. A lot of stuff was off the menu "due to a busy Saturday night" which I suppose was fair enough. Starter of tempura prawns came with mango, passion fruit, chilli and caramel (thankfully undetectable - shades of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares here). OK. Main of cod with mash, petits pois and carrots was simple, and simply wonderful - good-quality fish, perfectly cooked, nicely offset with the vegetables - a very very satisfying main course. For dessert, four of the six were off (that busy Saturday night again) and one of them we'd heard being sent back by two people at the other table described as "inedible" and "the worst dessert I've ever tasted" (that was the treacle tower with butterscotch caramel). We decided to pass on dessert and have a glass of Black Muscat instead - guess what, only the dregs were left and we got a quarter-glass each which we weren't charged for. It strikes me there's a very good chef here, but a very poor restauranteur (I don't know if they're the same person).

Unfortunately the site I mentioned comes up first on MSN search...

Does PaT win the award for the most out of date website for a top-flight London restaurant? Idly browsing websites when I should be working, I noticed that www.pied.a.terre.co.uk had a very "old web" feel - not so much Web 1.0 as Web 0.1. A bit of digging reveals in the Events section that we are being invited to a Taittinger Food & Wine evening on 27th January 2003. oops...

No but some bloke in the Observer referred to it (and it was 2001 - gosh, it seems so much longer ago)