What the experts recommend

Sugar Boat 30 Colquhoun Square, Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute (01436-647522) “What a lovely place Sugar Boat is,” says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. This “pretty” new bistro, bar and wine shop is “small and unassuming”, but it serves “very good food, at a very reasonable price”. The chef behind it is Will Smith, who won Michelin stars in London for the likes of Arbutus and Wild Honey, and has now decamped with his Scottish wife for the “fresh sea air” of Helensburgh (where the pair first met two decades ago). Starters of white crabmeat with chilled tomato gazpacho and burrata with red cabbage and beetroot chutney are “bright, light and zippily refreshing”. Main of bouillabaisse is “excellent” – with “velvet-smooth cod and hulking, bulky spuds”. Green vegetables are an unexpected highlight: the juiciest of broccoli florets, “shimmering in garlic oil”; and “inexplicably delicious” skinny green beans. As for dessert, my wife reckons her warm chocolate mousse with honeycomb and pecans is simply the “best pudding she’s had in a restaurant”. Three courses for two, about £60 plus drinks.

Tuyo 129a Pritchard’s Road, Haggerston, London E2 (020-7739 2540) My abiding memory of this fantastic, bookable, reasonably-priced new place from Ricardo Pimentel (formerly of Salt Yard) is that “everything arrived with an extra oomph”, says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard: an “oily seductive puddle” here; a “blob of something curiously sweet and sour” there. Sweet and salty croquetas of Spanish blue cheese and dates came with cumin aioli and roasted walnuts, and I could happily have scoffed a dozen. A humble sounding plate of falafel arrived in “a gooey mess of black olive and piquillo tapenade”. Salt cod was rather lovely, too: it came with a garlic potato puree and “festooned in coconut”; while chicken thighs were served with honey-poached apricots. In sum, I loved Tuyo, with its Spanish flavours, Greek mannerisms, “Levantine loveliness and subtle Scandi hints”. “Stick that up your bodywarmer, Aunty Sheila from out of town, who doesn’t hold with this foreign food. This is London: we like our menus to be unashamedly, deliciously mongrel.” A large meal for two was £57.50 plus wine. Il Piccolo Mondo 85 High Street, Bottisham, Cambridge (01223-811434) Il Piccolo Mondo is “that rarest of things”, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday – a “genuinely good Italian restaurant”. It’s housed in a former village Sunday School in Cambridgeshire, and as we tuck into our “robustly executed” Italian regional classics – mixed with the “occasional drizzle” of old-fashioned “Britalian” – I can’t help feeling that “Christianity’s loss is my gain”. Good, chewy bresaola comes with chunks of mango: traditionalists would probably “splutter on their Soave”, but I love the sweet and ripe fruit paired with rich and salty cured meat. Calamari is done just right, in a light batter. Sardines are “fresh and sweet, their silvery skin charred by the grill”. And the pasta dishes are superb: spaghetti alla puttanesca “bolshily sexy”; strozzapreti with veal ragù – slow-cooked and savoury, studded with fresh peas – “simple, but quietly immense”. The only misfire is an underseasoned turbot. Otherwise: “hallelujah”. Lunch for two, £40.