Tozi - promising and classy Victoria Italian - Sept 2013

The Edinburgh Festival is getting bigger every year. This year, as in many recent years, it manages to spread down to London to keep the party going well into September. Thankfully, though the 5am finishes stay up in Auld Reekie, in the weeks after the Festival there are almost enough shows booked in for post Festival London residencies for the discerning theatregoer to skip the trip North entirely.

If you're reading this in time, do go and see The Events at the Young Vic. It's on over October and was one of my Festival picks. There's normally a few at the Soho worth seeing (including Fleabag and There Has Possibly Been An Incident) and the scarily talented Lucy Ellinson was bringing Grounded to The Gate way before she'd won the plaudits of every man and their dog in Edinburgh. The cynical among you might wonder what these shows, hits every one of them, were doing slumming it in Edinburgh when a money making London run obviously awaited. But it's not a sure thing, this business of pre-programming critical hits, as you'll know if you'd had to sit through I'm With The Band.

Mercifully short, we were out of there by just after 9 and contemplating a schlepp into town or an early night when I remembered Tozi, a sexy sounding new Italian cichetteria unglamorously wedged under the lumpen Park Plaza Hotel like a pair of risqué kitten heels on a rugby prop forward. We weren't looking for a blow out, more a couple of glasses of fizzy and a couple of plates to take the taste of mediocre theatre away.

A couple of large, over Peroni'ed, verging on loutish tables of office boys deadened the bar slightly, but pushing past them opened up a large dark space, loudly packed with the young, the amiable and the well dressed. It's obviously an easy option for the hotel guests of the unlovely place above, but there seemed to be enough people there to suggest that Tozi might be a rare oasis in the Victoria culinary desert, capable of bringing people to it, rather than only those forced to work in it.

An uncomfortably Lilliputian table wedged us too close to our TOWIE neighbours, but at least was opposite the main pass giving a great view into the cavernous kitchen and ample opportunity to overhear and people watch. Assuming the rugger buggers aren't colonising it every night, the lighter, padded bar area seemed a better, more comfortable option.
  

Small plates arrived quickly and in no particular order, not specifically for sharing (I've never understood why the two things go together - smaller portions make me much less inclined to share) we did, going for 5 of them to share, less than the 7 recommended for two diners, but plenty for a post theatre snack. Soft shelled crab was hot, fresh and thankfully greasefree. It's one of those dishes that really reminds you you're eating a dead creature, crunching through yielding shell like a bit part character in an Indiana Jones movie. If you can cope with the vicera, there are few dishes more rewarding. Deep flavoured flesh ensconced in a tight, light batter - dreamily divine, brought higher with a sprinkle of chilli and a sharp basil oil.

Juicy baby chicken arrived on a wooden paddle, a slightly tongue in cheek mini roast, complete with copper gravy pot of deepest silky umami. This was a lovely and accomplished little plate. With a crunchy, clean side of some sort, I'd quite happily take this as a regular lunch option.

Aubergine parmigiana was sleekly and lusciously creamy, like a dowager countess in full length mink. Slow braised aubergine, cut with tomato and a hefty jolt of cheese. Definitely not the clean and healthy side to pair with the chicken. Decanting it into a lukewarm Staubb didn't do much for it, but the fundamentals of the dish were good enough to make me scrape the plate clean.

The jolly, and not so jolly, staff were certainly authentico, if a little unfocussed at times. And when your restaurant is this full at 9.30 on a wet Wednesday in Victoria, you need to be better, or at least slicker. That being said, it certainly wasn't a terminal performance front of house and, given that it's one of a (very) few decent options in Victoria, is certainly something to gloss over.
  

 
 

Tapas Brindisa - Is the original still any good? Jan 2013

So how's the original outpost of growing tapas juggernaut of Brindisa doing since I last visited? Not as well as I'd hoped unfortunately...

Situated on the corner of Borough Market's southern corner, no bookings Brindesa was always a tough (and tiny) table to score, light wood interior filled with souls exiting the market laden with goodies, unable to wait until their home before sampling them. The unlucky masses would look on through the floor to ceiling windows and resolve to turn up earlier next week.

A recent midweek trip to the neighbourhood let me pop in for lunch on one of the less screwily busy days for the restaurant before the market next door grunts into life on a Friday.

