Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

The Coat and Badge is a sizeable Edwardian building, named in honour of a rowing race, 'Doggets Coat and Badge' which dates back to 17th century. The pub is very friendly and intimate, with a wonderful atmosphere, especially during the week.

At the weekends it does get quite busy, particularly on a hot day, in the huge and much admired beer garden. The ground floor seats circa 80 indoors and 60 outdoors, while the pub also features a function room/private dining room which seats up to 30 people.

To gain further information, just visit their extremely comprehensive Website.

The Fish and Grill in Putney follows its namesake in Croydon with chef owner Malcolm John continuing to do what he does best. Freshly prepared seafood with a choice of grilled steaks is served in a laid back cozy ambience with dark wood furniture and leather upholstery, perfect for an enjoyable evening with family and friends. Al fresco dining on the terrace can accommodate up to 30 guests. The Fish and Grill is a 7-minute walk from Putney Rail Station.

Diners are greeted by a fresh fish bar showcasing a wide ranging selection sourced from the South Coast and Cornwall. Rare-bred meats and the free-range poultry offer delicious alternatives for lunch or dinner. The meal could open with starters of salt cod fritters served with crushed pea aioli, Dorset crab with mayonnaise, whitebait with aioli or Carlingford oysters. The potted fish selection offers smoked mackerel with toast and breakfast radish, curried shrimps with gem lettuce and Cornish gurnard with citrus, toast and Waldorf salad.

Alternatives to fish and seafood starters include a Natoora Italian charcuterie board and English asparagus with soft boiled duck egg and hollandaise as well as salads beetroot with goat?s curd, pickled walnut and wild mushrooms and endive with honey and grain mustard.

After the appetizing beginning to the meal you could follow up with mains of grilled Cornish lobster, pan roast skate with capers and samphire, whole grilled crab with garlic chilli and ginger butter, beer battered haddock with pea purée and pea ravioli with mint butter and aged parmesan. The grilled selection includes a succulent Aberdeen Angus fillet steak on the bone, veal chop with lemon and marjoram, Southdown lamb cutlets and Chateaubriand for two with roasted bone marrow, all served with triple cooked chips and béarnaise or pepper sauce.

If you feel like going with the set menu then you could dine on starters of squid tempura with tartar sauce, leek and potato soup with smoked fish or salad of watercress, with endives, brae-burn apple, beetroot and grain mustard. For mains try aged rump steak with dripping chips, whole grilled Cornish plaice with clams and monks beard or house burger made with hand diced Angus beef, blue cheese or cheddar and bacon or jerk seasoning.

A children's menu offers the little ones dishes such as grilled maize fed chicken with mash potato and cooking juices, fish fingers with tartar sauce and green beans or broccoli and tomato, basil and mozzarella fettuccine.

To gain further information, just visit their extremely comprehensive Website.

Strada describes itself as 'a group of stylish, contemporary Italian restaurants, serving good quality, simple and freshly prepared dishes'. The statement sums up what this group of around seventy restaurants offers to people looking for good Italian food. The first outlet opened in Battersea in 1999 and their clientele has been increasing steadily ever since.

Though Strada has grown into a fair sized group, each outlet retains the feel of being a local neighbourhood Italian restaurant. The menu includes pastas, risottos, salads, and fish dishes, but they are best known for their quality pizzas.

They present authentic Italian dishes in contemporary surroundings and aim to use only the freshest and finest ingredients, such as Luganica sausages, Parma ham and buffalo mozzarella, imported from Italy to provide exactly the kind of rustic, traditional dishes one would expect to find travelling around its regions.

A meal could kick off with zuppa vongole e fregola, a traditional clam soup with Sardinian fregola pasta grains, wine, chilli and parsley, served with bread, or the delicious sautéed king prawns with garlic, white wine, chilli, and lemon butter served with your choice of bread.

Move on to their creamy risotto verdure, freshly grilled asparagus, broad beans, peas, spring onions, zucchini, green beans, white wine and mint, finished with baby spinach leaves. Or you could opt for the healthier, tagliolini nero granchio, black cuttlefish ink pasta with crab, courgette, red and yellow peppers, spring onion, and a hint of chilli and parsley. A real treat for the taste buds comes in the form of the bistecca manzo, a 10oz rosemary-marinated char-grilled, rib-eye steak with fries and fresh rocket.

