Only in Tokyo can you sample the finest sushi from a skycraper, try tofu beside a carp pond or taste tempura under an oversized fedora. Robbie Swinnerton picks the best upmarket restaurants

• As featured in our Tokyo city guide

Kozue

No other restaurant in Tokyo has a setting to rival Kozue. Perched far above the fray on the 40th floor of the Park Hyatt, Kozue is still as swish as the day it opened in 1994, with a contemporary look (soaring ceiling, stylish tables and chairs) to match the confident modern inflections on kaiseki (japan’s version of haute cuisine). The menu features torafugu puffer fish in winter, ayu sweetfish in summer, matsutake mushrooms in autumn, and year-round shabu-shabu of perfectly marbled beef from premium wagyu cattle. Book a window seat to enjoy a peerless view of the western hills and even (if the weather gods are smiling) Mt Fuji’s cone silhouetted in the distance.
• Park Hyatt Hotel, 3-7-1-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, +81 3 5323 3460, tokyo.park.hyatt.com, lunch from ¥3900 (around £34), dinner from £115. Open daily 11.30am-2.30pm and 5.30pm-10pm, closed Wed. English spoken

Mikawa Zezankyo

Tetsuya Saotome produces flawless tempura, succulent morsels of premium seafood and vegetables served straight from his deep-frying wok to your plate. He follows the classic Edomae style, using only ingredients that (with a couple of exceptions) would have been available in 150 years ago. He works solo, which is why he can only seat nine at his counter. The cuisine and configuration may be traditional, but the eclectic decor – from European antiques to traditional lacquer-work and an extractor hood in the shape of a fedora – certainly isn’t. There are many contenders for the crown of Tokyo’s finest tempura, but none take it to quite the same level of idiosyncratic artistry. Zezankyo is hidden away in the residential back streets to the east of the Sumida river, but it well repay the effort and taxi fare to get there.
• 1-3-1 Fukuzumi, Koto-ku, +81 3 3643 8383, lunch from £90, dinner from £140, mikawa-zezankyo.jimdo.com. Open Thurs-Tues 11.30am-1.30pm and 5pm-9pm. English not spoken

Nodaiwa

The speciality at Nodaiwa is unagi, charcoal-broiled freshwater eel. This is one of Tokyo’s unsung plebeian pleasures, but here served with refinement and a grand setting – a transplanted timber mountain farmhouse. The fifth-generation owner-chef uses eel caught in the wild rather than from fish farms and the flavour is incomparable. The cosy ground-floor dining room is fine for a simple (but rich and satisfying) lunch of unaju (juicy eel fillets broiled golden-brown, on a bed of white rice). Up the stately staircase, the private rooms are best for a full banquet. The highlight: shirayaki, eel that’s lightly steamed and grilled, then topped with caviar. Perfect with a bottle of crisp local koshu wine.
• 1-5-4 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku, +81 3 3583 7852, nodaiwa.com, set menu £60, a la carte from £17. Open 11am-1.30pm and 5am-8pm. Some English spoken

Nihon Ryori Ryugin

Ryugin sprang to prominence on the back of chef Seiji Yamamoto’s imaginative application of modern cooking techniques to classic Japanese cuisine. These days, he has no need for any molecular magic: his vibrant contemporary kaiseki speaks for itself. Yamamoto is now at the top of his game (as recognised by his third Michelin star), drawing massive depths of flavour from his premium ingredients – such as sakuradai snapper, from the Naruto Strait close to his hometown, creamy an-kimo (monkfish liver, known as the foie gras of the ocean), or hand-reared Iwate wagyu beef. Yamamoto’s candy pear dessert nitro-chilled to -196C and served with a sauce of the same fruit heated to a scalding 99C, is the stuff of legend.
• Side Roppongi Building 1F, 7-17-24 Roppongi, Minato-ku, +81 3 3423 8006, nihonryori-ryugin.com, dinner £200. Open Mon-Sat 6pm-1am (last sitting 10.30pm). English spoken

Aronia de Takazawa

Chef Yoshiaki Takazawa’s bijou restaurant has long been one of Tokyo’s most intriguing secrets, more talked about than actually visited. Hardly surprising, since Aronia only sits two tables (maximum eight people) each evening. His French-Japanese signature dishes include: a ratatouille terrine, with vegetables layered into multicoloured cubes; carpenter’s salade niçoise, with sashimi tuna and tapenade sauce solidified in the shape of spanners and screws; and his hot balloon of seafood slow-cooked with bamboo shoot and seaweed. Takazawa stands centre-stage in this hushed, windowless chamber, with its sleek wood panelling and dramatic spot lighting, preparing or finishing each course himself, while his wife Akiko serves and explains in faultless English. • Sanyo Akasaka Bldg 2F, 3-5-2 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3505 5052, aroniadetakazawa.com, from £140. Open daily 6pm-9pm (last sitting). English spoken

Les Creations de Narisawa

Creativity lies at the heart of the eclectic modern cuisine dreamed up by Yoshihiro Narisawa at his impeccably polished Aoyama restaurant, with its swish, modern dining room and gleaming kitchen revealed through massive picture windows like a balletic silent movie. The fundamentals may be French but Narisawa’s ideas and execution are his own: from the foraged herbs and edible soil to the damper-style bread cooked at the table. At times, it all feels overly cerebral, but his delectable char-cooked vegetables and wagyu beef bring a sensual satisfaction, and the desserts seem to never stop arriving. Narisawa also boasts a cellar especially strong in Burgundies, as well as a groaning cheese trolley.
• 2-6-15 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, +81 3 5785 0799, narisawa-yoshihiro.com, lunch from £65, dinner from £185. Open Mon-Sat noon-3pm and 6.30-9pm. English spoken

Sushi Mizutani

Sushi doesn’t get much finer than at Mizutani – or more austere. There is virtually no decoration on the plain ochre walls of the small 9th-floor room where Hachiro Mizutani holds court. Nor are there tables, just one long counter; a single massive timber of smooth-scrubbed cedar and 10 plain chairs. The air is crisp with the faint aroma of rice vinegar and the atmosphere is hushed. Sushi veteran Mizutani is taciturn in his own language and speaks no English, but there’s little that needs saying, except to specify beer or sake (there’s only one brand of each). The sushi arrives in a set order, determined according to whatever is in peak season. A succession of flawless morsels of seafood on lightly vinegared rice kept at exactly skin temperature, it will include several cuts of the finest bluefin you have ever tasted, and the best abalone too. A couple of caveats: perfume is frowned upon, as are cameras and mobile phones. Nothing is allowed to disturb the serenity.
• Juno Ginza Seiwa Building 9F, 8-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3573 5258, lunch from £130, dinner from £180. Open Mon-Sat 11.30am-1.30pm and 5pm-9.30pm. English not spoken

