140 Park Lane Restaurant & Bar

It's not every day that a new restaurant opens on Park Lane, and 140 Park Lane Restaurant and Bar at the London Marriott Hotel Park Lane brings a delightfully fresh approach to this exclusive avenue.

Accommodation there is of a high order, with 157 spacious and elegant air conditioned guest rooms with luxury bedding. Executive rooms and all suites have a sofa bed in each room; Club Rooms and Executive rooms are given access to the Executive Lounge. The Marriott bedding package includes luxury cotton bedding, down mattress topper and duvets. Minibars, cable-satellite TV, separate tubs and showers, bathrobes are only some of the host of amenities that you would expect - and will - find in this superb hotel.

The modern British-European menu at 140 Park Lane has been praised by the Square Meal Guide for its 'craftsmanship' and 'artistic flair'. Be sure to arrive early to sample the Bruised Apple - their exclusive, signature cocktail.

A novelty at 140 is the open plan kitchen, not normally a feature of a restaurant of this quality, but none the less welcome, bringing a sense of involvement as well as heightened interest. Equally welcome is the fine wine display, creating an image that can hardly be anything other than tempting.

Sunday brunch is an institution at 140, with a menu that would not disgrace a decent brasserie and then some. Starters of chicken Caesar salad with fresh chicken breast strips, anchovies and croutons, smoked salmon accompanied by minced onions and capers, or potato salad crumbled with crispy bacon and spring onions, precede a good variety of main dishes of which the undoubted champion is the Sunday roast beef.

The à la carte menu opens up a range of dishes that demonstrate only too clearly the versatility of the team, with starters of guinea fowl consommé with winter vegetables and rosemary oil, and crab and prawn cakes with apple and fennel slaw, garlic spinach roasted pepper remoulade and petite salad, to name but a few.

The growth of sea bass as a leading menu item has been part of the fall out of over-fishing, and though line-caught fish can still be had, most are now farmed, and make a very sound meal, Usually baked it is served here with lemon and dill cream. Roast rack of lamb is another popular dish, the culinary equivalent of a 'safe pair of hands' and the accompaniment of glazed onions and asparagus is traditional.

Penne with grilled chicken artichokes, courgettes and tarragon cream is a step towards vegetarianism, but you can go the whole way with goat's cheese gnocchi garden peas and beetroot, a dish rich in flavour contrast and interest. Going to the other end of the scale, the dish that no self respecting menu could be without, here in 10oz form the 100% grain fed Angus, served with Marriott steak butter.

The beauty of somewhere like 140 is its ability to provide contrast, both in food and setting, so that a restaurant which is never far from the benefits of traditionalism can still hold hands comfortably with one of the most up to date and well run hotels in the world's greatest city. Their Website should help to prove this to you.