Enterprise

35 Walton Street
London SW3 2HU

020 7584 3148

In the no man's land where Knightsbridge, Chelsea and South Ken intersect, close to the great battleship landmark of Harrods sits The Enterprise. "It's informality is its drawing power and it attracts a very fashionable and up-scale client base, described as 'the only pub in town for ladies who lunch.' ", proclaims the website. Lucky ladies. This really isn't quite a gastro pub though. There is no booking except at lunchtimes in the week, but you don't order at the bar pay and sit down. Its very much restaurant style, pay at the end of the meal, table service. It does however have the informal style of a pub. We are there early, you have to be to secure a table towards the end of the week in the evening. Its sevenish pm. There is a throng of people at the bar and more than half the tables are occupied. Most of the tables are arrayed along a banquette. We sit at one of these. I am looking at etched pub glass in the windows. There are books in the window embrasures. They obscure some of the lettering which says SPIRITS on the right and for a moment because half of one letter is obscured on the left I read FINE BUMS. Its actually FINE RUMS. At the back is a tiny kitchen, open plan, where three chefs are already working furiously. Above them is a small rectangular blackboard with the specials. The clientele are not the young City types with families, public school voices and labradors that you get in Fulham and even Brook Green (see Havelock Arms ). Here they are more metro, older and international as the proximity to Harrods and Knightsbridge might proclaim. The atmosphere at the same time manages to feel residential, neighbourly. You can tell I feel uncomfortably comfortable here.

I'm shocked when writing this and looking at the website to discover that The Enterprise is under the same ownership as Christopher's in Covent Garden a place which I think, apart from the bar, has completely lost the plot (see linked review). We share tempura of calamari and courgette with a soy ginger and honey dip as a starter, £8. The batter is light, crispy, the courgette still firm, not overcooked, the calamari firm too but not rubbery. Delicious and easy to share too. A perfect not too enormous starter. I then have fettucine, wild mushroom and thyme ragout, parmesan and truffle oil, £14. It is excellent. The mushrooms have real taste, the fettucine is fresh and soft, the truffle oil flavour is not drowned out by the other tastes and it is not too creamy buttery either. I try my guest's whole roast sea bass, parmesan roasted fennel, herb butter £16.75 which has been ordered with some spinach. The sea bass is beautifully cooked: crispy on the outside flaky moist fish which falls off the bone just as it should do. We drink a bottle of Wolf Riesling, Dr. Loosen, Pfalz, Germany 2008, £25. It manages to be the perfect accompaniment to both dishes: aromatic, slightly sweet but with a dry finish. Since we arrived early we have already had two complimentary glasses of merlot. The riesling though was in a different class and a bargain at the price. Pretty perfect meal. Not cheap pub prices though at £75 all in. A central London restaurant bill. As I said earlier, lucky ladies and management, I know its trying to do something different, but please send the people at Christopher's down here to see what can be achieved!

Chisou

4 Princes Street

London W1B 2LE

020 7629 3931

There is a lot of choice for japanese food around Mayfair. At Chisou just south of Oxford Circus there is a restaurant and separately next door a sushi bar and take away area. Lunch at the sushi bar. I had the five different sashimi selection on the menu, £14.50. You get three bits of each. They were very fresh and good, but small. See the three small triangles of tuna in the photo. Definitely more for less and just as good quality at Atari-Ya just north of Oxford Street. Nevertheless the presentation is more stylish here, you eat off attractive plates and you can order from your seat at the bar. For that and Mayfair you are paying. The Ikura (salmon roe) sushi was particularly glisteningly fresh but £5.40 for two pieces!

No.10

10 Hogarth Place
London Sw5 0QT

020 7373 7000

I went here entirely because I had read a very flattering review by London Eater and happened to be fairly close. It was truly memorably fantastic. A destination place! There is something very heart warming when you go somewhere, meet someone whatever which has had a good advanced press and not only does it not disappoint it exceeds all expectations. They do other things here but their specialty is Szechuan food, or Sichuan (see linked article) much of which is hot, chilli spicy.

We asked our waitress what she would recommend from the Szechuan signature dishes on the menu. She suggested the boiled beef (boiled beef in extremely spicy soup lavishly topped with chilli and Sichuan pepper) £8.50. It was enormous (really I'm not kidding enough for lunch for four with some rice on its own). It came with a kind of sieve to go fishing with. You can see it in the photo. The Sichuan pepper has an interesting aromatic lemony flavour. The beef was in a rich heavy stock. It was amazing. Quite oily like much Szechuan food I have been exposed to but spicy fragrant hot, extraordinary. We also had dry fried pieces of duck with chilli and Sichuan pepper (and also a lot of sesame seeds). This was beautifully crispy and a nice contrast to the soupy beef. We had a vegetable dish: aubergine and green and red peppers, £6.50. It was a little salty for my taste. This was no doubt party because of the soy sauce involved but subsequent discussion with our waitress suggested that it was worth asking for less salt if that is what you like. The aubergine were in skinned soft strips floating in a spicy mixture of peppers. It was an excellent accompaniment to both the beef and the duck.

This amazing meal, more than enough for a hungry four, cost £32 for two of us with Jasmine tea. The restaurant is simple with little square stools with no backs, black tables, wooden floor. There is much else to try on the menu and I will return.