Tofuya Ukai

In a city of contrasts and surprises, few are greater than discovering the traditional garden, carp ponds and sprawling low-rise wooden architecture at Tofuya Ukai. There is no central dining room, just a warren of private chambers (most with tatami mats and low tables, but some with chairs) with garden views built around the timber buildings of a former sake brewery. The multi-course kaiseki meals focus on tofu, produced freshly at Ukai’s own small workshop in the hills west of Tokyo. In winter, the house-special tosui-tofu delivers a triple whammy of bean goodness: cubes of tofu cooked down at your table in a creamy, savoury casserole of soya milk blended with chicken broth, topped with layers of yuba tofu skin
• 4-4-13 Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, +81 3 3436 1028, ukai.co.jp, lunch from £50, dinner from £75. Open daily 11am-10pm (last sitting 8pm). English spoken

Bird Land Ginza

Toshihiro Wada was one of the first artisan chefs to elevate the humble craft of grilling skewers of chicken (yakitori) to a cuisine of substance and subtlety. He uses only top-quality free-range shamo gamecock, cooking the morsels of meat and offal over premium Bincho charcoal. Open the meal with his trademark liver pate, continue with wasabi-coated rare sasami white meat, and don’t miss the sansho-yaki, succulent breast meat dusted with piquant Japanese pepper. In another break from the tradition of smoky neighbourhood grills, Wada stocks a small cellar of Burgundies and New World wines – perfect with grilled fare of this caliber. • Tsukamoto Building B1F, 4-2-15 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 5250 1081, ginza-birdland.sakura.ne.jp, dinner from £55. Open Tue-Sat 5pm-9.30pm. Some English spoken

Akasaka Kikunoi

From the bamboo-lined, lantern-lit path to the simple, traditional wooden decor of the rooms (with either chairs or tatami mats), Kikunoi is a microcosm of traditional Kyoto. The Tokyo outpost of one of Kyoto’s most illustrious kaiseki houses, it serves the rarified cuisine of Japan’s ancient capital – expect to spend a good three hours at table if you’re having the full-course dinner. For a more concise, affordable introduction, the lunchtime Kodaiji bento is an exquisite tasting menu in miniature, served in a lacquered box with several side dishes. Owner-chef Yoshihiro Murata is revered for the depth of umami he coaxes from the dashi soup stock that underpins all his dishes.
• 6-13-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3568 6055, kikunoi.jp, lunch from £45, dinner from £140. Open Mon-Sat noon-1pm and 5pm-9pm (last sitting). English spoken

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Robbie Swinnerton writes the Tokyo Food File column for The Japan Times

Whether you fancy sushi, noodles or top tempura, it’s easy to find good, cheap restaurants in Tokyo, says Robbie Swinnerton

• As featured in our Tokyo city guide

Kanda Yabu Soba

In a city that has celebrated the understated flavour of soba (buckwheat noodles) for centuries, no restaurant is as revered as Kanda Yabu Soba. Founded more than 100 years ago, it’s a handsome, free-standing wooden villa in its own tranquil garden courtyard with the feel of a traditional tea house. Kimono-clad waitresses bustle about, ferrying food and drink from kitchen to table (either with chairs or on tatami mats). Locals prefer their noodles cold, as zaru soba (plain noodles with a dip) or ten-zaru (the same with batter-fried shrimp). In winter the classic dish is kamo-nanban, hot soba in a rich broth with slices of duck breast and leek.
• 2-10 Kanda-Awajicho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3251 0287, norenkai.net/english/shop/yabusoba/index.html, soba noodles from around £6. Open daily 11.30am-8pm. English menu

Tsunahachi

Tempura – batter-fried morsels of seafood and vegetables – is one of the supreme delicacies of Japanese cuisine and, like sushi, at the upper end it can cost a prince’s ransom. Hidden away on the upper restaurant floor of a mall close to Shinjuku JR Station, Tsunahachi proves it doesn’t have to. Bright, modern and drawing a youngish demographic, it brings some innovative nuances to the tradition, such as serving a choice of four different kinds of salt with the tempura instead of just the standard soya-based dipping sauce. Drop in for a quick, affordable lunch of tendon (shrimp and a few cuts of vegetables served on rice), or settle in for a leisurely dinner, picking from the considerable side menu of sashimi and other Japanese delicacies.
• Lumine 7F, 3-38-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, +81 3 3352 1012, tunahachi.co.jp, lunch from ¥1,260 (£10.50), dinner from ¥2,625 (£22), English menu. Open daily 11am-11pm

Sushi-Bun

Tokyo’s central fish market is an essential part of most visitors’ itineraries, and so is breakfast at one of its legendary hole-in-the-wall sushi counters. The seafood could hardly be fresher, and the sushi is as good as you’d expect at places charging four times as much. Sushi-Bun is one of the best in the market – it’s just as tiny (10 seats at the counter at a pinch) and as tasty as the others, but it’s left out of most guidebooks so the queues are usually shorter. Most people go for the set sushi menu (from £22 for eight servings of whatever seafood is in season, plus soup), which includes their succulent house-special, anago sea eel. The rough sake they serve with it, though, is far from premium.
• 8 Chuo Shijo Building, 5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3541 3860, tsukijinet.com, sushi chef’s menu (omakase) from £22, English menu. Open Mon-Sat 6am-2.30pm, closed Sun and holidays

Kushiwakamaru

Yakitori – bite-sized cuts of chicken (and some vegetables) skewered, grilled and then seasoned with salt or slathered with thick soy sauce – is classic blue-collar fare: cheerful, affordable and best washed down with flagons of lager, sake or shochu. The cheapest places tend to be raucous and smoky, and often specialise in offal, but Kushiwakamaru hits just the right note. The feel is casual and accessible, while the charcoal-grilled chicken is well above average. There are always a few specials, such as duck or quail. And don’t miss the negima (chicken and leek), the tsukune (balls of minced chicken) or the tebasaki chicken wings (forget chopsticks – these you pick up and gnaw with your hands).
• 1-19-2 Kami-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3715 9292, r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1317/A131701/13003193, yakitori from £1.60/stick, English menu. Open Mon-Fri 5.30pm-midnight, Sat-Sun 5pm-midnight