A range of pizzas, all spun by hand, is an integral feature of each restaurant. They include the rossa, with spicy southern Italian salami, roasted red peppers, chilli, caramelised onion, garlic, fresh oregano, tomato and mozzarella. Nor are vegetarians are overlooked, and can be found tucking into dishes such as fiorentina, made of spinach cooked with garlic, nutmeg and black pepper with mozzarella, parmesan, tomato and an egg.

For those wanting to satisfy their sweet tooth, there is torroncino affogato, an iced nougat semi freddo with a shot of espresso to pour over, or a classic Italian tiramisu and, as you might expect coffee to round off the meal.

A wine list consisting of purely regional Italian wines, beers and liqueurs, all carefully chosen to complement the menu comes as no surprise and in addition, every table receives a complimentary bottle of purified water.

For further details including their latest news, menus and deals, and to find a Strada nearest to you, their Website certainly warrants a visit.

Strada describes itself as 'a group of stylish, contemporary Italian restaurants, serving good quality, simple and freshly prepared dishes'. The statement sums up what this group of around seventy restaurants offers to people looking for good Italian food. The first outlet opened in Battersea in 1999 and their clientele has been increasing steadily ever since.

Though Strada has grown into a fair sized group, each outlet retains the feel of being a local neighbourhood Italian restaurant. The menu includes pastas, risottos, salads, and fish dishes, but they are best known for their quality pizzas.

They present authentic Italian dishes in contemporary surroundings and aim to use only the freshest and finest ingredients, such as Luganica sausages, Parma ham and buffalo mozzarella, imported from Italy to provide exactly the kind of rustic, traditional dishes one would expect to find travelling around its regions.

A meal could kick off with zuppa vongole e fregola, a traditional clam soup with Sardinian fregola pasta grains, wine, chilli and parsley, served with bread, or the delicious sautéed king prawns with garlic, white wine, chilli, and lemon butter served with your choice of bread.

Move on to their creamy risotto verdure, freshly grilled asparagus, broad beans, peas, spring onions, zucchini, green beans, white wine and mint, finished with baby spinach leaves. Or you could opt for the healthier, tagliolini nero granchio, black cuttlefish ink pasta with crab, courgette, red and yellow peppers, spring onion, and a hint of chilli and parsley. A real treat for the taste buds comes in the form of the bistecca manzo, a 10oz rosemary-marinated char-grilled, rib-eye steak with fries and fresh rocket.

A range of pizzas, all spun by hand, is an integral feature of each restaurant. They include the rossa, with spicy southern Italian salami, roasted red peppers, chilli, caramelised onion, garlic, fresh oregano, tomato and mozzarella. Nor are vegetarians are overlooked, and can be found tucking into dishes such as fiorentina, made of spinach cooked with garlic, nutmeg and black pepper with mozzarella, parmesan, tomato and an egg.

For those wanting to satisfy their sweet tooth, there is torroncino affogato, an iced nougat semi freddo with a shot of espresso to pour over, or a classic Italian tiramisu and, as you might expect coffee to round off the meal.

A wine list consisting of purely regional Italian wines, beers and liqueurs, all carefully chosen to complement the menu comes as no surprise and in addition, every table receives a complimentary bottle of purified water.

For further details including their latest news, menus and deals, and to find a Strada nearest to you, their Website certainly warrants a visit.

With quality food, friendly staff, quick service and excellent value for money, Nando's is a great place to eat. Don't expect identikit, pre-fab restaurant interiors which are usually a staple of the larger chains; each restaurant is tailored to its local surroundings and customers, offering up a unique restaurant experience to go with the equally unique taste of legendary, Portuguese, Peri-Peri chicken.

Your peri-peri chicken, when the chips are down so to speak, is a fresh A grade chicken that has never seen the inside of a freezer, but having made the supreme sacrifice is butterfly-cut, marinated for 24 hours in a secret brew called - you've guessed - peri-peri, and is then cooked to your choice over an open flame.

There are, of course, many variations on this broad theme, numerous plays on words such as Nando's experi-perience, peri-peri good reasons why you should eat at a Nando's' and all one hopes is that for their sake chicken never goes out of fashion. New Nando's are opening all the time, peri-peri quickly in fact, the spicy bastes become hotter and more daring, and the full platter offers a whole chicken, large chips or spicy rice and Nando's salad or coleslaw.