The menu is still a organic shopper's wet dream, everything veggie sourced from the nearby stalls while meats and spices come from the Brindesa shop, hotfoot from the best suppliers in their Spanish homeland. The joy has always been that you don't want to wait until you get home from the market, mainly because what the kitchen can do with the same handful of ingredients is infinitely better than anything you could manage.

We've been spoilt by Jose, and the jamon croquetas he now serves up on Bermonsey Street. Those are light, fresh and heaven sent, these lumpen cigars of gluey mash under a too thick oily carapace just don't cut the mustard. Huevos Rotos - broken eggs over fried potatoes and Iberico pork sobrasada - is unevenly cooked. Soft slices of spud seemingly decanted into a lukewarm serving dish, the egg just the wrong side of soft and the sobrasada, a thickly spiced tomato based sauce, huddled in one corner under a slice of waxen potato. A great idea, and one I'm looking forward to borrowing for an inevitably hungover brunch, but there's nothing here any reasonably home chef couldn't improve on.

Sautéed chicken livers with an onion and caper dressing were fine, and well cooked. If I'd just taken a plate of that with a muscular minerally and obscenely dry sherry, I'd no doubt be hurrahing from the rooftops.

Compared to a recent revisit to gracefully ageing Barrafina, the team at Tapas Brindisa have got some way to go to regain their crown. If you're in the area, nip round to Bermondsey Street and see what their old boss Jose Pizzaro is up to at his brace of eponymous restaurants, either one of them easily has the measure of Brindisa I'm sad to say...

   

Pizarro, two cheers for Jose - Apr 2012

I dunno, you wait for London's tapas king to open one new restaurant, and two come along at almost the same time... No one was at all surprised when Jose Pizarro of Brindesa fame opened up jewel box perfect Jose on Bermondsey Street a year or so ago, there was a little more surprise when it was followed up less than a year later by bigger brother Pizarro a few doors down.

If the impression is that these are a couple of places he's thrown together, then it works. Jose is a absolute favourite for post work sherry and a pincho from the authentic little bar cum kitchen in the tiny space. I remember taking a Madrileno friend prior to dinner at nearby Zucca and after a swift but heated argument with the bartender on the best sherry on the menu and two plates of their heavenly croqueta, he happily declared it the equal of anywhere in Madrid.

Pizarro is a different level to the bustle of Jose. It's a significant step up in size for one, and though there's window seating and bar service, the majority of the covers occupy dark, masculine furniture evocative of a high end wine shop. We took a seat at the marble bar and eyed up the short menu.

While everything is available for sharing as you'd expect from the tapas king, there's a slightly more ordered approach here, with the menu broken up into small and large plates. We went for two of each, which arrived in that order, much in the manner of a starter and a main course...

As well as some of the divine jamon croquetas, we went with razor clams to start. Served in their shells with lashings of garlicky butter and sticky nuggets of chorizo to contrast with the soft flesh of the shellfish, they were perfectly well cooked if not quite to my taste, I traded the last one for another go on the croquetas, an outcome that suited both parties. Of the mains, we shared a slightly one dimensional if well conceived dish of roasted root vegetables and curdy but bland goats cheese. The other shared 'main' was as lovely a lump of roasted lamb as I've had in some time, soused in good oil and dotted with olives, insanely tasty little flavour bombs when crisped in the hot oven.

It wasn't as busy as I was expecting, possibly less surprising as it was a mid week lunch later in service. In itself not a problem, though it did deaden the mood slightly. I'd definitely recommend an evening table shared with friends. You can go through most of the menu between 4 or 5 of you and with the help of an exceptionally well chosen wine list and the knowledgable, friendly staff have a very acceptable night out.

  

Auspicious returns part 2 - Angels and Gypsies - Mar 2012

Angels and Gypsies

A good quality authentic tapas bar within olive-pip-spitting distance of my house and across the road from my local pub: I should be the definition of a regular visitor. I've tried to like it a few times, but unless dragged there at someone else's behest, the condescending front of house staff have caused me to give it a miss since it opened eighteen months ago.

Gritting my teeth (and pressuring Dr Vole to book) we decided to give it a try on a Friday night and I was pleasantly surprised. The service has definitely improved, they're warm and friendly even when rushed. The food is still pretty solid too.

55-day-aged Longhorn rump steak comes covering lusciously thick and meaty black beans, still a standout, though at over £9 for 4 small pieces of rump it should be. Potatas Poble are thin fried crisps cut through with garlic, annoyingly overpowering raw rosemary and piquant peppers. The rabbit was a fairly bland cut of normally flavoursome meat, saved by tangy well-stewed chickpeas alongside.