Nogizaka Uoshin

Five minutes’ walk from the opulent Roppongi midtown complex, the Nogizaka branch of the Uoshin group sets the template for the genre that’s come to be known as fish shack dining. Fresh seafood served any which way you like, at prices that reflect the rudimentary decor: bright lights, colourful fishermen’s banners and no-frills seating. Uoshin’s parent company is a seafood wholesaler, guaranteeing freshness and a great variety of seasonal seafood. You can’t go wrong here: generous sashimi platters; whole squid or other fish grilled to order; warming winter fish stews; and humongous portions of sushi.
• 9-6-32 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3405 0411, uoshins.com, full meals from around £30, including two hours of all you can drink. Open Lunch 12-2pm on weekdays; dinner 5pm-12am; Sunday and holidays 4pm-11pm

Maruni

Maruni does barbecue in a style all its own. The building is an old converted rice merchant’s store that somehow got left behind among the modern office buildings close to Shinbashi Station. The decor is all gaudy black and red. Instead of tables and chairs, there are half a dozen oil drums, each with a charcoal grill set into the top. You just order a plate or two of meat, then grill it yourself. The beef is all from the famously pampered Japanese wagyu cattle. Maruni doesn’t serve the super-premium steak grades so it’s all highly affordable.
• 1-11-1 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, +81 3 3572 1129r.gnavi.co.jp/gar6100/lang/en/, grilled beef from around ¥550 (£4.60 a plate. Open Mon-Thurs, Sat 5pm-midnight, Fri 5pm-4am. English menu

Ippudo

Ramen is Chinese in origin, but it’s unquestionably Japan’s de facto favourite late-night fast food. You find ramen counters on virtually every street corner, serving up nourishing, steaming hot bowls of wheat noodles in rich, meaty broth, invariably topped with slices of chashu pork, half a boiled egg and chewy strips of menma bamboo. Within the genre, though, numerous regional variations have evolved: all are available in Tokyo. Where to start? You can’t go wrong with Ippudo, a chain (now with a New York outlet) that flies the flag for Fukuoka ramen. The noodles are light and the tonkotsu soup (made from long-simmered pork bones) rich and satisfying.
• 1-3-13 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, +81 3 5420 2225, ippudo.com/store/tokyo/ebisu.html. Open Mon-Sat 11am-4am, Sun 11am-2am　

Shin-Hinomoto

There’s nothing in the West quite the equivalent of an izakaya: neither pub nor restaurant, it’s a place for eating — often well and always cheaply — as much as for drinking; and, just as importantly, for de-stressing after work. Shin-Hinomoto is a classic example. It looks unpromising, a cramped room full of noise and cigarette smoke shoehorned in under the railway tracks in Yurakucho. It’s a typical izakaya in all but one respect: the master of the house is British. Known to one and all simply as Andy, he married into the business and now runs it. Seafood is his speciality, which he sources each day from Tsukiji market. But you’ll also find chicken, cooked vegetables and simple salads alongside the tempura and sashimi.
• 2-4-4 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3214 8021, andysfish.com/Shin-Hinomoto. Open Mon-Sat 5pm-midnight, English spoken

Little Okinawa

The food and drink of Japan’s southernmost prefecture are so distinctive they could be a totally different cuisine. The Okinawa archipelago is far closer to China than to Tokyo and the influences are marked. Little Okinawa is a welcoming, long-time (yes, and very compact) bastion of this subtropical culture, and it serves all the island exotica. Start with umi-budo, seaweed resembling miniature grapes, and jimami-dofu, a tofu-like custard made from peanuts. Continue with goat sashimi and pig’s ear (crunchy, but served with a nice vinegar-sharp sauce). And don’t miss the goya-champur (scrambled egg, tofu and bitter gourd) and rafutei, pork belly soft-simmered till you can cut it with a chopstick. Wash it all down with shots of awamori, a fiery liquor that can pack a wallop.
• 8-7-10 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3572 2930, little-okinawa.co.jp, ramen from £6.50, English menu. Open noon-1.30pm, 5pm-3am Mon-Fri, noon-1.30pm, 4pm-midnight Sat and Sun

Tonki

The first thing you notice about Tonki is how bright it is: it’s as spick and span as an operating theatre. The chefs wear spotless white uniforms, the kitchen gleams and the wooden counter and tables are scrubbed smooth. Quite remarkable for a place where the only form of cooking is deep-frying. Tonki’s speciality (in fact the only thing it serves) is tonkatsu: cutlets of pork that are dipped in breadcrumbs, then fried till the outside is a crispy golden-brown and the meat inside perfectly tender and juicy. You have two basic choices: rosu (blubbery-rich belly meat) or hire (lean loin “fillet”), though the latter is also offered as kushi, bit-sized cuts cooked on skewers. Most people order the set meal, with rice and miso soup on the side, leaving as soon as they finish.
• 1-1-2 Shimo-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3491 9928, tonkatsu from £7, set meals from £14. Open 4pm-10.45pm, closed Tues and third Mon of the month

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Robbie Swinnerton writes the Tokyo Food File column for The Japan Times

Whether you’re visiting for the rugby or the races, Gloucester Cathedral or Cheltenham Jazz Festival, it pays to know where to find good affordable restaurants, cafes and pubs

• See our interactive map of Britain’s best budget restaurants
• If we’ve missed your favourite, tell us on our blog

Vanilla

If you’re looking for “cheap eats” you could easily overlook this smart basement restaurant. It is located below an upmarket hairdresser and beauty salon in one of Cheltenham’s many handsome Regency buildings. The window, moreover, is dotted with Michelin stickers – not usually a signifier of keen value. But don’t hover at the door: get in there, because Vanilla delivers sharp cooking at very competitive prices. Between 6pm and 7pm, it offers a two-course menu for £10. That menu is also available at lunch, alongside a selection of sandwiches, salads and simple mains. It is crowd-pleasing stuff, rendered with style and precision: Gloucester Old Spot sausage and mash; haddock fishcake with wilted baby chard and chive velouté; chicken liver parfait. Whisky and honey gravadlax (£7.50) arrived atop an incredibly light pillow of a blini, accompanied by clean, lemony blobs of creme fraiche, tangles of nicely modulated pickled beetroot and a mound of bright, sharply dressed salad leaves. The salmon’s dressing smoothly melded honeyed sweetness and cockle-warming single malt flavours, too.
• Lunch, sandwiches from £3.95, light meals/mains from £4. 9-10 Cambray Place, Cheltenham, 01242 228228, vanillainc.co.uk