Since chickens are vegetarian it seems logical you can order veggie or bean burgers and patties, and still feel the heat from the peppers. All in all, Nando's is hotly recommended for those occasions when you have a large following of permanently hungry children, or adults even, to keep happy - the only thing taken really seriously is the quality of those peri-peri good chickens.

Nando's is a place for bright people who love to laugh and love to eat, and is guaranteed to spice up your taste buds. Their fun approach to life means that when you visit Nando's you can fully relax without the airs and graces associated with more starchy dining out.

For the location of your nearest Nando's restaurant and a host of details about menus, parties and drinks, a click on their Website will reveal a Pandora's box of information.

Slug and Lettuce has a chain of almost a hundred bars spread across the country sharing a common love of serving down to earth, undemanding food and drink.

The group prides itself on offering dishes prepared using quality ingredients, and you should be attended on by attentive staff in a safe, welcoming and cheerful environment. The Slugs have something for anyone - breakfast for a lively start to the day, lunch for busy people, family meals or even a relaxing glass of wine to bring a tiring day to an end - all in a variety of modern and stylish settings.

The menu features old time English favourites such as Gloucestershire Old Spot sausages in buttered mash or fish pie made with Dartmouth smokehouse haddock, in a Devon cream and leek sauce, although dishes look to Europe and further afield to Asia for inspiration. A good way to start the enjoyment is by sharing platters of Southern fried chicken breast pieces, crispy potato wedges, garlic ciabatta strips, half a rack of BBQ pork ribs, wasabi vegetables with onion rings or some Greek mezze

Hearty steak pies, Thai curry with sticky jasmine rice or butternut squash with goats' cheese lasagne are amongst the more popular main dishes. Sandwiches or wraps - warm tortilla with chicken and Parmesan or aromatic duck in plum sauce - provide for those who prefer something lighter. They also serve burgers as well as tempting salads like salmon, asparagus or tomato and mozzarella. For children they have good old British standby sausage and mash, or pepper pasta and ketchup among other choices, all of which never fail to delight, particularly as some of them seem to have come out of a certain celebrity chef's Book of Forbidden Dishes.

Desserts appear in the form of raspberry biscotti, hot chocolate pudding or a creamy strawberry cheesesake. The wine list is well compiled and substantial. There are not less than seven French, three from Italy and some from Spain, Chile, Australia as well as New Zealand. Slug and Lettuce can cater for events including birthday parties, fashion shows, hen nights, wedding parties or just an enjoyable night out with a few friends.

At the Idle Hour in Railway Side, Barnes, don't look at the clock too often because you might get the hour wrong! In a deliberate move to undermine the importance we often give to time, here's a gastropub that hopes to make sure that your time spent with them is put to good use. At this cosy West London eatery, you can enjoy delicious English fare in the relaxed surroundings with plenty of candles, fresh flowers and cheerful smiles all around while the numerous clocks with hands pointing the wrong way add their bit of charm.

From the well crafted menu, look for starters of ginger marinated scallop ceviche with roasted peppers and cucumber salsa, followed by a main course of sautéed shoulder cutlet of spring lamb with broad bean, potato and mint succotash. End with the Belgian chocolate ice cream or maybe something from the cheeseboard. Drinking options at the Idle Hour include draught and bottled beers alongside spirits and an organic wine list, most available by the glass.

Here's a gastropub that brings typical British favourites in a relaxed and laidback environment and it's located just along Putney Bridge Road not too far from Putney High Street. Whether you're looking for a leisurely lunch or dinner with friends in an unfussy atmosphere, The Normanby seems to get it right every time. Deep browns in the decor reflect the solid philosophy behind the food, and it's an equable balance between tradition and modernity which is pleasing to the eye and creates a restful ambience.

Sunday brunch menus might offer roast ham and fried eggs with hand cut chips or Welsh rarebit on toast. More substantial meals towards the end of the day could include starters of prawns with garlic and cayenne butter followed by a main course of crispy pork belly with chick peas, grilled vegetables, spinach and smoked paprika aioli. Finish with a warm chocolate and nut brownie with cinnamon ice cream. The global wine list at The Normanby offers some interesting choices including some from the New World.