It's good enough to tempt dubious friends to Camberwell, but doesn't quite warrant the price. If I'm not having to pay a premium for the location, at £40 a head I expect bloody good to be bloody excellent.

A short review of Copita - D'Arblay Street tapas - Dec 2011

(Relatively) unannounced,  there's another new no reservations tapas-style restaurant in Soho, and what's more shocking is that it isn't part of Russell Norman's Polpo empire. It's got the hallmarks; an 'interesting' space full of nooks, crannies and pillars,  rough and ready 'found' design, low lighting, short interesting menus and ultra cool staff with tattoos,  (caveat, the last one may not be true).   

Spying a window seat and in need of a stomach liner before the first Christmas party of the year, I pop in for a couple of plates. The menu offers around 15 plates, nothing more than £6.  

I go for lightly cooked purple sprouting broccoli, the meat-eaters equivalent to nicorette, its iron tang here matched by soft and gooey blue cheese and a bite of lemon. This was followed by a tiny plate of venison. Beautifully served with Jerusalem artichoke, ceps and spinach, a plate with Michelin aspirations, pushed through a miniaturising machine. Beautifully distinct flavours that combined to form an exquisite whole, focused around the tender, gamey deer, albeit one so small a Liliputian could have brought it down. 

    

There's an interesting wine list too, suggested grape varieties offered in both 'young' and 'mature' forms, leading the caual oenophile to explore. They focus on appropriately pairing many of the lead dishes on the menu too. 

  

It doesn't have the same destination potential as Dehesa or Fino, and lacks the buzzy bar of Barrafina (some would say that's a good thing). For a low key local to pop into for a bottle of wine and a few nibbles however, it's an excellent addition to the neighbourhood. 

Carmens - old school of tapas - Oct 2011

Going out in Clapham on a Saturday night is like opening a window onto a circle of Hell occupied exclusively by the mediocre. Roaming gangs of lairy, leery beery estate agents and office staff, mix and mingle in a too horrid ballet of booze and weak party drugs. Weekend nights a little like fresher's fair at one of the universities popular with public school spawn who fail their Oxbridge entrance exams, Bristol for example. Yes, it's like a Saturday night in Bristol.  


Yet it's nearby, and there's a good range of eats and so we often end up there pre or post cinema (I think that Dr Vole is more of a fan than me of the area...) Of the many restaurants that line the arterial high road, there's enough choice, and it's not bad in the main. I'm a real fan of the Pepper Tree for a quick and cheap Thai kick, Gastro on Venn Street as an old fashioned French bistro I've had some very good meals in and Eco, a passable pizzeria. The other regular favourite has been Carmens, though the last visit reminded me why I'm falling out of love with a certain sort of tapas restaurant, and have been too spoilt elsewhere in the last couple of years. 


Rickety wooden furniture, tobacco coloured walls and brightly coloured detailing in reds and yellows, it's got the look of the first tapas restaurant you ever went to. Even before you pick the menu up you know what you'll find, and you're not to be disappointed.. Sangria by the jug, patatas bravas and a variety of things fried. Sadly Carmens (like Meson Don Filipe in Waterloo) is trapped in a bit of a timewarp and there's none of the interest in provenance, innovation or passion you'd expect to find at Jose, Morito, the Opera Tavern or any number of other infinitely more exciting outlets new and old.


It's difficult not to play it safe on the menu, but less than a week later I struggle to recollect what we ate. It was fried, and overly salty in the main, though there was enough of it to fill us up from the four plates we shared. Patatas Bravas and pimento de padon were fine, the former slightly undercooked and the latter laden with salt and flabby, like tiny wrinkled green balloons. A portion of thin sliced pork shoulder steak, a regular special on the board at Jose, was grey and over cooked disappointment. A fourth dish of spinach and chickpea was perfectly fine, though also a little salty. 

   

Relatively safe food, friendly staff and a wallet kind bill ensure that Carmen's is never empty and if you are in Clapham it's not a bad option on the night. If you're looking for great tapas however, join the 21st century. There are so many better offerings out there and simply being better than La Tasca is simply not enough, even if your market is as undiscerning as this.

