Atari-Ya are primarily fishmongers who specialise in importing sashimi-grade fish and are said to supply some of the highest profile Japanese restaurants in London, including Umu and Nobu. They also own sushi-bars. Do they keep the best for themselves? Let’s find out

Daniel Boulud. Three Michelin Stars. Twelve restaurants. French. Celebrated. Now in London. We were all witnesses when the internet welcomed the meritable chef’s European debut with open arms. Time for us to consider Bar Boulud

When I grow up, I want to roam the twenty regions of Italy to discover all the local specialities, so intertwined with the nation’s culture and history. Pesto made with Ligurian basil, a hearty Milanese ossobucco from Lombardy, sip wine in a Venetian baccaro, visit the factories which produce Parmigiano Reggiano in Parma and if I am fortunate, be taken on a hunt for white truffles in Tuscany. For all my fantasies, I have never been to Italy and I concede that I actually know very little about the intricacies of this most well-documented of European cuisines. Italian is one that enchants and mystifies, one that is entirely romantic, familiar and wholesome

This will be my third visit to Eastside Inn, which is hands down my favourite restaurant in London. There is much fire in Bjorn van der Horst’s sauces. Though the restaurant’s history is short, it has undergone significant changes of late changing from a Restaurant-with-a-Bistro to a Bistro-with-a-lounge-bar. My love affair with ESI continues. Here we go again

Oh the sun, the sun. I spent most of last week in Norway, and happily returned to a gloriously sticky London on Friday, feeling utterly like a tourist in my very own city. There could be no better than now to loaf around in a restaurant designed for oysters slurping and scoffing seared slabs of beef. My first visit to a Mark Hix restaurant

It wasn’t long ago when pizza was simply a decision of who to call to coincide with prime-time TV. I am referring to the myriad of takeaway menus regularly shoved through the front door of course. I’d always pick the one which sold Haagen Daz ice creams. Pizza being about as far away from pretension and debate as can be, pizza being the ultimate comfort food. These days, it’s a phenomenon unto itself, our critics and bloggers are making startling discoveries, holding aloft neighborhood gems that have somehow managed to stay hidden for decades. Ahem, just to add fuel to the fire, my local hidden gem would be Da Mario’s, my favourite are their house special the ‘Pizza Diana’, once rumoured to be Princess D’s favourite haunt (hence Pizza D) and an atrocity it had not been more widely ‘discovered’ as yet. Being such a common food, it isn’t surprising to see so much commentary and especially such heated opinion regarding the humble pizza, after all, it’s quite rare to find someone not ever experiencing this dish in one form or another. At least not in London

We already know that Pearl Liang’s dim sum menu is more than formidable, however for a Chinese restaurant to have an equally capable dinner menu, that is a definite rarity in London. The word on the street is that Pearl Liang is one such rarity. I already consider this establishment to be serving benchmark dim sum in London, and I wanted to find out if they were a true jack of all trades. For this, we descent to the depths of the Paddington Basin to discover just how alluring it really is

Sam Harris must be the merriest restaurateur in town right now. Zucca is enjoying near universal adulation; Critics and blogs are raving about his fresh take on Italian food and it has even been compared to River Cafe, The Quintessential Institution that launched a billion Italian restaurants. Aside from being named after a wrinkly skinned fruit, I went to Zucca last week to find out what exactly makes this restaurant so enticing

It must be the name. It does something to the wiring of my brain causing me to associate it with many adjectives such as magnificence, opulence, ecstasy, paradise, exorbitance, Sophie Dahl. It must also be the attractive old-world quality it exudes, a quality which has ensure commercial and critical success, over its seven year history

One of the major themes of my restaurant collecting this year involves expanding the catchment area. It occured to me last year when I felt like a tourist in Liverpool street station; circling it many times until I eventually found out that Andaz was just next door. Yes, the East is still a mystery to me. There are supposedly very good, and very hidden Turkish restaurants beyond Limehouse. I have yet to find out. So a few weeks ago, I was in Southfields to run an errand, I hadn’t been back since Wimbledon ’04, and thought it was the perfect opportunity to give a local restaurant a try

