What the experts recommend

The Cat’s Pyjamas 9 Eastgate, Leeds (0113-234 0454; and there’s another branch in Headingley)

The Cat’s Pyjamas is doing a roaring trade serving vibrant Indian street food and an excellent range of craft beers. An assured operation, it feels “rollout ready”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. And why not? “If they can keep the standards up, most high streets would be happy to have one of these.” Whole tandoor-roasted sea bream – slicked with lemongrass and chilli; ginger and lime bashed into its “bubbled and blackened” skin – is a bargain at £10.95. “Brilliant” pani puri puff-pastry balls are perfectly crisp and filled with spiced potato, onion and tamarind chutney. The tandoori mixedgrill marinade has a “serious kick” to it. Keema matar (a sweet stew of ground lamb with ginger, garlic, crisped onions and fresh peas) I find slightly too loose and sweet – and yet, by the end, it seems I’ve eaten most of it by myself. Funny, that. And a Yorkshire cheese naan is “filth”, in a good way. Meal for two, including drinks and service, about £60.

Westerns Laundry 34 Drayton Park, London N5 (020-7700 3700)

I felt immediately at home in this “spacious, industrial yet warmly elegant” new seafood restaurant, hiding behind birch trees on a residential strip in Highbury, says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard. And with regards to chef David Gingell’s food, let me “state plainly that this was one of 2017’s great dinners”. The cuttlefish croquettes were “good at an obscene, semi-evil level”; hot, crisp, “prettily noir, with a sucker punch of the sea”. Simple grilled mackerel came with a slick of miso, chilli and spring onion, alongside a plate of first-rate paleta Ibérico. A plate of white beans with basil, courgette and chard is “matched beautifully” with exemplary salt cod. And for a week after eating it, I “pondered the splendour of the turbot”, which is served in a soupy semi-stew of ginger and seaweed. “This is how cooking is supposed to be when restaurateurs declare they’ll just be cooking what’s fresh that day.” In sum: “remarkable”. We spent £116 on a large meal with a few glasses of wine.