   

Da Polpo - when you realise how old you've become - Oct 2011

Where: Da Polpo, Covent Garden
With who: The Ginger Prince 
How much: a parade of small plates between a fiver and £8 each. You can eat well for £15 a head and like a king for £25...
Come here if: you keep failing to get a table at one of the others

Da Polpo is the fourth outpost from restaurateur Russell Norman and closer to the Beak Street original in size and atmosphere than the middle, smaller two. The bare walls, industrially salvaged furniture and fittings and dim lighting remain a common theme. I'm beginnning to think that Norman has shares in one of the reclaimation companies, or alternatively is manufacturing former industrial shabby chic from scratch, extruding it out by the roomful in a dark pit of indentured workers somewhere in a former Soviet state.

The service is bright, funky and considerably more tattooed than yours truly, the sparse and snacky drinks and food menus appears on clipboards and as artfully recycled placemats and even at 9:30 on a wet and windy Wednesday they still having trouble seating you. So far, so fair for another Norman conquest.

We arrived and grabbed a seat at the downstairs bar which meant we got to eat sooner, though did leave us feeling like we were in an East German factory canteen. The lighting is low, the murmur was loud but the smell from the kitchen was divine... Perched at the battered zinc bar (another division in the owner's manufacturing empire no doubt) we kicked back with an Aperol spritz and perused the familiar menu.

We went on recommendation in the end, a selection from the different sharing plates littering the list, happy enough to chat and take the suggestions of the cool but knowledgable staff. Starting and finishing with rounds of arrancia, little hot shotputts of risotto rice round a molten mozzarella core, fried with a crisp toothsome breadcrumb crust. Textbook examples of a relatively simple bar snack, you'd be slightly pissed if you queued an hour for one, but better than a rather plain chicken liver crostini, too much pate with that drying sensation of the meat left it a little cloying in the mouth, less would have been more here.

The nearest to a main in size was a shared plate of Frito Misto, seafood selection (in reality 95% of it was prawns, calamari and whitebait) competently deep fried, maintaining the integrity of the fish without being doused in oil, though oddly served without an aoili to cut through the crumb. It may be authentic, but the lemon wedge didn't do enough to lift it from dryness. Better still was the pork shoulder pizzette, one of 6 or 7 baby pizzas, a smear of rich pasata covering the small, crisp base with thin slices of smoky marbled shoulder, all cut through with piquant peppers. Having eaten similar recently, cooked by a local Italian mama from a pizza oven facing the open air, I can attest to the authenticity of these little plate shaped platters of goodness.

Like the other branches, the meatballs are excellent. Not afraid to bring up the accompanying herbs, fennel in the case of the ones we went for, they're punchy cannonballs of well seasoned meat. the seasoned tomato sauce a great accompaniment and, after another round of those arrancia (OK, maybe they are worth waiting for when served hot and fresh, dripping with mozz) we stumbled off into the night.

So is anything really different to the other branches of the 'chain'? And does it matter when the quality is high enough? While there's an element of Norman by Numbers about Da Polpo, for the neighbourhood (deepest, darkest touristic Covent Garden) it's nice to have another option in the area, though by the time you've waited for a table, there'll be another one along to take the crowd.

Morito - Farringdon Tapas - July 2011

Where: Morito, Farringdon
With who: The Ginger Prince
How much: £35 a head for 8 shared plates, with a glass of fino each (slightly spoilt by remembrance of Jose's Manzilla) and a carafe of decent if forgettable house red.
Come here if: you're too old for Shoreditch, but want to sit on the street eating tapas watching hipsters cycle by.

The concept of the post beer bite definitely changes as you get older. I remember the days, particularly with the Ginger Prince, when a dirty kebab or a curry take out from Tooting High Road's finest were the best we could hope for after a night on the ales.

Civilisation is a wonderful thing. A couple of artisan pale ales in Farringdon's recently opened Craft Beer Co. started off the evening, followed by a stroll along Exmouth Market and a sherry while waiting for a space to open up at reservation free Morito.**

I'm a sucker for small sharing foods, helping me avoid 'other people's dinner envy' for a fraction of the price of a tasting menu. Even though we don't have the culture to support lanes of tiny little tapas bars here, there are enough decent places where you can shovel down plates of Spanish influenced nibbles.

Unlike bigger and slightly more upmarket neigbour Moro (the one your parents will really approve of) there are no reservations at the orange formica clad bar, where sharp elbowed trendies joust with local suits for space to pile their terracotta plates and baskets of fresh soft roundels and densely spiced flat breads made in Moro's bakery next door.

