Mado Restaurant

Mado Restaurant has created quite a buzz with its farmer friendly approach to cooking and they could not have emphasized it better had the interior taken centre stage. The sparsely decorated dining area with exposed brick walls, wooden floors, high ceilings and soft lighting shifts focus on to the real thing, a blackboard listed menu giving farms the rightful credit due to them.

The kitchen sends out some remarkable dishes such as roasted carrots with spiced pistachios and red wine braised calamari with olives and pickled sweet peppers. This could be followed by a hanger steak with gorgonzola polenta, tagliatelle with braised lamb and ricotta salata or rainbow trout with roasted celery root, farro and walnuts. Desserts include apple and almond crisp with whipped crème fraîche and chocolate panna cotta with candied hazelnuts.

Charcuterie plates, a daily collection of homemade meats, come on a piggy shaped board - truly they can't get closer to nature than this.