GRESSLINS 15.5/20
Tel: 020-7794 8386.
Address: 13 Heath Street, London NW3.
Food Modern European.
Price: £14.95-£28 a head without wine.
On its way to becoming a veteran of the Hampstead restaurant scene, which doesn't have many veterans of quality. Revamped decoration has given the place more personality. The food always has it - pretty much finger-on-the-pulse stuff, but with a serious knack behind it. Modern European includes nods to the east (raw fish), south (couscous), west (salsa) and north (strudel). But assured handling of ingredients and sound technique means that the flavours come out singing in unison rather than a gustatory cacophony.
ANGEL INN 15/20
Tel: 01756 730263.
Address: Hetton, North Yorkshire.
Food: British European.
Price: £11-£29.50 a head without wine.
There you are, pedalling (or striding) up hill and down dale, particularly up hill, and at the top of a particularly tiresome hill you happen across the Angel Inn; that's when you know what happiness is. Happiness comes in the shape of a fine old building with lots of snug rooms with beams and fires in season; of cheerful and kindly service; of spot-on Black Sheep bitter and a prodigious wine list, some of the classier numbers being sold by the glass; and food which usually combines top-class local ingredients, a ray or two of Mediterranean sunshine with a Yorkshireman's sense of proportion.
YMING 15/20
Tel 020-7734 2721.
Address: 35-36 Greek Street, London W1.
Food: Northern Chinese.
Price: £10-£25 a head without wine.
A bit of an unsung hero of the Chinese restaurant world. Heroine to be exact, for the proprietor and guiding spirit of the coolly elegant Yming is the charmingly elegant Christine Yau, the moving force behind the school of Chinese cookery recently set up at Westminster College. Yming under her hand (there was a short and unhappy interregnum) has devoted itself to some of the less well-known corners of Chinese cooking with exemplary consistency, and consistently exemplary results. Some of the dishes show the high seasoning characteristic of Northern Chinese cooking, and there are some unusual dishes involving long, slow cooking (belly pork; lamb). The service is distinctly not of the bang-it-down-in-front-of-you school we know and love, and the wine list makes for some interesting food/wine matching games.
GIFTO'S LAHORE KARAHI 13/20
Tel: 020-8813 8669.
Address: 162-164 The Broadway, Southall, Middlesex. Food: Indian.
Price: £7-£14 a head without wine.
Tasteful it ain't. Tasty, certainly, but the frontage of Gifto's is an assault on the eyeballs, and things don't get any easier when you walk in. Lighting seems specifically designed to show up every wrinkle, bag, nip and tuck in brilliant detail. But never mind that. We're here for the food not the fantasy, as are hundreds of others. Karahi is a method of cooking that involves impaling seasoned meats on flat skewers like broad swords and grilling them. These masterpieces of the barbecuer's art are served with equally spectacularly good breads. And that's it. Well, that's karahi for you, but it is not the limit of Gifto's range by any means. They also do ace puris, a splendid sag gosht (lamb curry) and karela gosht (lamb with bitter melon). Disarmingly cheerful service. Always busy.
GIDLEIGH PARK 18.5/20
Tel: 01647 432367.
Address: Chagford, Devon.
Food: Modern French haute cuisine.
Price: £24-£67.50 per head without wine.
Luxury incarnate. Cosseting on an Olympian scale. A place to remove all the care from your shoulders (except for the bill, of course). The whole place runs with smooth, or highly tuned, power which is delicately geared to individual sensitivities - more Bentley Mulsanne than Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. And Michael Caines's cooking is of a piece. His years at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons and Jamin show in the fabulous technical skill with which he holds a multitude of ingredients in precise relationships with lightness, intensity and clarity. Paradoxically, perhaps, the results are rich in sensation, but infinitely rewarding. Wine list of legendary proportions. Not cheap, but neither is a trip to watch Manchester United these days, and meals last longer than a game of two halves.