The bread is essential. Warm if you're lucky, moreish either way. It soaks up the fresh olive oil bottled on each table and its soft, open structure is perfect for scooping up little piles of za'atar (a piquant Arab herb mix on the table with the salt). The za'tar is a giveaway that this isn't a typical tapas bar, but one heavily influenced by Spain's Southern and Middle Eastern neighbours.

We started with one of the most remote of these influences, a soft, silken, oil infused Iranian Borani. Pureed beetroot with feta, dill and walnut was a perfect accompaniment to the breads and vanished swiftly with another Moorish dish of soft spiced lamb mince served on creamy roast aubergine. Lest there was no crunch to the meal, we sampled salt cod croquettas, soft fish yielding under a buttery breadcrumb carapace so good we followed it almost instantly with another plate, this time of jamon and chicken, a little too mushy inside but forgivably so. I was less forgiving of a dish of Butifarra sausage. Four thin discs drowning in an over oily mass of soft white beans, oddly tepid and served with a splodge of garlicky aioli.

I can never resist pimientos de Padrón when they appear on a menu, here a good value £3.50, hot, flame charred and oiled like tiny green Lucha Libre wrestlers, the rare 'Hot One' threatening to kick your throat in. No luck tonight, though they provided a sharp salty contrast to a menu a little steeped in oil and cream. A final hurrah came with a small wooden platter of crisp baby squid. We realised half way through that they were whole, inch long tubes of fried fry or battered baby. Either way it felt like piscine infanticide on an epic scale.
Busy and buzzy even at 9.30 on a Tuesday night there was a wait, this really is somewhere you stumble into rather than a planned 'eat at eight' mission. If you want that, go to the slightly more upscale Moro next door. Just make sure you eat well enough to drown out any envy of the snake hipped youth hanging outside.
** My 15 year old self just re-read that line and cried big tears.

The Corner Room at Bethnal Green Town Hall - July 2011

Sometimes getting to the place is half the fun... Nuno Mendez (he of Viajante and the Loft Project) brings you The Corner Room. A proper unmarked, no entrance, n information New York speakeasy of a restaurant hidden in a boutique hotel in Bethnal Green. Finding it is like playing hipster hide and seek.

When you eventually guide your way through the too cool for signage, Wallpaper* fetishising hotel front of house that hosts the chic little bistro and breakfast room (if you can even guess the name of the hotel I'll be impressed) you arrive, weary and a little fecked off from the effort in a dainty white, light, tiled space, carved out of the surrounding institutional marble like a Habitat styled hobbit hole. Despite the eulogising that surrounds stablemate Viajante, the Corner Room is currently unmarked territory, certainly we had no problems with a 2 for 7, but it did fill rapidly and there's no booking. Get there early because let's face it, you're unlikely to be just passing.

Starters come in around £6 and most mains are £12. Seasonal and interesting, a baby brother of the more studied El Bulli school influenced food artistry next door, I could have gone for any combination. You'll have to pop in and check the menu as they've got no phone number and no details on the website. I eyed up a wonderful dish of heritage (read weird coloured and shaped) tomatoes with mozzarella and what looked unseasonably like asparagus (caveat, was paying attention to my companion's conversation, may not have been asparagus)

Judging by some of the more rabidly positive comments posted online already, one of the house hits looks to be a wonderfully balanced squid dish, meltingly tender tubes served with Jersey Royal potatoes, seaweed and samphire sitting on a slick of squid ink and a glorious fennel infused oil. It makes the other starter, a ceviche of stone bass, seem slightly muted. A good wedge of firm white fish, but none of the scattered oils and 'erbs really cut through with any conviction.

It was a main of two halves too (slightly). Turbot poached with artichoke and pancetta was pleasant enough, it didn't set my world alight, but anywhere else would have been a solid thumbs up. Next to a slow cooked and pink centred lozenge of pork served with a Portuguese bread pudding it very much drifted into second place. The herby sponge is baked with red pepper before being fried in butter, a crisp fluffy smack of taste against the soft pork flesh.

We didn't have time for any of the desserts available for a fiver at the bottom of the menu but did sample an excellent grassy fresh Portugeuse Vinho Verde from a short but functional wine list with prices hovering around the late 20's. It feels a lot like Angela Hartnett's, similarly excellent, Whitechapel Gallery Dining Rooms, itself a diffusion range from a chart topping talent capable of filling the intimate space many times over. If I lived close enough to either, I'd be there weekly.

