Old Manor House 17/20
Telephone: 01794 517353.
Address: 21 Palmerston Street, Romsey, Hants.
Food: Italo/French.
Price: £20-£35 a head without wine.
The Bregolis have been at the Old Manor House for 20 years, and there aren't many restaurants in the regions that can make that kind of boast. Mauro's cooking is highly evolved, but its roots are very much in his native northern Italy, and he is in the tradition of the great hunter/gatherer chefs - he shoots his own game, catches his own fish, picks his own mushrooms and supervises the raising of the pigs that go into the salamis and hams he makes. The inherent gutsiness is brought to heal by technical sophistication. Cosy, fire-warmed dining room. Serious money if you get stuck into the spectacular wine list.
Zaika 17/20
Telephone: 020-7351 7823.
Address: 257-259, Fulham Road, London SW3.
Food: Indian.
Price: £10-£35 a head without wine.
Perhaps slavish traditionalists might take issue with some of Vineet Bhatia's dishes, but anyone with an open mind and mouth who is interested in superlative cooking should toddle along and get stuck in. Intelligent, subtle, freshly spiced, technically deft, his food is a model of delicacy and taste. The effects are beautifully modulated rather than dashingly colourful. This is some of the most interesting and distinctive food in London, irrespective of nationality. Decor is in restrained good taste, blending Indian detailing with contemporary metropolitan restaurant design. Lunch a snip of snips.
Marwicks 16/20
Telephone: 0117 926 2658.
Address: 43 Corn Street, Bristol.
Food: Intelligent European.
Price: £15-£30 a head.
Bristol is enjoying a tremendous renaissance (or even naissance?) in restaurant eating. New places seem to be opening weekly. Amid all this Stephen Markwick, beavering away in a converted bank vault, may be termed something of veteran. Year after year, he goes on producing marvellous modern European cooking of unerring taste and intelligence. It begins with first-class ingredients, many of them organic, treated with careful, instinctive skill, and served with real pride and friendliness. The wine list is marked with quality wines, and a fine back catalogue. Set menus are extraordinarily good value.
Mesclun 15/20
Telephone: 020-7249 5029.
Address: 24 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16.
Food: Modern global.
Price: £12-£24 a head without wine.
Neighbourhood restaurant of class and charm. Small, Med-flavoured dining room with rather vivid modern pictures. The kitchen roams the world for inspiration, and on the whole finds it: cod, couscous and capers all have their moments. Mesclun knows what flavour is and how to bring it out, even if the occasional tendency to over-complication gets in the way. But the generosity of the place wins over doubters, not that there are many - the place is packed most of the time. Not open for lunch.
The Glasshouse 16.5/20
Telephone: 020-8940 6777.
Address: 14 Station Parade, Kew, Surrey.
Food: Modern European.
Price: £13-£25 a head without wine.
The team of Nigel Platts-Martin (proprietor, also of The Square and Chez Bruce) and Bruce Poole (chef, also of Chez Bruce) has produced a contemporary classic on the site of the old and much-loved (though really not very good) Le Provence. Tucked away in the leafy backwater that constitutes the environs of Kew station, the Glasshouse lives up to its name with big windows and a sharp, laid-back, buzzy, modern style. The food is admirably conceived and executed, pleasing without being actually exciting or even mildly challenging, thank heavens - instead, it's a happy canter through the modern European mainstream that is both satisfying and fun. Occasional lapses in taste by the service take the edge off civilised dining every now and then - but it is only now and then.
