Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

A short walk from Belsize Park tube and an appetite enhancing stroll from Hampstead Heath, Paradiso offers an extensive selection of homemade Italian food including a childrens' menu. The interior features bright colours, contemporary seating and a traditional feel, taking you back in time to a bygone era and the service is friendly and non-intrusive. The venue makes for an ideal spot for meeting friends or colleagues at lunch, or an intimate dinner with your loved one.

The menu includes both traditional and inventive dishes offering something for even the most discerning palate. Specialities here include dishes such as tonno e fagioli - tuna, onions, beans, and eggs salad, smoked salmon with capers and red onions, risotto de verdure - rice, aubergine, courgette, red and green peppers, and garlic king prawn. On the dessert section don't be surprised to find tiramisu and hot chocolate cake, and you might just want to finish your meal with a glass of Vin Santo dessert wine.

An interesting Japanese takeaway concept has quickly blossomed into one of London's latest and most enticing dining destinations. The Me Love Sushi group operates three 'Sushi To Go' outlets, and has opened its first restaurant with a champagne and sake bar in Swiss Cottage.

You could call it a sushi takeaway or delivery but Me Love Sushi prefers to call their service Sushi To Go, which involves placing orders directly from their website, or making a simple phone call to enjoy the exotic delicacy in the comfort of your home or office.

Stop visualising conveyor belts and food appearing before you as if by magic because the Me Love Sushi restaurant experience is more relaxed yet stylish and sophisticated.

Some decisions in life are not too difficult to take, especially if all your options present you with a chance to enjoy great food. All you need to do is to choose between the 'Sushi To Go' free delivery service, or visit their restaurant and bar to sample dishes that are taking the city by storm.

The contemporary dining room provides customers with a choice of two seating areas, on chic wooden benches and communal tables that are perfect for groups of friends, or on dining chairs at smaller tables for a more romantic mealtime.

Brothers Andrew and Jonathan Perritt, owners of The Stag, serve the people of NW3 through a public house that has been a part of Fleet Road for almost a century. It recently opened its doors as a carefully refurbished gastropub with a lovely garden that promises to be among North London's best.

The restaurant presents classic pub food with an affable modern twist, and places special emphasis on seafood, Sunday roasts, and fantastic handmade burgers. Starters of six rock oysters with shallot and red wine vinegar butter and brown bread, or homemade chicken liver parfait make a suitable foundation for roast Scottish Highland lamb neck fillet stuffed with baby spinach, garlic, rosemary and pine nuts, or the jambalaya risotto with chorizo, prawns, peppers, and peas.

The bar, with its cosy leather and wood interior, is a great place to relax over fine wines, classic bourbons and single malts, cask ales, beers, and spirits, while the garden offers heated and covered areas and cabanas that can be hired for parties.

For over 25 years Don Pepe has provided an authentic Spanish ambience in London. The bar displays a variety of tapas, and beyond the bar there is a subtly lit, comfortable restaurant, offering an extensive a la carte menu. There is live music every evening from 20:00, Monday to Saturday.

Pizza Express remains a hugely popular bedrock of casual eating. Its popularity is testimony to the fact that across the country, they have restaurants where you will always be guaranteed a good nosh, with children's tastes being well catered for.

Pizza Express has gone even more Roman, and following the success of that particular example of listening to their public have introduced Romana pizzas, including the scorching Etna and the hearty Siciliana.

These pizzas are now thinner, bigger and crispier, and if that sounds like a marketing line, it is. However, unlike many such lines, this one is true, and their quality is always consistent, though cleverly they have still managed to retain a homemade feel to their pizzas.

As an alternative to pizza, try their pollo pesto - cavatappi pasta with torn chicken breast, mushrooms, red onions and mozzarella in a creamy gruyere, parmesan and pesto sauce and finished with grana padano - or the niçoise salad with mixed leaves, yellowfin tuna, free range egg, green beans, potatoes and tomatoes with olives, anchovies, capers and house dressing.

Many of the big chains have come a long way, and Pizza Express is certainly amongst them. One of the first to be quoted on the Stock Exchange - in 1993 - Pizza Express is not a franchise operation and retains tight control through its own staff.

Their wine list - though short - contains some surprisingly good offerings, especially their intense Australian Chardonnay, and a big, full-bodied Merlot from Cusumano, Sicilia.

It was back in 1971 when the team first got together, Gids wanted to open a bar,  but the team talked him into becoming an international rock god with the rest of them instead. "he MonkeyNuts" took Crouch End by storm, when "Monkey See Monkey Do" shot straight to number 27 in charts the same year. But times change, and so, 34 years, 20 albums and 60 changes of musical direction later, the team finally listened to Gids and returned to their spiritual home to open Monkeynuts, the bar and steakhouse they had dreamed about years ago.

The kitchen doesn't monkey around with your food and offers simply cooked dishes using fresh and local ingredients. Loaded potato skins with crispy bacon and sour cream topped with spring onions, sticky beef ribs with smokey bbq sauce, and falafel and haloumi burger are some of the offerings on the extensive menu.