Top 5 Hotspots For Food & Wine In London

The oenophilic Wine Tipster asked me the other day which areas of London I thought currently offer excitement and promise in the realms of eating and drinking. I must’ve come up with a short list of about 12; yeh, it is that lip-smackingly enticing out there at the moment. Recession? What recession?! After much strokey-beard action and a couple of brief discussions (arguments) with my colleagues, I reduced the list to the best 5; the 5 suburbs that are, at the moment, hotter than an Olympic 100m Final ticket.

SW1X

This affluent address is bursting with Michelin stars. Amaya, Apsleys Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus, and Zafferano all have one each.  Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley has got two!

It, therefore, didn’t take long for people to realise that there might be something in this postcode, and in January 2011 the inventive Heston Blumenthal opened his  restaurant Dinner By Heston in Knightsbridge. Within a year, he too had snaffled a Michelin star.

The most recent celebrity chef to take up residence in the area is Mark Hix, who has just launched at the Belgraves Hotel, on the borders of Belgravia.  It’s Mark’s Bar on the mezzanine of the hotel  that I’m going to recommend; and not just because it boasts a cigar garden. Much like the sister bar in Soho, Mark’s Bar has Nick Strangeway’s name all over the cocktail menu, so expect plenty of experimentation. The bar food menu is also worth discovering. Chef Hix has sprinkled it with delights such as the Moyallon Shorthorn sirloin steak sandwich and the decadent scrambled Braddock white duck’s egg with osetra caviar.

There are two other recent additions to SW1X that I think you should try. Firstly, the refurbished  Rib Room Bar & Restaurant at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel (pictured above), where you’ll find seasonal British cuisine (really, though; there’s a clue in the name: order the roast rib of beef) and over 500 wines and Champagnes. Plus, the menus are futuristically presented on interactive iPads. Neat.

Not to be outshone on the technological front is chic, new Azerbaijani restaurant, Baku (no, not the only Azerbaijani restaurant in London), which also offer iPad menus, each displaying a variety of traditional dishes. These dishes utilise fresh herbs, veggies, fruits and grilled meat (although, that said, the Caspian Sea sturgeon is about as authentic as one can get without purchasing a plane ticket to Baku; the capital city, not the restaurant, obviously). A decent choice of Georgian wines too.

Great Portland Street & Beyond

Flute Champagne Bar (pictured left) took up residence in Fitzrovia late last year and has been gathering pace ever since. A definite destination bar, especially for romantic lovers (look out for the private niches). It’s a numbers game at this basement hideaway thanks to the 100 bottled sparkling wines and Champagnes on offer; 25 by the bottle; plus 20 varieties of Vietnamese bar snacks.

Continuing the subterranean theme with an air of dangerous liaison is new bar The Lucky Pig which also opened up at the end of 2011. Again, the curtained booths are a must for amorous adventures. Only this time, cocktails are the chosen libation.

If you prefer something a little more sociable, the all-day The Riding House Cafe the most recent offering from the team who plonked  The Garrison and  Village East  in the backstreets of Bermondsey to the brim almost constantly. Popular with the fashion trade close by, this brasserie restaurant (which you can book) and bar (which you cant) is itself de rigueur thanks to the on-trend menu of small plates (you’ll need at least four) and funky decor (squirrel light fittings, anyone?).

St John’s Hill

Yes, you’ll need to get your Oyster card out for this one. The Boris bikes don’t go this deep into Zone 2 territory. You’ll thank us though. You could spend all day on this one patch of tarmac and never feel the need to leave.  Start with a delicious brunch at the popular Ben’s Canteen, before heading to the new The Plough bar-cum-restaurant for a luncheon of small plates (there’s those two words again), including the now famous black pudding scotch egg (with a pint of ale, naturally). Your evening will then slowly drift through the sands of time to a Victorian age when bar-restaurants such as the new Powder Keg Diplomacy  (pictured above) were lauded for their national pride. Exquisitely-made pungent cocktails, bizarre-bordering-on-circus-like decor, and a hearty menu that can simply do no wrong. Almost everything sold at this place is British. Finally a place in south London where I can find Chapel Down Bacchus 2010! Huzzah!

Soho (of course)

Soho’s Dean Street is one of London’s best streets for eating: Dean Street Townhouse, Duck Soup, Cay Tre and Polpetto, have all appeared in the last 18 months to make sure of that.

As has Bistro Du Vin (pictured above), the new sister restaurant to the Bistro Du Vin in Clerkenwell. The menu is resplendent with meaty goodness and you can tuck into all manner of sweetbreads, calf livers, and bone marrow. Two points to note: the enomatic wine system and wine list of 200+ wines; plus, a Cave au Fromage (Cheese Heaven) of over 70 cheeses. Careful, though, this unusually large restaurant (for Soho) is not open on Sundays, sadly.

Wardour Street in Soho is also well known for its culinary night life and Carom – the Indian restaurant that has risen from the ashes of Meza – is making its mark as more than a mere pop up with its casual, sharing style dishes.

Further west, at the Carnaby Street end of Soho, Pitt Cue Co. is the first permanent restaurant – if you can call it that; it’s tiny – from the providers of last summer’s popular BBQ Shack on the South Bank. Allegedly, the “best example of Texas barbecue in London”, this eatery offers pulled pork and chicken wing tray food, whilst drinks-wise, you’re looking at the ultimate BBQ accompaniment: beer or bourbon-based cocktails.

Meat Mad Mayfair

Vegetarians, cease reading immediately. This year, Mayfair is mainly doing meat, glorious meat. Yes, indeed, meat is back in fashion (thankfully). Hence London W1 has recently been blessed with Wolfgang Puck’s first European restaurant CUT at 45 Park Lane, as well as the free-range organic grass-fed beef-specialising 34 restaurant, and the Goodman steakhouse-backed Burger & Lobster, which might not win any prizes for coolest name of the year but when you consider that’s all they offer, you realise they got it dead right.

Christian Rose-Day is a volatile being whose job – as Deputy Editor of www.fluidlondon.co.uk  Fluid London – is to unearth and visit the best bars and restaurants in London. Feel free to hate him just a little bit.