Mark Bolland's best restaurants of 2008
People are always asking me which is my 'favourite' London restaurant. Sadly, there's no one magical, do-it-all place that will guarantee perfection. You choose your venue according to your mood, your needs and, of course, your choice of dining companion.
If you want the best value in town, then head for Gilmour's, a new restaurant with an impressive pedigree, just off the Fulham Road. Amid cool colours such as turquoise and amethyst, you can sit in serene comfort and eat massive portions of delicious food. A monster surf 'n' turf (burger and lobster), original soup, and treacle tart oozing with syrup and fresh from the oven: here you'll find farmhouse cooking in the centre of Sloaneville.
As a confirmed carnivore, I was surprised and delighted to find that two of the most taste-bud tingling meals of my life were marvellously meat-free. Step forward Saf and New Tayyabs, the best East End vegetarian restaurants. Saf is vegan and right-on (you sense Feng Shui experts had a hand in the design), and you can eat such wonders as parsnip rice and courgette-sesame noodles. New Tayyabs was a revelation: this is Pakistani curry that tastes like brilliant home-cooking, with its masala fish, lady-finger stew and delicious samosas that were cheaper than chips.
If you want to observe movers and shakers, then I'd recommend St Alban. The food is faultless (soft-shell crab, baked harissa prawns) and the room is welcoming and supremely comfortable. In fact, you get a real sense of polished professionalism - not so surprising when you remember it's run by Corbin and King, undisputed maestros of the business.
For best service, it was perhaps inevitable that hotels came out on top. It was difficult to decide between The Goring and The Capital. These are both privately run family hotels and it shows. You get a real sense of being properly looked after, as if the staff really care. And Stewart at The Goring deserves his own special award for being the finest maître d' in the city.
I had to think long and hard about the best place for a first date. I came up with the Imperial War Museum Café, which you might think an unusual choice. Think again. It's one of London's mighty but neglected buildings, set in an unexpected swathe of green in Kennington. There's plenty to do to keep boredom at bay (try the London Blitz experience), and it makes you feel rather lucky to be alive. And where else are you going to get to eat beetroot and seed salad, and Anzac biscuits?
The year ends, inevitably, amid fears for the future, provoked by the credit crunch. But London's best restaurants will continue to thrive because eating out remains an affordable, feel-good experience. Bon appetit.