Svea

This small, charming Swedish restaurant is a cafe by day, offering decent, non-stewed filter coffee (£2.25) and first-rate baking (try the kanelbullar cinnamon buns, £1.90). The lunchtime menu runs from open sandwiches, such as the Hönö – falukorv sausage and cheese with a fried egg, served with a green salad – to the definitively Scandi Kungshamn – herrings, new potatoes, creme fraiche and crisp bread. A sample hagasmörgås on a thick slice of rustic bread is sound: the ever-so-slightly dry pork and beef meatballs coming alive when mixed with the creamy beetroot salad below. It is a happy to and fro of sweet and savoury flavours. On the menu you will find various useful phrases translated into Swedish, including “I hate flatpack furniture” and – either a typo or very subtle satire, this – “Sven bought out the best in English football”.
• Lunch, dishes £4.95-£9.95. 24 Rodney Road, Cheltenham, 01242 238134, sveacafe.co.uk

The Swan

A literally and figuratively beige gastropub, complete with the obligatory Chesterfield sofa by the front door, the Swan won’t win any awards for design originality, but the food is good, the price is right and the staff are on the ball. It is a perfectly if generically pleasant place to hang out. The kitchen uses good-quality artisan products, including O’Hagan’s award-winning sausages, and air-dried ham and cured meats from Oxsprings in Worcestershire and Monmouthshire’s Trealy Farm. A sample burger, topped with a fried sliced of Diana Smart’s renowned, robustly flavoured double Gloucester, was spot on (£6, lunch menu). The coarse ground patty was well-seasoned with herbs, cooked to a moist pinky-purple and had a decent exterior char. The beer – the Swan has five real ale pumps – was also in excellent condition. A glass of Brakspear’s Oxford Gold (pint from £3.30) sang with flavour, its bristling, almost peppery hop tang giving way to a mellow caramel sweetness. Food prices climb a little at night, but all the main dishes (sausage and mash, fish pie, ploughman’s) come in under £10.
• Lunch dishes from £4, evening mains from £7.95. 35-37 High Street, Cheltenham, 01242 243726, theswancheltenham.co.uk

Well Walk Tea Room

Look closely at the myriad antiques that fill every nook of this (very friendly) tea room, and you will notice they are all priced. Who knew that you could pay £250 for a piece of what, to the untrained eye, looks like distinctly amateur 19th century needlepoint? Not that you’ll be buying, of course. Not if you’re travelling on a budget. Instead, you can take all this in, while enjoying some fantastic, traditional baking and speciality teas. Although, winningly, Well Walk serves no-nonsense Yorkshire Tea as its house brew. The pot arrived correctly primed with two bags, too. The baking includes several low-fat and coeliac-friendly options, which, judging by a slice of moist courgette cake filled with homemade raspberry jam, are much less worthy than you might imagine. The wider menu includes a variety of affordable old-school snacks, such as Gentleman’s Relish on toast and potted stilton (£2.50). A retro soundtrack which toggles between Adam Faith, Frank Sinatra and similar icons adds to the convivial atmosphere.
• Snacks and sandwiches from £2.50, cakes £2 a slice. 5-6 Well Walk, Cheltenham, 01242 574546, wellwalktearoom.co.uk

Simpson’s

Simpson’s is one of those slick new-school chippies – half takeaway, half cafe – attempting to bring a modern foodist rigour to fish ‘n’ chips. It does the right things (sourcing sustainable cod from the Barents Sea; using freshly chipped local spuds; cooking to order as much as possible) and the result is a superior fish supper. The chips could have been a shade crisper, perhaps, but were buttery- soft within. The fish was great, encased in a light, nicely seasoned, largely greaseless batter. The only significant flaw was the homemade tartare sauce. Tartare should be clean, sharp and, preferably, full of capers and gherkins. Simpson’s almost smooth version had a curious cloying sweetness. Not good. Still, overall it was worth the 20-30 minute walk from the centre. Away fans note: it is not far from Cheltenham Town’s Whaddon Road ground.
• Fish and chips from £5.75. 73-75 Priors Road, Cheltenham, 01242 521964; simpsonsfishandchips.co.uk

Red Pepper

There is a lot going on at chef Richard Whittle’s three-storey cafe, deli and bistro. Scan the blackboards outside and you may well find a sub-£10 bargain on that evening’s bistro menu. For instance, on the Thursday night I visited, you could snaffle a plate of gussied-up sausage and mash for £8.95. The bistro also offers a two-course £10.95 pre-theatre menu – the Everyman Theatre is just down the road. However, if you’re really watching the pennies, get a takeaway, or head downstairs to the “coffee lounge”, a rather dated basement of black floor tiles, red leather armchairs and blonde wood furniture. It serves from 9am to 5pm, the menu morphing from eggs Benedict, through a populist lunch menu (homemade burgers and pies, quiche and potato salad, pea and pesto risotto, around £6/£7) to late afternoon cakes from local bakery Vanilla Pod. The bourbon-spiked pecan pie is highly recommended. A sample smoked bacon and mushroom soup was very good. It delivered great fungi flavour, a slight smoky tang at the edges and, thanks to some tiny flecks of chilli, an understated base note of heat. To conceive and enact such a combination successfully takes thought and skill.
• Coffee lounge, breakfast from £2.50, hot dishes from £4.15. 13 Regent Street, Cheltenham, 01242 253900, redpeppercheltenham.co.uk

Cafe El Bahdja

Gloucester is hardly the most frenetic of places, but this North African cafe is a notable oasis of calm, the dispatch of good food accomplished not with the usual crashing of pots, pans and plates, but smoothly under cover of esoteric ambient music. It is a place, perhaps, to linger after you have eaten over mint tea or El Bahdja’s brilliant baklava. The menu includes lamb and chickpea harira soup, “ratatouille-style” chakchouka with baked eggs, minced beef borek and several tagines. A sample dish of Moroccan lentils served with a semolina-topped khobz bread roll was just the thing to brighten a wintry day. The lentils had been cooked with tomatoes and onions almost to the point of disintegration. The heat, such as it was, was residual and mellow. The whole thing was an advert for patient slow-cooking and the judicious use of spices and herbs to draw out fathoms of flavour from simple ingredients. Prices are low anyway, but takeaway prices are a real bargain. The lentils cost just £3.40.
• Mains from £4.50. 59-61 Westgate Street, Gloucester, 01452 545178, elbahdja.co.uk

