Petersham Nurseries Cafe

Perhaps not altogether surprising that the hottest lunch ticket in Surrey just now seems to be in a garden centre. Scarcity value may have something to with it since the Petersham Nurseries Café opens from 12.30 to 3 pm, Thursdays to Sundays - only. And woe betide you if you're not there at the booked time. It's not just a slapped wrist, as likely as not it's no lunch as well. But you can see their point, and they have a business to run. So allow a bit of extra time, because it is well worth the visit, whether you want some more begonias or a new pair of secateurs, but most particularly for the meal.

Lunch is served at a variety of pleasantly rustic and assorted tables in the conservatories. The anything but subdued chatter is of gardening, up to a point, but anything goes. A relatively simple menu is used by Skye Gyngell of Sydney chef-dom fame, not to say the columns of Vogue, to encourage the gardening buffs and their extended families, or frankly anyone looking for a good meal in slightly unusual surroundings, to come along.

It would be fair to say that the dishes on offer are directed more at the diet and health conscious than those seeking a square meal, an observation which is intended as a compliment, and is clearly popular with the clientele. Whatever you order you may rest assured is prepared to perfection, served with panache at a table that would be a credit to a top class London hotel. The menu follows the market and the seasons and is never the same from one day to the next.

A well-constructed wine list does credit to the chef at prices which are marginally less steep than the food, but then perfection always costs a little more.

Jeremy Wayne writing in The Guardian suggests that the Petersham Nurseries Café is the River Café and an English country garden rolled into one, a very apt summary.