What the experts recommend
Alchemilla 1126 Argyle Street, Glasgow (0141-337 6060) On Argyle Street, Glasgow’s “intriguing independent bistros gather in flocks”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. If you’re visiting the city and don’t know where to eat out, head to this stretch and “windowshop the menus”. If you can’t find something that appeals from the range on offer, that is “your fault, not theirs”. At the “seriously good” Alchemilla, there are “high ceilings, tattoos, a beard or two” – and head chef Rosie Healey, whose training with Yotam Ottolenghi has clearly served her well. On the menu there’s an outstanding dish of roasted cauliflower dressed with zhoug, a spiced Yemeni herb sauce, and sprinkled with a salty hit of black olives and “the sweet-soft of raisins”. There’s also a beautifully cooked globe artichoke that comes with a generous dish of thickly emulsified vinaigrette for dipping – “one of food’s great, consuming pleasures”. A flavourful cut of onglet is cleverly paired with clams, and a pud of flourless chocolate and walnut cake is “intense and serious”. This is not “intricate or precise” cookery; it is merely “fabulous to eat” and “hugely satisfying”. Meal for two, about £30-£70.
Bright 1 Westgate Street, London E8 (020-3095 9407)
The kitchen at Bright in London Fields – “Brit/italian with a Japanese aesthetic” – produces “hit after hit”, says Tim Hayward in the FT. And the vibe, which somehow combines a “savage work ethic” with the “laid-backness” of the truly confident, is “completely seductive”. A plate of roasted duck hearts is served with a homemade XO sauce with “just enough fishy funk” to balance the meat. A “platoon” of grilled scarlet prawns are perfectly cooked and astonishingly fresh. “I think if I’d talked to them with enough sympathy, they’d have perked up and scuttled away.” There’s a “juicy, marbled” Swaledale pork chop, and a brilliant and bang-on-trend bowl of what I think of as a “wet salad” – a “melange” of chopped raw scallop and strongly flavoured celery served with an invigorating apple vinegar-based broth. “It’s clean tasting, lets every ingredient speak, and if I could have got them to sell me a bottle of the stuff, I’d have spiked it with gin for the trip home.” Starters from £6; mains from £11.
Noma Refshalevej 96, 1432 Copenhagen K, Denmark (noma.dk)
The new, relocated incarnation of Noma, reopened by René Redzepi after a year’s hiatus, is “part-commune, part-cult” and a “philosophy made edible”, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. “It’s also a damned good place to have lunch.” With lots of pale wood and clean lines, the room is “stealthwealth rustic” – “Nordic farmhouse” as if built by an eco-billionaire. The food is still “once-in-a-lifetime” great, but with fewer “cheffy flourishes and culinary tricks”, and more “pared-down purity”. A sea snail broth, sipped from the shell, is “silken and lusciously rich”. Vibrant trout roe, arranged like a starfish, “explodes exuberantly” in the mouth, with shards of dried plum skin in egg yolk sauce. On and on we go: wild oyster, “meaty and marvellous”; king crab cooked in seaweed, the “very essence of full fathom five profundity”. As an expression of Nordic terroir, Noma is “unparalleled. But as a paean to the pleasures of eating, it’s out of this bloody world.” Set menu costs £265.