StanMan’s Kitchen

All blackboards, bunting and wicker baskets, this deli-cafe and gift shop is a popular haunt among Gloucester’s foodies. The simple snacky menu is all about good-quality artisan products, many from the Cotswolds. It includes, for example: a handmade scotch egg with mustard; a rather good locally made open beetroot and goat’s cheese pie with chutney and pickled cucumber (£5.95); a local cheese plate; and a selection of good-looking cakes and scones. Typically, a breakfast sandwich uses dense bread from Hobbs House (the local baker du jour) and tasty Gloucester Old Spot sausages from Nick Brown, butcher in Longlevens. Said bangers were, however, almost overwhelmed by a layer of strident, very jammy onion marmalade. Service is refreshingly bright and cheery.
• Dishes from £3.50. 42-44 Westgate Street, Gloucester, 01452 412237, stanmanskitchen.co.uk

Peppers

You will find this tiny hive of making ‘n’ baking activity, which places a high emphasis on organic, seasonal produce, down an alley off Westgate Street. It is but a stone’s throw from the cathedral and the Folk Museum, and well worth hunting out. It is rare for a salad bar to set the pulse racing, but the one at Peppers is a real treat: thick glossy coleslaw; an interesting colourful mix of giant couscous and vegetables; and a moreish savoury amalgam of wild rice, peppers and seeds among its highlights. Alongside those, a caramelised onion quiche struggled to shine, a little, the onions not as evenly distributed throughout the filling as they should have been. But the flavour was there. Peppers’ filled baguettes looked good, too. Hot dishes include soups and pizza, alongside specials such as curry, chilli and hot pot. There are also multiple vegetarian options. If you eat in – there’s seating upstairs and in a “hidden” courtyard – you can also chug on an organic beer from Stroud Brewery (£3), regional ciders and English wines from St Anne’s Vineyard.
• Baguettes from £2.95, dishes from £3. 2 Bull Lane, Gloucester, 01452 384343,

Blue Thai Kitchen

This small, cash-only cafe-restaurant is a no-frills affair. The strange leatherette tablecloths look makeshift, the floor is worn and the A-board outside has seen better days. But there is a reason why it is packed at lunch: it’s cheap, cheerful and, for the money, pretty good. The daytime menu includes a core of mainstay Thai dishes, such as tom yum soup, pad thai and green and yellow curries, as well as stir-fry noodle dishes at £3.99 and £4.99 (£4.50 take away). My massaman curry was a little oilier and less creamy than you might expect, but all the constituent parts (potato, a good scattering of cashews) were present and correct, and the notably fresh vegetables were accurately cooked. What it lacked in sophistication it made up for in flavour, and the fact that, on a freezing day, it left a ringing chilli tingle on the lips.
• Eat in, lunch mains, £4.99, evening from £6. 19 St. Aldate Street, Gloucester, 01452 526531

• Tony travelled from Manchester to Cheltenham with CrossCountry (crosscountrytrains.co.uk). For more information on things to do and see in Gloucester and Cheltenham from thecityofgloucester.co.uk and visitcheltenham.com

Does the Labour power couple have a secret culinary weapon as they (allegedly) scheme their rise to the top?

Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper have been accused by Labour conspiracy theorists of plotting to seize the party leadership, not on the conference platform or in the smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear, but in the kitchen. Their secret weapon, according to one weekend report, is lasagne. How unscrupulous can an MP get?

Much more unscrupulous and more extravagant in the bad old days, when much of elite politics was conducted over dinner, drinks or both, in private houses in SW1 or in West End clubs. In those days the inter-war Tory politician and diarist Sir Henry “Chips” (a nickname, not a diet) Channon would regard dinner with a couple of exiled monarchs, Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor as a quiet night in. Such habits faded after 1945, and gave way to Harold Wilson’s HP sauce, John Major’s peas and Margaret Thatcher’s famous home-made shepherd’s pie, all much more democratic. Nowadays even David Cameron, an Etonian who felt obliged to resign from White’s Club, the poshest in St James’s (Dad had been chairman), courts Tory MPs with lasagne. Not just any old lasagne either, but lasagne allegedly cooked by himself.

Anything Cam can do, so can Balls. The ferociously aggressive shadow chancellor has been rebranded as a chap who weeps during Antiques Roadshow and wants his wife, the shadow home secretary, to become leader after Ed Miliband (er, um) retires. More new man than New Labour, his new golden rule is crisping the delicious cheddar bechamel sauce he makes for his oregano-kissed lasagnes.

Does this amount to a plot? Yes and No. Balls’s mentor, Gordon Brown, lost the Labour leadership to Tony Blair over Italian food in north-London restaurant Granita (says he) and personally preferred bonding over pizza, beer and football with favoured MPs at Geoffrey Robinson’s Park Lane pad. Successive “curry house plots” were launched, for and against Brown, by Labour colleagues, an updated version of the Indian Mutiny.

All Ed and Yvette are doing is raising battered party moral by hosting MPs and activists in their lovely London and Yorkshire homes, say culinary loyalists. Pull the other slow-cooked pork leg, whisper surviving Blairites, who fear the ambitious power couple is running the show. The truth is that charismatic loners can capture a party without ever consulting Delia’s Summer Collection. Gregarious plotters can over-reach themselves. And Blairites, who have never tasted Ed’s delicious “stiff sponge” with its growth-orientated dollops of caster sugar, double cream and eggs, may just be jealous.

It’s a cliché to say you’d like to eat everything on the menu, but in some rare cases it’s a reality, too

This job relies, to a large extent, on tip-offs. This week, one from Matthew Fort, who lives in Gloucestershire and had a find to report: a pub called The Butchers Arms, just outside Eldersfield in the north of the county, hard by the Worcestershire border.

Gloucestershire isn’t an easy place to open a restaurant. There’s quite a bit of money in the area, but much of it belongs to the kind of people who – in the words used to me by a disgruntled Australian chef who went broke trying to open a gastropub in the county before gastropubs had been properly invented – “spend it all on horses and cows”. Prospective restaurateurs might look at the demographics of the area, and the quality of the ingredients, and think they’d be on to a winner, and next thing they know the bank manager is shaking his head sadly and taking back the keys. It’s a look you start to recognise in a restaurant’s owners, the bright-eyed glimmer of dawning desperation as they fight off the realisation that the locals aren’t buying and that as a result their business is screwed.