Browns

82-84 St Martins Lane
London WC2N 4AG

020 7497 5050

Eight of us went to the theatre and had a meal here beforehand. Its was very conveniently located. Enron the play is on next door. Browns has been going since 1973 and has restaurants in 8 cities in the UK with a further 6 outlets in London. The one we were at is a big bustly stage set. Just the thing for pre theatre.

I can't fault the service. They are clearly well practised in St Martins Lane at feeding people with a deadline to meet. It was 6 30pm and the restaurant was full. Some of our party were a bit late but they brought their orders very fast and they were soon catching up with those of us who had arrived first. There was also no long wait for the bill; not that I was paying. We were being taken.

The problem is the food doesn't match the stage set or the service. I had Steak Frites (60z prime sirloin served with a lemon parsley and peppercorn butter watercress and chips) £12.95. I ordered it rare. Can't go far wrong with that I thought. The steak was seared brown on the outside but raw not rare inside, too thin and chewy sinewy tough. The chips were ok but dumped rather inelegantly across the plate (see photo which is as t came). I tried some smoked fishcakes. To me they tasted dry and of potato and sawdust, nothing fishy about them. The burger to my right, which I didn't taste, strangely had three buns (a mistake?); burger on one, salad and bits sitting on the other and one white, lonely on its own.

Cha Cha Moon

15-21 Ganton Street
London W1F 9BN

020 7297 9800


I'm a fan of Alan Yau's ventures so dropped in for the second time to Cha Cha Moon his fast food restaurant in Ganton Street off Carnaby street. When it first opened everything was priced at £3.50 a promotional wheeze which didn't last. The website tells us that it is a Chinese noodle bar which goes "beyond noodle pop culture and into the soul of regional Chinese cooking". Not for me it doesn't.

I had Fujian style udon which is prawn, squid, fishcake, belly pork, choi sum and udon noodles, £6.90. The sliced fishcake resembled cheap tofu, the squid was rubbery, the choi sum not quite cooked and the pork in little tiny bits in a glutinous chili hot but otherwise flavourless sauce. The whole was dominated by tasteless noodles with a springy texture. I had a Holy Vaasna, an Apple, Carrot and Orange juice which somehow managed to be watery and much less tasty than the ones at Pho.

At £3.50 everything was at least very cheap. The wok noodles now range from £5.10 to £7.50 and the soup noodles from £6.00 to £7.00. It is neither cheap nor good. It does have something of Alan Yau's legendary style all the same: elegant huge wooden tables, low lighting, open kitchen (see photo). It wasn't full on Monday at 1pm and the Whiteley's branch has closed. Things need to change for this to roll out like Wagamama!

Tuktuk

56 Old Compton Street
London W1D 4UE

020 7734 5951

Tuktuk describes itself as a Thai/Oriental noodle bar on the menu. There is certainly another one in Queensway but I don't know whether there are others. There is no website I can find. These places are fantastic value/quality. The one I know and went to today after a meeting in Soho for a quick early lunch, is in Old Compton Street. It is very simple inside: brightly lit with a thin banquette along the walls, chrome chairs and table supports. Not a place for romantic dinners. It is straight opposite 'Trashy Lingerie' as you can see in the photo.

The menu serves great and enormous noodle soups at budget prices: Tom Yam Gai £3.90 and Laksa with its distinctive coconut milk stock for £4.90. Today I had crispy aromatic duck for £5.80. As in much smarter places they come and shred a duck quarter (leg and thigh) at your table; it comes with pancakes in a metal container, spring onion, cucumber and plum sauce. It is described as a 'side' but is quite big enough for lunch. At £5.80 (along with other £5.80 dishes including King Prawn Red Curry) it is the the highest price on the menu. I also had green tea. This is not a tea bag in the bottom of a mug, but a whole teapot of tea made with real tea leaves for £1. This sophisticated lunch cost me £6.80 with tip optional. The duck was crispy, the pancakes as good as anywhere, the spring onions and cucumber fresh.

Atari-Ya

20 James St
London W1U 1EH

020 7491 1178

I wanted to go here because last week I had been to their shop in West Acton. Atari-Ya is a chain of four shops, the sushi take away, and another sushi bar in Hendon. Its one of the few places where you can buy black cod (I believe you can get it in Selfridges sometimes but if anyone knows where else you can get it please leave a comment!). The shop is near a Japanese school, has a ready supply of customers, Japanese staff who really know what they are talking about and very fresh fish. With supply lines like this I thought that their little central London take-away place (it has a few seats but this is principally what it is) would be bound to be good. The black cod was excellent. Its not that difficult to make a marinade with Mirin (rice wine), Sake, sugar and white miso paste to ape the recipe available at Nobu and for that matter Hakkasan where they serve Silver Cod with a different recipe (its the same thing. The Japanese call it Gindara which means silver cod. In fact it is not cod at all but what they call sablefish in the US).

Atari-Ya in James Street proved to be just as good as the freshness of what was available in the West Acton shop heralded. I had fresh salmon roe, and sashimi. You get three slices and it is good value: Tuna £2.00, Sea Bass £2.60, Salmon £1.70 and the highest grade Fatty Tuna £3.90. Everything with a green tea was under £15.

Its a very basic place and crowded at lunch time. You queue, place your order, pay, get given a number which they call out, probably share a small table. They serve it there just as for take away (see photos). Highly recommended though.