I associate fish and chips with the impending arrival of the weekend. Back in the day when I was a spring chicken exploring the dark arts of jellied petrol, I also tended to the student bar. Ah the days of minimum wages – £4.80 an hour, I think. We didn’t even have fancy touch screen tills to work with, and we did all the sums in our head, old school. “A pint of snakebite, nine lagers, five gin and tonics, a shandy, four packets of cheese and onion, my chilli peanuts… and yourself?” . £19.50.The student bar was near the Albert Hall and did I make a lot of money serving BBC Proms participants. Happy days. Ravenous and reeking of alcohol at the end of my shift, I would make my way to the common room for haddock and extra mushy peas – reward for the strenuous work I suppose

There was a time when Gordon Ramsay was the darling of the nation, the once protege who displaced his mentor, then the king of British gastronomy, Marco Pierre White. Like his mentor, he has achieved three stars and so much more. I remember my first brush with Gordon Ramsay food, albeit indirectly. It was on a Singapore Airlines flight to London, Gordon as a consultant for the airline’s menu. I remember being impressed then with his credentials, late thirties and already a qualified genius of his craft. And I still respect Gordon Ramsay for what he has achieved

Only the most romantic of cities could have given birth to the L’Entrecote restaurants. It has remained firmly a family business for the better half of the 20th century. The legacy belongs to the family of Paul Gineste de Saurs, the founder, who was then searching for an outlet to sell wine from his family château. He had bought out an Italian restaurant known as the Le Relais de Venise in Porte Maillot, Paris. The Venice Inn. Instead of offering pasta and pizza, Paul’s grand idea was based on an entirely menu-less concept of serving the bistro classic of steak-frites. The entrecote cut was used, sometimes known in France as the contre-fillet, which in this case refers to the sirloin. All diners start their meal with a lettuce and walnut salad, bathed in a mustard vinaigrette. And then, the two servings of steak-frites would follow, the second half kept warm while you ate the first. The formula would be completed with their special butter based sauce smothered all over the steak – a secret recipe

It has been at least a year since I last visited Great Queen Street, a restaurant which I frequented in 2008. Still signage-free and firmly offline, the low profile hasn’t kept No.32 from becoming the establishment it is today. Owned by chef/writer Tom Norrington-Davies, he has made 32 a name for its nameless self by serving slick food with a decidedly British feel, revered all around and critically acclaimed, and I love it too. Afterall, I thought their crabs on toast was the very best thing I ate in

Getting a table at this rather cosy restaurant is a bona fide challenge, even in light of its rather low-profile existence. I don’t think it has a web page. It does however have a fervent following spreading the good word on the intertubes. Twitter was equally in love with Andrew Edmunds (same people perhaps?). I pieced together a coherent picture of this hidden gem of a restaurant through the online dining community channels, which I am unofficially apart of. Enthusiast restaurant collectors abound. I failed to secure a table on three separate occasions, but I persisted anyway till I managed one in earlier this year. I needed to try Edmunds because it intrigued me so much. The last time I felt this way was discovering the equally elusive Dinings

There are five restaurants inside the beast of a hotel that is Andaz. Situated right in the heart of the square mile, a part of town where I periodically get lost in. I did as I usually do to turn to my trusty GPS when I exited Liverpool Street station. This would be my third visit to the Hyatt owned hotel, based in a Victorian building dating back to the late 19th century. Once the Great Eastern Hotel back in the day. Red brick allegedly. It always takes me for a jog around the block before deciding to get serious. Machines. Just when you need them to do what they’re told, they do the hot stuff. Cast your mind back to the dizzy days of 2009 and you will recall I was invited to 1901 once upon a time. 1901 being the flagship out of the five restaurants within Andaz. I was even given a tour of the guts of a 19th century hotel, which is by far the funkiest part of the invite. All the rooms inside are somehow interconnected. Walls hide secret doors which open to neverland, and alternate universes. There are secret trap doors, dungeons and pleasure rooms. I’m obviously kidding about dungeons. Generally, I liked the food, though the grandiose space spooked me a little… anyway, the PR machine dropped me another invitation to try Catch,

