What the experts recommend
Food House 46 Gerrard Street, London W1 (020-7287 2818)
For many years, 46 Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown was home to an “extremely reliable Cantonese place called Harbour City”, to which I’d often take my sons, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. From the website Eater London, I recently learnt that it’s now a Sichuan restaurant, and one of the “trendiest” places to eat in central London. Naturally, I booked right away – and discovered that while the carpets are the same, it has turned into a “very different type of restaurant”. Big, bold Sichuan flavours predominate – all that “thrilling, chilli and numbing peppercorn hullabaloo”. Skewers of lamb kidney arrive in a “cloak of crisp fat”. Pan-fried pork and cabbage dumplings “leak their juices down my chin”. There’s a whole seabass to share, which has been “plunged into a bath of chilli oil” and arrives “bobbing” with dried chillies, lotus root and garlic. This isn’t food that’s “simple to eat” – but it’s certainly “a lot of fun”. I’m grateful that “I have a great reason, at last, to return to 46 Gerrard Street”. Starters £5.80-£9.80; large dishes £9.80-£24.80.
Holm 28 St James Street, South Petherton, Somerset (01460-712470)
South Petherton, in south Somerset, is a “honeypot of a parish”, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. At its centre is this “gloriously fine” restaurant, housed in what was until recently a bank (there’s still a cashpoint in the corner). Nicholas Balfe, the chef patron, owns a “small group of highly rated restaurants in south London”, including Salon in Brixton and Levan in Peckham. And as our “impeccable” meal reveals, he knows what he’s doing. The cooking relies on “traditional ingredients”, which have been “heightened with intelligent capability”. I begin with a “light and delicate chicken liver parfait”, before moving on to a fabulous dish of pork loin and belly, “livened” with salsa verde and quince. For pudding, there’s an “outrageously rich chocolate mousse”, tempered with miso-flavoured ice cream. As a meal at Holm confirms, Britain has a growing number of “superb provincial restaurants” which are helping to “elevate” its culinary reputation. Dinner for two, excluding drinks and service: £104.
Jin-Da 1 Studland Street, London W6 (020-8748 2839)
I must have passed this Thai restaurant “a thousand times”, as it’s on a backstreet in Hammersmith that used to be on my school run, said Tom Parker Bowles in the Daily Mail. But I never paid it much attention, assuming it to be yet another “over-Anglicised” Thai. How wrong I was. It turns out that Jin-Da specialises in the food of northern Thailand, where the flavours are “nowhere near as browbeamingly fierce” as in the more familiar cooking typical of the northeast and south.
Nam prik noom – a relish of roasted young green peppers – is “subtle and gentle, almost Mexican in its allure”. Also mild, though never dull, is a “gently sweet” nam prik ong, or shrimp paste with minced pork and tomatoes. Both are dishes you won’t often find in Thai restaurants in Britain. Amazingly, Jin-Da isn’t the only regional Thai restaurant in this part of west London: just around the corner is the excellent 101 Thai Kitchen, specialising in the Isaan cooking of the northeast. About £18 a head.