What the experts recommend

Swan at Shakespeare’s Globe 21 New Globe Walk, London SE1 (020-7928 9444) Restaurants mainly aimed at the tourist trade are not usually “beacons of gastronomic pilgrimage”, says Marina O’loughlin in The Guardian. It tends to be that they think it’s “job done if they can send folk out without actively poisoning them”. But the recently revamped Swan, on Bankside – which has mullion-windowed views of St Paul’s on one side; marble-topped tables and grey velvet sofas on the other – has persuaded the acclaimed chef Allan Pickett to run the show. The result is food that is “way too good for just tourists”. Pea and shallot tortellini was a “hefty, satisfying bruiser”. A butch terrine of pork and chicken oozed classy French technique, with its rhubarb compote speaking “fluent Franglais”. Roast hake was “perfectly pearlescent and squeaky fresh”. But a rhubarb crumble tart was the highlight: the fruit “sweetsharp”, the pastry “impossibly light”, and the crumble “celestially” good. We were “enchanted”. About £35 a head, plus drinks and service.

The Five Bells Inn Clyst Hydon, Cullompton, Devon (01884-277288) Broadly speaking, there are two types of pudding, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “The light sort, which revives you, and the heavy, which eases you gently in the direction of a long and satisfying slumber.” At the 16th century Five Bells Inn, a “pretty little pub restaurant” in Devon, my wife went for the former, a dark chocolate mousse, while I went for the sleepy kind: a sticky toffee pudding that was warm and thick and sticky as syrup, topped with sumptuous West Country cream. When I open my own restaurant, there will be beds for diners to collapse on at the end of the meal. Here, I made do with the lawn – and wallowed in the “sheer glorious aimlessness of a country afternoon, miles from worry”. The rest of the unpretentious British food was very decent too: corned beef hash, a main of duck (I could have done with a bigger portion), and a “deliciously melty” grilled goat’s cheese salad. “It’s the location that makes it,” though. Three courses for two, about £60, plus drinks.

Radici 30 Almeida Street, London N1 (020-7354 4777) I’ve complained recently that too few restaurants have serious dessert menus, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. But Radici, a brilliant and astonishingly goodvalue modern Italian in Islington, boasts a cracker. There’s an almond cake with mixed berries, a Marsala tiramisu with a radical crunchy base and, best of all, a proper syrup-drenched rum baba flavoured with bergamot. “Whorls of cream, topped with crumbled pistachios, soothe the sweetness. I spoon it away and like all the plates here, it goes back empty.” Chef Francesco Mazzei (known for L’anima and Sartoria) has always been wildly brilliant, but never before has he been good value. That rum baba was just £7. A “primi” dish of taglierini, fagioli and pancetta (thin ribbon pasta, white beans and bacon) is £8 – and it all comes in a “dense, starchy broth of such intensity and such conviction, you could be forgiven for thinking your very soul is lost somewhere in its depths”. “Lucky us…” Meal for two, including drinks and service, £40-£120.