The last time I went to the Tate Modern, I was completely baffled by one of the exhibits. A slab of wood, painted white probably no bigger than 10 x10, jutted out from the similarly pearl white wall. On this wooden plank sat a large jug of what appears to be water. It was placed high enough than I had to stretch my neck. Had my taste in culture been so utterly sucked dry from my now hollow mind after years of watching Simon Cowell produced television shows that I no longer have the capacity to understand modern art? What’s going to happen next? The ground opening up with a large crack perhaps. That visit was well over three years ago, I felt a like a complete arse after the completely unsuccessful visit, modern art was lost to me. It was however a memorable experience, the hum of the old transformers, the heart of the former power plant still apparently beating, the iconic erection of it’s chimney which so strikingly titivates the London skyline; Modern will always be a museum that intrigues and intimidates. At least for me. I had been pining for a revisit primarily because I feel that my appreciation for art has increased by leaps and bounds in the last three years, and am now able to at least recognise artist names. The current collection is interesting,

Roka is part of an ever expanding chain of zenith-class restaurants owned by German restaurateur, Rainer Becker. He also happens to own the Zuma line of luxury restaurants. Since he opened Zuma in 2002, and then Roka two years later, his highly acclaimed brand of refined Japanese cuisine has gone strength to strength, now Zuma and Rokas have expanded to Hong Kong, and in 2009, a new Roka in Canary Wharf, right in the heart of fatcatland. I was a little sceptical at first, especially since I had only heard nice things being said about Becker’s restaurants, I do love Japanese food (Sushi Hiro is still the best this side of West London, yo), it’s just that I had to experience it for myself, before I started swooning with the rest of town. And so I did

I perform too much of a ritual when I am about to travel to pay valuable attention to the eating at all, let alone eating well. Flying elicits all kinds of emotional responses, my brain becomes strangely reflective of the past x number of months since I was last bumping in the clouds. Time slows to a halt, especially in the last couple of days running up to actual act of flying when it becomes an all encompassing sensory event, as if I was being me for the very last time. Insomnia ensues. Mostly because I had spent the last few days caught up in the indissoluble cinema of my life but otherwise, probably because I had spend the final night so urgently packing away comfort items I think I need. The toothbrush, hairgel, the latest monocle, the moleskine, red pants, iPod cable, my faber castells. Then there is the list of would-like-tos scribbled on a note which is next to indecipherable, something which I had hastily prepared during breakfast, coffee stains still very fresh. I fail to see the point of airport fine dining

There is money behind J Sheekey. The ultimate owner, Richard Caring bought the Caprice galaxy of restaurants, amongst other things for a cool £30m in 2005 with a view to transform it into a superbrand of luxury eateries. This very group also includes some old time establishments such as Le Caprice and the Ivy which at some point in history represented the pinnacle of fine dining and celeb watching in London. Observers (Camilla Long for the Times) had already noted his master plan to turn this group of highly polished establishments into a synchronised design for the discerning taste master and occasional Londoner. Whatever the case, the high production values behind J Sheekey and it’s sister restaurants (both in London and elsewhere) must be working. A swift google search will bring up at least a handful of glowing remarks on this historic restaurant which has been serving fish to the public from the same site since the late 1800s. As recently as late 2008, Sheekey had expanded their premises to include an all wood, all shiny brass Oyster bar next to it’s dining room, though it is interesting to read up on reports which claim that Josef Sheekey, a local fishmonger and the original owner, had started his eponymous brand as an oyster bar anyway