L Restaurant and Bar

L Restaurant and Bar has replaced one of London's landmark restaurants, Trattoo, created originally some forty years ago by the famous theatrical designer Sean Kenny for Mario and Franco, though sadly in recent years it had reached the stage of being rather like a faded elderly lady badly in need of a complete make-over.

I have many happy memories of it, especially as it was where I celebrated at lunchtime on April 18th 1982 after the birth of my second son and the champagne flowed as there were several friends there at the time. The restaurant was packed in those days

Now Eddy and Miranda Lim have transformed the site, with a deft, light touch, and brought it into the modern age, making full use of the long glass roof, and the gallery area, to create the sort of chic space that a trendy diner is looking for.

Service is friendly, from pleasant young staff, while the food is interesting, described as Modern Iberian, you can choose from a sensibly short selection, but with plenty of tempting dishes on it. At lunchtime they have a very reasonable fixed price menu, offering choices such as the soup of the day or chicory and walnut salad with goat's cheese fondant, followed by tagliarini with clams and white wine sauce, or roasted oxtail with chorizo and mashed potatoes. Pudding could be chocolate parfait with caramelised banana.

At £12.75 for two courses or £15 for three, this represents really good value in relation to the quality of the food.

Tapas come in varying forms, as ever; keep a lookout for cream of Jerusalem artichokes with basil cress, marinated mixed olives and cheese stuffed fried olives, a selection of baby beetroots with Torrabala Mahon cheese and walnuts dressing, crispy baby squid with chilli and ginger sauce, Galician-style octopus, and foie gras of duck with fried duck's egg and Pedro Ximenez reduction

Offerings on the main menu might include warm salad of garden vegetable purees with marinated radicchio and pinenuts, zarzuela de Pescado (hake and shellfish Catalonian stew), fillet of sea bass baked in a banana leaf with potatoes, coconut and lime, - Arroz Negro - squid ink risotto with grilled lobster, grilled mini chorizo and morcilla sausages with sautéed potato and fried egg, roasted suckling lamb leg with minted judlon, rib eye steak with French fries, mixed leaf salad and Rioja wine sauce.

Frequently seen puddings are brocheta of ginger cakes with Mediterranean fruit sorbet and lassi froth, baby fennel crumble with orange sauce, or a coconut mousse with mango and lime coulis.

However, the carte changes frequently so you are always assured of something new from which to select.

A well-travelled wine list offers a fair range, few of which break the £25 mark, with a few high fliers included. France features strongly, and one or two bottles around the £20 mark represent particularly fair value; Eddy is clearly a fan of Sauvignon Blanc, so they offer a Sauvignon de Touraine, better than many Sancerres, a Menetou Salon and, my personal favourite, the Mansion House from New Zealand.

With luck they will succeed in re-establishing the place as somewhere that Londoners will flock to and bring back the memories of the old glory days there, certainly they deserve to succeed.

The menu is constantly changing so do check on their Website for up to date news.