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Bocca Di Lupo - July 2011

Where: Bocca Di Lupo, Soho

How much: £35 a head including a carafe of house Merlot

Now I have history with fried. Show me a tapas bar, a fine dining restaurant or a street-side snack joint and I'll gravitate toward the section in batter.

BDL is a perfect case in point. A menu spanning the best parts of Italy available on a small plate. It could very well be the older, grown up brother that Polpo doesn't have or a distant cousin for similarly light and upmarket Barrafina.

Admittedly it's got a 'build your own' Frito Misto section and an obsession with the (literally) gutsier end of the pig, but in the main it's a well brought up, properly behaved small plate Italian. Friendly staff in black buzz along the thick, light marble bar into the serious restaurant at the rear. If you're only a two (or a very close three) then snare seats at the wide bar if you can. It's well designed for flowing access behind you and relatively calm, even opposite the frantic kitchen, and doesn't thankfully feel like either an afterthought or a corridor.

There's plenty on the keenly priced sharing menu to tempt the non meaty. I could happily graze from their side dishes, and a small plate of plump, fresh broad bean tortellini was well executed and possibly life extending if not eye opening. But in all honesty, if you're at BDL for a bite, chances are it's going to be porky.

Most of the dishes come with two sizes, and even the small plates are reasonably proportioned. We started with plump olives, as green as snooker baize and a brace of sourdough bruchetta, layered with some of the sweet and seasonal broad beans scattered across several other dishes on the menu, here combined with salty thin shards of pig's cheek and a deep umami laden jus. They paired perfectly with similarly seasonally apt courgette flowers, stuffed with mozzarella and lifted out of their slightly oily batter with the soft bite of anchovy. 

If I were to throw a criticism, it'd be that oil. It slightly marred the courgette flowers and soaked deeply into the sheet holding the so-so Frito Misto too. Not a deal-breaker, but enough to make you regret another order of fried. You build your own frito from a small menu, baccalau was unctuous flaky battered pollack, whole squid gave great texture in the tentacles but over floured rings and bland aubergine, little more than an oil trap, let down the final dish.

Thankfully, and expectedly for a restaurant with its own ice-cream parlor over the road, they made up with the desserts. My guest took a trio of the homemade, fruit stuffed ice creams, here nestling in a toasted brioche roll, I went for Sanguinaccio, the devil's own nutella, a thick chocolate paste with pine nut and pig's blood from Abruzzo, the blood adding a dark note of sweet iron, lifting the dark cocoa to the heavens. I licked the bowl clean. I'm not a proud man...

  

Jose and Zucca on Bermondsey Street - June 2011

Where: Jose and Zucca, Bermondsey Street

With who: J School and Dr Vole

How much: just over £40 a head for the entire evening. Sherries and starters in Jose are between £3 and £6 and you'll struggle to spend over £18 for 2 courses at Zucca.

Come here if: you want to try a range of great restaurants in a relatively small space

We'd finally hit summer. Friday night spent lolling outside the pub and a perky Saturday of sun and fun with walks wearing shirt and no jumper. A continental day ended appropriately with a hoped for but unscheduled aperitif stop in Bermondsey tapas joint du jour Jose. Owned eponymously by Jose 'Brindisa' Pizarro and garrulous business partner front of house expert Herve, it's finishing the job that neighbour (and final dinner destination) Zucca kick started and making Bermondsey, Street at least, a real foodie destination.

I have a slight problem with tapas restaurants out of their native environments, and it's that you can't crawl. The joy of tapas for me comes with a gleeful bowl around the neighbourhood and a bite and a glass in each joint. Moderation, exercise and a pub crawl in one. With a little help from Herve, we may have cracked it.

Prior to dinner and after a long warm walk, I was ready for a glass of something dry and crisp and cold. I steered us into Jose, keen to have a gander. The white tiled space focussed around the marble slab bar feels uncharacteristically out of place in South London, the heat emanating from it even more so. A combination of the small room, a large stove surrounded by Jose and his brigade, no air con and a sunny day meant I nearly lost the others at the first hurdle. The place was packed, no more than 25 in there, but it's enough not to want to be there when it's busier. No reservations means that like Spuntino you're going to have to come early, or be prepared to wait. As Herve explained, they're not aiming for the (London) bridge and tunnel crowd but hoping to add something to a great little local scene prior to opening larger restaurant Pizarro later in the year.

