Cookbook Cafe

Now here's one with a real difference. Cookbook Cafe is located at the InterContinental in Park Lane, and is designed as a venue for aspiring chefs and sommeliers. There is an extensive programme of wine and food tastings, book launches, drinks master classes, cooking demonstrations and roundtable discussions, many attended by renowned visiting chefs, all bound into the normal day to day business of a chef's restaurant.

A library of over 200 original cookbooks embraces volumes that are rare antiques to bang-slap up to date collections. Unlike other restaurants, cooking stations are located centrally enabling the artisan chefs to demonstrate their skills whilst gaining valuable feedback from the customers, if their attention can be gained from observing the goings on in Hyde Park through the large windows. I doubt if London, or anywhere else for that matter, has ever seen anything quite so innovative in its class as Cookbook Cafe.

As with most things here there is a tendency to take life as it comes, with flexibility the key word. A typical menu du jour might start with the market table and soup of the day, say pan-fried squid salad with ginger and chilli and light pea and mint soup, followed by stewed Devon mussels served with braised fennel and plum tomatoes or herb steamed pork fillet medallions with parmesan risotto.

However, the highlight of the week is without doubt Sunday Brunch from 12:00 to 4:00pm, a ritual almost as sacred in the minds of some as church services in the vicinity. Like other forms of cuisine that shall remain nameless the scope for originality is a bit limited, though it's not everywhere that you see orange and poppy seed waffles with berries and honey butter on the menu. Breakfast is served from 6.30 to 11.00 am it embraces most of the much-loved favourites, including eggs Benedict or Florentine, the heart-stopping traditional fry-up, and even a healthy continental breakfast.

A wine list that offers a good selection by the glass including champagne, and has some incredibly interesting contributions from the world over, which should bring a glint to the eyes of aspiring or fully paid up sommeliers and diners alike.

Cookbook Cafe's Website takes the form of a blog, and makes fascinating reading - don't miss it, a veritable ongoing mine of information, opinion and experience for anybody who takes food and wine at all seriously.