What the experts recommend

Lahpet 5 Helmsley Place, London E8 (020-3883 5629) The Burmese are coming, says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard. From supper clubs, east London pop-ups and the “wonderful blog” Meemalee, to the “smatterings of Burma” at Som Saa and Kiln – not to mention The Shan State, which sprang up on Shaftesbury Avenue last year, doling out Myanmar fermented green tea salad – Burmese food is where it’s at. In Hackney, Dan Anton’s Maltby Street Market stall, Lahpet, has found a permanent home in Helmsley Place – and a “prettily lit, verdant, inviting” home it is too: it “begs you to come in and peruse the menu”. The Mandalay fritters were thick, satisfying wodges of kidney bean with ginger, and I demolished a bowl of Shan rice noodles with ground chicken thigh, mustard greens and tomato. Best of all was the tea leaf salad ( lahpet thohk) from a Yangon recipe – an “exquisite pile of beans, tomato, chilli and garlic”. Sides of sun-dried anchovies and balachaung (crispy shrimp relish) were “pungent and welcome”. Not everything was perfect (I’d have liked more ginger in my fritter, for example), but I’d definitely go again. Meal for two, about £31.

Holborn Dining Room 252 High Holborn, London WC1 (020-3747 8633) Apologies in advance if this is less a review of a restaurant than of “a single, astonishing work of culinary art”, says Tim Hayward in the FT. But Calum Franklin, head chef at the elegant Holborn Dining Room, is crafting pies that are nothing short of miraculous. “They’ve been all over Instagram for months. Great golden structures, carved, moulded, elaborated with leaves and lattices, crenellated and corniced”, and altogether wondrous. The day I ate there, the pie on the (changing) menu was curried mutton, the meat “slow-cooked to just short of swooning collapse and dry-spiced with warm, bassy aromas”. And though this pie “could perform solo on any stage in London, a separate juglet of curry sauce was delivered alongside”, turning a “brilliant” dish into a “superb” one. Just for the record, they do offer other stuff. The starters were amazing: a “virtuoso” rabbit and bacon en croûte and a “lascivious” lobster thermidor tart. For me, though, it’s all about the pies. I beg you to go and try one for yourself. Starters, £8-£18; mains, mostly £16-£28.

The Tame Hare 97 Warwick Street, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (01926316191)

I went to review The Tame Hare in Leamington Spa after getting an email signed “yours imploringly” from the mother of its young chef, Johnny Mills, says Giles Coren in The Times. I’m glad I did (though other chefs’ mums out there: please don’t write, I’m not making a habit of it). The celeriac soup was aromatic, and its “swirl of wild garlic pesto was a shimmering, punchy” celebration of spring. The smooth, bright quenelle of duck liver parfait was light and sweet, and came with a well-made oblong of confit leg meat and pickled vegetables. The cod, a circular fillet on lentils, was possibly a bit salty for some tastes, but it didn’t bother me; I just drank more of the excellent Marlborough sauvignon from a “brilliant” list of wines for well under £30. “Nice boy, nice family, nice town, nice restaurant.” Set lunch, £20 for three courses.