I sucked down deliciously dry sherry while we gorged, an early doors licensing quirk meant no booze without food, on a couple of the delicious tapa from behind the counter. We grabbed a couple of plates judging they would suffice as starters. Sea fresh boquerones, juicy white anchovies, came in a light and sweet seasoned cava vinegar, Murcian speciality pisto, a simple full flavoured Spanish version of ratatouille, came with a perfectly fried duck's egg. Giant yolk flecked with salt looming over the the plate reminding us of the late spring sun. Despite the specials board (cruelly featuring crab and basil croquettes the next day) you'd struggle to make a full meal out of the place, but that's partly the point. Grab a couple of plates, and move on. We admitted to Herve that we were going on to Zucca for our mains; "there you go then! There's your tapas crawl.. start here, mains at Zucca and then on to Village East for a cocktail or dessert." Tapas crawl, Bermondsey style.

Dinner at Zucca is always a treat. It's always worth a try on the day, you might be lucky, but generally it needs booking. If you want the perfect example of a local restaurant, it's right here. Seasonal fresh and good ingredients, reasonable prices and friendly knowledgable staff. It's not a difficult combination, but it's surprisingly hard to find. The buzz in the bright, light room is palpable. Intending on only a main, we were upsold to a shared Zucca Fritti, their house special - lightly deep fried sticks of pumpkin and squash, breads and then given a complimentary plate of spinach frittata. No complaints from this one, though my stomach did let out a moan on seeing the size of the veal chop that followed. Having written about Zucca a couple of times before, I'll happily attest to the meal being up to its usual standards and urge you again to go if you haven't.

And the dessert? Not a chance. Though by the time we dragged our distended bellies out of the door, Village East was just starting to get going. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday night...

Pollen Street Social, the Emperor's New Clothes - April

Where: Pollen Street Social, Mayfair
With Who: J School
How much: Up there with the best... £150 for a selection of 8 small plates and a bottle of house wine, no desserts, champagnes (despite the thrice repeated offer of it at the start, a rather boring restaurant trick to play these days) or liquors
Come here if: you need to be seen in all the right places or you've just done a big deal and want to impress your partner with the depth of your wallet

I was testing a hypothesis for a new PHD for HR professionals most of the evening. Not because I am one, more because I was suffering from excessive clients and needed to whinge to J School. Do some companies recruit badly, only employing those who arrive as fully formed tits? Or do you get toxic companies, where all of the staff no matter how competent and lovely on arrival are slowly, gradually turned into arseholes through the lack of joy and the unbelievably stressful pressure of perfection placed upon them? A sort of nature vs nurture for idiots... If any HR professionals reading this fancy the challenge I don't expect any royalties, can point you in the direction of some wonderful examples, and would love to read the thesis.

Obviously I'm not talking about Pollen Street here, that would be rude, unnecessary and incorrect. The staff at Pollen Street were uniformly lovely. There were thousands of them too, in serried ranks in black. We had at least two main ones (one for speaking to and one to clear and serve), a sommelier and a couple of randoms checking in on us anxiously. You wouldn't be surprised if they were over-stressed and striving for perfection though, the pressure cooker of expectation here is palpable after one of the most hotly anticipated launches of the year. Following over 18 months of planning, Jason Atherton opens his solo venture, a move out from under the protective, if sweary, wing of mentor Ramsay.

The Riding House Cafe - a touch of the Caprice Holdings? Apr 2011

Where: The Riding House Cafe
With who: The International Man of Mystery and others
How much: small plates are £3-£5, mains hover over the £10-£13 mark.
Come here if: you're looking for a new creative digital agency, or you've got a meeting in the area

Lunchtime in another 'restaurant of death'... Not that anyone has actually died here, it's more a term that implies that it's never really settled as a venue. The previous incumbents, Curry and Lager (someone needed to give their brand consultant a good shoeing for that one), talked a good game, and sold a pretty decent all you can eat buffet, but never really looked like they were for the long term, laying their hot trays down on jerrybuilt stands over the remains of London secretary haunt Bar Ha Ha beneath. Such is the pageant of London's restaurants. Some you know will, and should, close within months, others fight on against all hope and others just feel like they've always been there.

