Abingdon, The

The Abingdon's smart and elegant interior boasting dark wooden floors, cream walls and comfortable sofas, attracts an equally elegant crowd through its doors. On the menu you'll find a whole host of international flavours in the form of char-grilled swordfish with pak choi and ginger dressing, or a flavoursome fillet of beef with roast tomato and truffle mash, all at around the £12 mark. The undoubted star of the desserts though is the decadent sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream, a real must.

Reviewed by Linda Buttle

Formerly a backwater pub, just off the busy shopping area of High Street Kensington, this place has a lot to recommend it. It is quite obviously the haunt of locals - there is even a well known actor who seems to spend quite a bit of his time propping up their bar

Fortunately, unlike so many former pubs, it still retains a popular bar area, but concentrates more on being a restaurant. It is one of our most regular haunts in London, as we have never had anything other than a quite superb meal every time we have been there, and the bill seems to be surprisingly reasonable also.

The menu is sensibly short, but the selection is genuinely tempting, and we have always found that the quality of product is excellent for the price; tuna and swordfish are fresh and handled extremely competently, sensibly they always ask you how you want it cooked.

I used to recommend that you stuck to their excellent house wines, as the others were a bit expensive. But recently the range has been extended and vastly improved, with a wonderfully fragrant New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at under £20, good value, or the excellent Sauvignon de Touraine from Paul Buisse at even less.

Richard Bradford