What the experts recommend
Claude Bosi at Bibendum Michelin House, 81 Fulham Road, Chelsea, London SW3 (020-7581 5817)
Claude Bosi, who has taken over at this Chelsea stalwart, has held Michelin stars for the past 17 years, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “Soon, I suspect, he’ll have another.” For the cookery here is highly Michelin-friendly: “exquisite, subtle, technically exemplary”, but also somehow “evanescent. It’s there, and then suddenly it’s gone, in a couple of mouthfuls, before you’ve properly got to grips with it.” Before our starters arrived, we were presented with no fewer than six amuse-bouches – from “an olive that exploded like a grenade the moment it touched the tongue, to an ice-cream cone the size of your pinkie”. Our starters of veal sweetbread and duck jelly were themselves “tiny, expensive (the duck jelly alone cost £38) and painstakingly ornate”. They were also very tasty. For the mains, Somerset kid was juicy, and Cornish turbot “meltingly lovely” – but again, “so fleeting”. Don’t come here for a slap-up feast. Do come for a special occasion with someone you want to impress. Three courses for two, about £150, plus drinks.
Koj 3 Regent Street, Cheltenham (01242-580455) After making it to the Masterchef final five years ago, Andrew Kojima gave up his career in the City, and began learning a new trade via stints everywhere from The Ledbury to Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. Now, courtesy of “some crowdfunded dosh”, he has opened his own place, in Cheltenham, serving the kind of Japanese comfort food he ate at home (he is half-british, halfJapanese). The vibe is “cheerfully lowkey”; the food mostly first-rate. The young teens I am dining with “fall in love with small bowls of buttery garlic rice at £2 a pop, the surface decorated with a tangle of spring onions”, and with “Koj Fried Chicken” with sesame-flavoured mayo. Fillets of lemon sole, served with a butter punched up with ground-down seaweed, are “real gems”, and a side of purple sprouting broccoli has “vigour and class”. The only disappointment is some notfluffy-enough hirata buns. Overall, though, this is a “slick and confident operation”, run by a team that clearly “knows what it’s doing”. Meal for two, including drinks and service, £60.
The Game Bird The Stafford London, St James’s Place SW1 (020-7518 1234) James Durrant’s new restaurant in The Stafford London is “British Brasserie Deluxe”, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. The vast menu takes a “greedily picaresque tour” around the British Isles, from Orkney scallop to Cornish cod, via Lincolnshire eel, Norfolk black turkey and Devon crab. The room – “unashamedly decadent”, with its lashings of marble, mahogany, brass and leather – doesn’t so much “whisper money as lustily and throatily purr it”. There is even an ageing chamber built into one of the walls, displaying “handsome hunks of beef. Meat ageing as spectator sport. Who knew?” Venison tartare is beautifully cut, generous and punchy. Smoked eel with a “snowy pile” of horseradish crème fraîche is exceptional. Oysters Rockefeller are “impossible to resist”. And the steak and ale suet pudding “would make even the most trenchant of trenchermen groan with delight”. This place is a class act. Lunch for two, about £100.