They don’t have that look at the Butchers Arms. For a start, the “they” here is just two people, Stephen and Elizabeth Winter: he cooks, she is the front-of-house. (Or three, if you count the baby being carried by the exceptionally nice and very pregnant Mrs Winter when I turned up a month or so back.) This wouldn’t be possible if the operation were any bigger, but it’s a two-room pub, red-brick on the outside and inside it’s older – the core of the building dates back a few hundred years – and newer, with modern decor and an open flow between the two rooms. There doesn’t seem to be a distinction between dining room and pub, since people were eating in both, though they don’t have many covers and you will need to book (at lunchtime they do food only if you have).

The menu is perfect: five choices per course, and all things you want to eat – at least, you do if you’re me. I took some friends who live locally, which meant we could try pretty much everything, so I’m in a position to report that the menu contained no duds and several outstanding successes, in particular a fish soup that was a single-handed attempt at creating a new British soup to rival the French classics. It was made of smoked cod, red mullet, crab and scallops, and was intensely flavoured, but not in that tomato-oriented, saffron-flavoured Mediterranean manner we expect from fish soup. There was a lot of parsley, which sounds wrong, but it worked, and it no doubt helped that the day-boat fish from Cornwall was of such high quality. A brilliant dish, and if Mr Winter invented it, he’s a genius. Seared squid, perfectly charred, was served with a rich square of pork shoulder and a beetroot relish. I ordered this as a challenge because I don’t much like beetroot, so am always curious about what good cooks can do with it. Winter spikes it heavily with cumin, a brilliant idea that gave it real kick and cut the sweetness while also emphasising it.

He can really cook, this bloke. His food isn’t tricksy or cutting edge, but it delivers lots of flavour and never has that plonked-down quality that some pub food lapses into. Ingredients are first-rate, and he does them full justice. Fillet of Hereford beef came with a salsa verde and a highly diverting crispy cake of cow’s tongue and cheek. Winter likes these little touches of heartiness and offal, as shown by a lamb faggot that came with best end of lamb and peas. Kedgeree was a beautifully judged accompaniment to sea trout.

I’d have been too full for pudding under normal circs, but professionalism obliged me to try a nicely dark and unsweet chocolate torte, set off by caramel ice-cream, and a wonderful blackcurrant ice-cream with almond shortbread. I think ice-creams may be Winter’s thing: he does a lovely pistachio one with raspberries and meringue, too. Heaven only knows how one man turns out all this food single-handed. The only bad thing about the Butchers Arms is the missing apostrophe in its name.

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

The Natisone valley in north-east Italy is home to hidden villages in fairytale forests. And in autumn, the local restaurants play host to one of Europe’s best food festivals

I live in Venice, and I’ll make any excuse to escape the invading tourist hordes at the weekend, not to mention the eye-wateringly expensive restaurants. So when friends told me about an autumn food festival, Invito a Pranzo (“Come for lunch”) in the Natisone valley in Friuli, on the border with Slovenia, I jumped at the chance to explore one of the wildest, most upspoilt corners of northern Italy and, at the same time, discover a unique regional cuisine at knock-down prices.

Every weekend, in-the-know food lovers flock here from all over Italy, unable to resist the temptation of a lazy three- to four-hour lunch – especially when the fixed price for a 10-course tasting menu is just €23. A dozen rustic trattorie and osterie take part in Invito a Pranzo each year, and although they are open all week, this special menu is only offered every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from October through to December and you must make a reservation.

Many of the restaurants also have rooms, either basic B&Bs or old-fashioned pensione accommodation, so it is easy to plan a long weekend that takes in not just a couple of the restaurants, but also hiking or mountain biking through thick pine forests, or less strenuous pursuits, such as trout fishing and mushroom picking.

Natisone is an isolated, mountainous land that divides Italy from Slovenia. Getting here is easy, as the autostrada links Udine, the rather noble capital of the region, with Venice, Treviso and Trieste, all of which have low-cost air links with the UK. A short drive from Udine brings you to the ancient Roman town of Cividale del Friuli, where things start to get more complex. Road signs, when they do appear, are in both Italian and Slovene, and addresses of the restaurants taking part in Invito a Pranzo rarely give accurate details of their actual location, in tiny hamlets deep in the forest. It is impossible not to get lost – satnav doesn’t work here – and many winding lanes peter out into dead-ends or lead you over the frontier into Slovenia.

I headed first for the Trattoria Alla Posta (+39 0432 725000) in the sleepy village of Clodig, where the road hugs the Cosizza river, passing austere stone farmhouses. Just outside Clodig the river widens, with an islet in the middle marked by a bright white statue of the Virgin Mary. There are probably only 30 to 40 inhabitants in Clodig, but just as many cars are parked outside the Posta. This trattoria is a gastronomic temple to la cucina casalinga (home cooking), with Maria Gilda Primosig creating dishes in the kitchen that are worthy of a Michelin-starred restaurant. She makes wonderful use of autumnal products – wild boar and venison, dandelion and chestnuts, porcini mushrooms and radicchio – then produces her own recipes, adding wild herbs she collects in the surrounding forests. Her chestnut and porcini soup is unforgettable, her blecs (buckwheat pasta) are flavoured with nettles, her risotto features myrtle berries, while the first bite of her melt-in-the-mouth strudel shocks – it is filled with pumpkin and pears.

Maria’s cuisine is so fresh and surprising it makes me think of the media hype surrounding new cooking methods in Scandinavia, as pioneered by Noma restaurant in Copenhagen; except that here, no one is following trends or food blogs, they are simply using seasonal, carbon-zero products as creatively as possible.

The idyllic Albergo alla Trota (via Specognis 10, Pulfero, +39 0432 726006, allatrota.com, double rooms €60) sits right on the edge of the Natisone river itself, and the speciality of the house is, naturally, delicious river trout, oven-baked with herbs and served with polenta. The owner-chef is Patrizia Maring, who used to be the local school teacher until she bought the Trota, transforming it from the village’s general store into a trattoria and albergo, or family-run hotel. Maring has been president of Invito a Pranzo for the past 10 years, and she told me that each autumn the event attracts more and more visitors. Not surprising, when her Invito menu features 10 different assaggi (tasting dishes) for €23. Wine is not included, but then a litre of the surprisingly good vino della casa costs only €9, and at the end of the meal, several glasses of the local digestive, a serious prune brandy, are offered on the house.