Even within the first couple of weeks you get the impression that the team behind The Riding House Cafe will be there for a while. Searching around for the feel, I was initially gunning towards it being someone in the Russell Norman mould. There’s definitely the organised attention to detail you’d expect with an ex alumni of the Caprice Holdings group. Casual it may seem, but there’s an eagle eye for their brand of casual, clued up perfection and design at the top of the operation and that attention permeated through the staff on our visit. On checking, it’s actually from the team behind Bermondsey stalwarts The Garrison and Village East. Similar wrong side of the tracks chic for a creative relatively monied local market makes it obvious if you’ve been to the other two.

Spuntino - A studied slice of Williamsburg in Soho - Apr 2011

Where: Spuntino,Soho

How much: £50 for a good selection and a couple of glasses of wine
Come here if: you can get through the door

I came to bury, not to praise. After all, we don't really like a winner in this country, not if we’re honest. And particularly not one who manages to make it appear so effortless. We prefer those who huff and puff and manage to succeed almost despite themselves, like Kenny Dalgleish. So Russell Norman, already the proprietor of two massively popular and critically lauded Italian tapas joints (Polpo and Polpetto as you're asking) was really pushing his luck. And how does he do with the third? Yawn, damn near faultless again... How bloody dull.

This one's no bigger than the bathrooms in Spice Market, the hollow gilded cage of gaud currently parting stupid people and the idle rich from their readies in Leicester Square. And no, you won't find me reviewing it soon. I've already had a hollow chuckle at the pricing on its tired fusion menu and spent far too much for far too little in its New York sibling to fall for that trick again. Spuntino probably cost as much as one of the gold taps.

That's not saying it isn't designed. Norman really gets how important the look and feel of his joints is to the atmosphere. All have subtle similarities, but fit their homes like well worn hipster jeans. They peeled back the interior panelling on this old bottle shop on Rupert Street and allegedly found the most gorgeous open brickwork and Victorian tiling... Swine. A few architectural prints and oddities artfully thrown up and you’re done. The restaurant, if you can call it that, comprises 20 odd seats round a battered zinc bar that's been there for years (since opening last month). It looks beautiful. Passing Shoreditch design Nazis lie fitting and frothing on the floor outside. Grabbing a seat is a total lottery here though, no reservations mean little chance at busy times unless you’re prepared to watch and wait. Turn up as we did, a pair of Soho irregulars dubiously justifying a meeting on a late afternoon, go early (they open at eleven) or whistle for it, your call.

Like the others, there's a simple selection of wines by the carafe or the tumbler next to a short menu of mouth watering small plates on a paper placemat. Some of the dishes port across from the Venetian tapas roots of the other restaurants; a sweet and butter soft zucchini (more on the language in a bit), mint and chilli pizzetta with a moreishly crispy base wouldn’t look out of place on either menu, soft-shell crab is a favourite and there’s a small selection of different bruchetta. I was more interested in the transatlantic dishes featured. The Mac n Cheese arrived with the gents next to us, a hangover cure sent from heaven. Darkly crispy breadcrumb topped oozing cheese arrived in an enormous Staubb style pan. A steal for £8 and more than enough for one, though judging by the clash of forks next to us, not quite enough for two. We sampled the sliders, another obvious Americanism, this year’s I don’t know what (a Spanish themed version also appears on the menu of The Opera Tavern) and destined to be copied repeatedly and badly elsewhere. We took three from the selection of four; firm spicy sea-salty mackerel, salt beef with Lilliputian cornichons and small beef bombs, made further moist with bone marrow and cooked to a deep salmon pink precision within their coating of cheese, nestled into tiny white buns, chewy firm enough to stand guard against the mingling juices.

We’d also sneaked in a portion of chewy eggplant chips dipped into a fennel yogurt. Interesting, the cold fennel dip was a good twist, but not up there with Zucca’s, admittedly different, Fritti. Worth more than a mention though were the deep-fried olives for which I’ll turn to Mr Hugh Wright, proprietor of www.twelvepointfivepercent.com and as delightfully acerbic and well written gentleman as you’ll ever read. "Hot, bitter, salty anchovy-farced pellets of pleasure, laced for all I know with a sprinkling of crack in the crispy crumb encasing them." Words to make you smile.

Do try and come. It’s worth the (repeated) effort to slide into one of the fixed bar seats, and is in itself as effortlessly cool as the well drilled and friendly rockabilly bar team. So move over Paul Raymond, there's a new king of Soho.