Lunch at the Trota is served outside on a shady terrace that has panoramic views over the river and pine-clad mountains, and while most of the tables are packed with visitors, this is also still very much a local bar. One table is left for villagers who spend the afternoon in an animated game of cards, and I found it a bit of a culture shock that none of the locals speaks Italian, as everyone prefers to talk Slovene here.

Driving up into the high mountains that surround Albergo alla Trota, tiny villages seem to pop up in the middle of thick forests – a few houses, a bakery selling the famous local cake, Gubana, and a cosy locale taking part in Invito a Pranzo. Osteria all’Antica in Cras (+39 0432 709052, osteriallantica.com) has a fabulous flower garden and waterside terrace in summer, but in autumn, diners prefer a cosy table inside, sitting around the stufa, a traditional stove, where a pot of polenta is slowly bubbling away, ready to be served with a hearty wild boar stew.

Don’t expect too much in the way of gourmet dining at the simple but friendly Trattoria Ai Buoni Amici (via Tarcetta 76, Pulfero, +39 0432 709164), while San Pietro al Natisone’s Enoteca ai Trevi (Via Alpe Adria 118, San Pietro al Natisone, +39 0432 727454) only serves local cheeses and salamis, though it does offer an exceptional cantina of local wines.

And for a last stop-off, I couldn’t resist lunch at Sale e Pepe in Stregna (Via Capoluogo 19, +39 0432 724118), no longer part of Invito – something to do with local politics – but renowned for the highly original cuisine of chef Teresa Covaceuszach. Stregna is right on the Slovenian frontier, and the place feels like the end of the world, but push open the door of Sale e Pepe and you enter a warm, elegant dining room, where Teresa transforms strange Italian-Slovenian recipes into gourmet dishes. Bizna is a rich minestrone soup of potatoes, beans and brovada (pickled turnips), while wild duck is roasted with chocolate and cinnamon. And forget the traditional Gubana for dessert, as the house speciality is Teresa’s take on a crème brûlée, leaving the kitchen clouded in fragrant puffs of smoke.

Driving back to Venice from Sale e Pepe, I got the feeling I was leaving a curious no man’s land and coming back into Italy again.

• Invito a Pranzo, Friday, Saturday and Sunday lunch from 1 October– 8 December. By reservation only: +39 04321 714559, invitoapranzo.it

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

David Chang’s joints are the hippest in New York – but why has he now declared a pointless war on desserts?

Má Pêche, 15 West 56th Street, New York (00 1 212 757 5878). Meal for two, including wine and service £140

New Yorkers like to think their restaurants are better than those in London. Actually they like to think everything in New York is better than in London. Except for the taxis. They might just give us those. But in the matter of dinner they are certain: they have more and better of everything. This is profoundly irritating, not least because it just might be true. What’s more, millions of us flock there every year to find out. More of you are likely to make a special trip to Manhattan to eat than you are to, say, Birmingham where I was reviewing last week.

One of the chefs whose food you might want to try is David Chang, a Korean-American, who is hot in a very New York, Ow!-My-fingers-are-burning, sort of way. Chang made his name on the back of soft buns filled with roast pork belly. My kind of guy. His informal Asiatic restaurants – Momofuku, and its siblings the Ssäm Bar and Ko – are held up as a very particular kind of hip. There are lots of communal tables and counter-eating opportunities; steamy bowls of ramen full of big deep stocks and great bits of seafood. I have eaten his food and it’s great. Whether it really does declare war on thick-linened, high-end dining, as some have claimed, is a moot point. Last year one of his establishments popped up in the world’s 50 best restaurants. I’ve no idea what it was doing there.

Now he has a place in Midtown Manhattan called Má Pêche, and it represents all the vices and virtues of New York Dining. There is no doubt that, were this in London, at this price point, the whole experience would be ramrod stiff and formal. The design of the room is spectacular in an understated way that we don’t do well. On the upper floor is a bar. The back of this area is a big curve, a kind of lip jutting out over a vault at the bottom of which is the restaurant. The walls look like a stage set hung with huge flat golden drapes. It’s dramatic without being contrived.

And so to the vices, which become obvious once you get below. It is horribly self-aware of its coolness. The waiters do the tiresomely chummy “and may I introduce to you the specials” thing. Where it sticks to the Asian agenda the food can be great, as in a salad of king crab with apple and puffed rice, or better still another of baby squid, splashed with fish sauce and peanuts and lots of green herbs, Vietnamese style. A side dish of crunchy, shredded Brussels sprouts with spring onions and chilli vinaigrette is a revelation. I now really like Brussels sprouts. We also enjoyed a tranche of cod with leeks and coconut in a shellfish ginger broth. There is a bottle of terrific chilli sauce on every table which gave everything a nudge, including me.

But there are also European dishes on this menu and they are duds. A plate of snails meant to be taking its cue from Burgundy, turns up with a length of pork sausage that’s a waste of dead pig. There’s a sticky jus which would be better used to varnish tables and a tarragon mustard with no power or kick. Worse still is their steak frites – every New York menu has to have one – flabby beef with chunky, squared-off lifeless chips.

And then to dessert. Oh hang on. They don’t do dessert. As their waiter says “we prefer to spotlight artisan cheeses”. Really? Do you? Why? Courtesy of a rule banning all unpasteurised cheeses unless over 90 days old, America is where cheese goes to die. What’s weirder is that, as you enter Má Pêche, there is a huge dessert bar, bulging with cakes and cookies. But it’s only for take away. You’re not allowed to order from it in the restaurant. I have to beg our waitress to slip us some cookies and she agrees, though with little enthusiasm. This is very silly. It’s very irritating. And utterly New York.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

Do the inflated prices of wines on restaurants’ lists get you hot under the collar, or do you accept them as part of the price you pay for eating out?

If you’re the sort to constantly rail against wine markups in restaurants, a couple of recent developments might cheer you up a little. A new iPhone app called Wine Search has just been released which enables you to pinpoint exactly how big a markup restaurants are putting on the bottles on their list. And D&D, one of London’s biggest restaurant groups, has announced it’s reducing its margins on wines it lists at £50 and above (which given its restaurants include top city haunts such as Coq d’Argent and Le Pont de la Tour probably accounts for the majority of its bottles).

Most restaurants make a fixed cash margin on more expensive bottles of wine, and the percentage markups on cheaper wines can easily result in these going for three or four times the price you’d pay in a shop. Given that – unlike food – they don’t appear to do anything to the bottle apart from pouring it that seems hard to justify, but there is another side to the case.

Top Michelin-starred kitchens rarely make much on their food. Even Heston Blumenthal admits he doesn’t make any money at The Fat Duck – perhaps as he employs 44 chefs for 42 customers. For many restaurants in prime sites wine helps to pay the rent and keep down the cost of the menu.

There are also costs associated with wine service that people don’t generally think about – buying and replacing glasses, wine storage at the correct temperature, faulty bottles that have to be returned – which can be difficult several years after purchase – but the biggest outlay is on purchasing and storing wine. It’s all about cash flow.

The heftiest markups are of course on the world’s best known wines, champagne being a particular culprit. I ran a quick check on one of the restaurant world’s most popular champagnes, Billecart Salmon rosé, which ranged from £70 a bottle at Jamie’s Italian (where bizarrely it’s the only champagne on the list) to £125 at the award-winning The Kitchin in Edinburgh. Jamie’s buying power presumably carrying considerably more clout than Tom Kitchin’s.

So instead of sticking to the world’s best known and most greedily priced bottles perhaps we should use restaurant visits as a chance to explore the more obscure corners of the wine world. If you worry about looking like a cheapskate agonising over the wine list while the sommelier hovers, don’t: wines like Marcillac and Falanghina are likely to go better with the food than fine wines which have been released too early. If it’s a special occasion check out the wine list on the restaurant website before you go so that you don’t get sweet-talked on the spot.

Almost all restaurants, even the most expensive ones, have bargains. Even at Gordon Ramsay’s revamped restaurant at the Savoy where a bottle of Petrus is listed at £2,000 you can find a bottle of Côtes du Roussillon Villages for £21.

So maybe it’s our own fault if we get ripped off. Are we too keen to impress – or insecure about our own wine knowledge – to order more obscure wines or ask the waiter or sommelier for advice? Do markups get you hot under the collar or do you accept them as part of the price you pay for going out to eat?

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

New York restaurants are like a rush-hour tube ride – but London restaurants can be almost creepily civilised

At the end of last year, an attractive couple were caught on CCTV sharing a cigarette outside the Michelin-starred London restaurant, L’Autre Pied. Inside, dessert waited – a plum tart with damson compote and a poached-pear-and-cinnamon mille-feuille. As the ice cream melted, it became clear that no one would be returning to take care of the £572 tab: Lupin, party of two, had done a runner. Monsieur Lupin, it eventually emerged, was Janis Nords of Stoke Newington, a 27-year-old Latvian filmmaker and serial bill skipper. It is unfortunate that the Met did not think to consult any transplanted Manhattanites in the manhunt that ensued. Any one of them – me included – could have offered at least one clue to the Billecart Bandit’s identity: no way in hell was Nord a New Yorker.

The forensics are simple: New Yorkers under 30, under 60 for that matter, do not patronise places with white tablecloths and real wineglasses and names whose pronunciation requires a sixth-form-level knowledge of the French language. Butcher paper and thimbles of Malbec and homey-proprietor appellations, like Schiller’s and Freeman’s, are considered much cooler, in the way of ripped jeans or scuffed sneakers. This is too bad, in some ways: a dinner out in New York, even for those who intend to pay the bill in full, often offers all the relaxation of a rush-hour tube ride to the dentist’s office.

First, there are what my friend, a Londoner who has recently moved to Manhattan, referred to recently as “annoying New York hostess-types”. If New York restaurants are dentists’ surgeries, these are the put-upon receptionists, who manage to make you feel that you’ve forgotten to floss, even if you scheduled your appointment weeks in advance and arrive 15 minutes ahead of time. The other type of New York restaurant is the Pretentiously Unpretentious joint, which doesn’t take reservations and cures its own face bacon. Here, the hostesses will wear vintage and the hosts (there are hosts) will have beards. Either way, you’re not going to come across a nice man from Lyon who asks if he can take the lady’s coat. You’re paying extravagant, adult prices for an almost anti-luxurious experience. 

But give New Yorkers their screechingly loud rooms upholstered in subway tiles, and two-hour-waits, and waiters who squat next to tables declaring that their name is Rob. (One of the nicest things about going out to dinner in London is never having to hear the words, “And what are we having tonight?”). New Yorkers, remember, choose to live on a island with 8.4 million citizens and, basically, one park. They are masochists of a sort. And, so, they miss their cramped, obnoxious restaurants, even as they are relieved to have escaped them. They continually wish there were more New-York-style restaurants like Polpo or Tiny Robot in London, but they never want to go to Polpo or Tiny Robot – unless it’s after 10.30pm, when everything else is shut – because they’re too much like New York (forget taxes and toh-mah-toes, those early closings are this New Yorker’s biggest beef with the expatriate life). London restaurants can seem creepily civilised. Nobody’s pushing you at the bar before you get a table; nobody’s pushing you out once you do. 

In London, a restaurant is a place to eat. One seeks the best meal. In New York, a restaurant is a theatre. One seeks the best show. It’s the lack of buzz and gimmickry that makes London restaurants both a delight and a drag for the exiled Yank. Sunday in a pub: what is it all those people are reading? Newspapers – mere props at Balthazar. (If you want to read the New York Times at brunch, you stay home with a bagel.) 

But although London is all about the food, other than pubs there are bewilderingly few places that occupy the middle ground between a curry and caviar. Where are the casual but lovingly wrought neighbourhood spots that are not Carluccio’s, where one can have a £10-or-so plate of butternut squash ravioli and a good martini and call it a night? We will not dwell long on the subject of London pubs, gastro or otherwise, which are delightful, and clearly superior to any attempt at recreating them on American shores. But where are the Mexican restaurants? Do you know what you’re missing out on? The indifference that the British people evince to quesadillas and fajitas is as befuddling, and as shameful, to the American mind as if someone told you he had never had a chicken tikka masala.

But then, a few days ago, I had dinner at Brawn on Columbia Road, where you can enjoy oysters and lardo and raw Tuscan beef and good wine and soft cheese, and have a lot of fun for about £30 a person. Brawn is pretty loud. It’s open late. If it’s a New York-style restaurant, I’ll take London.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink