Restaurant-Guide.com
hand picked restaurants

The modern European restaurant just along the road from Westcombe Park station is a small but perfectly formed restaurant. Its secret lies in the fact that it keeps the décor smart and simple and enjoys a cosy romantic ambiance. Also the menu is short but extremely well thought out and so never fails to impress. The fish dishes are particular good and the desserts will leave you quietly satisfied.

Reviewed by Linda Buttle

With stunning views of Butler's Wharf, and Tower Bridge which is floodlit in the evenings, Le Pont de la Tour Bar and Grill offers an informal brasserie-style dining experience in a spectacular setting. The restaurant also has live music, with a pianist providing classic jazz accompaniment to your meal every evening while Sunday lunch at Le Pont is enlivened by a traditional jazz trio.

With a menu that focuses on traditional French cuisine diners can swing by after a hard day at work to nibble on starters such as an assiette de l'ecailler of market shellfish served with mayonnaise, lemon, shallot vinegar and rye bread. More substantial main courses include firm favourites such as coq au vin with pommes puree, and seafood delights such as cod and salmon fish cake, with poached egg and pommery mustard sauce. The grill turns out whole or half lobster, a 14oz T-bone steak or côte double d'agneau served with frites and a choice of béarnaise, peppercorn or tartare sauce. For desserts it's hard to resist a crème brûlée a la vanilla or a rhubarb, Bramley apple and ginger crumble with crème anglaise.

A stunning location by the river, classic English food and relaxed surroundings, The Butlers Wharf Chop House is an ideal place for lunch or dinner, especially for those with hearty appetites. London is a city that is gradually learning to use the opportunities offered to it by one of the country's major rivers, and with Tower Bridge, arguably one of the finest of its kind in the world, right on the doorstep, Butlers Wharf Chop House has not been slow to take advantage.

The spacious, airy restaurant is based on the idea of a traditional English boating house or cricket pavilion with oak lined walls and comfortable solid seating. During the summer the doors can be opened onto the riverside terrace providing outside seating and letting the diners inside benefit from the good weather too.

Head Chef Nicky Foley takes pride in making the most of Britain's natural resources and culinary heritage. His menu is innovative and seasonal with an emphasis on flavour can be showcased from his passion for quality and new methods for preparing dishes.
 
The day starts at 8am with breakfast, ranging from hot buttered crumpets, through fried, scrambled, poached or boiled eggs served with toasted farmhouse bread, Halesworth cured bacon or Bury black pudding. The location makes it an ideal setting for a breakfast meeting or a leisurely weekend brunch on the terrace.

Lunch and Dinner menus could include whelks, oysters, clams, and prawns all served in their shells with mayonnaise to hand. Moving on, steak and kidney pudding, as you prefer, is a good antidote to a hard morning on the Exchange floor, with champagne to celebrate if it finally went your way. Roasted Aberdeen Angus beef is served with Yorkshire pudding and roast potato to complete the dish.

Dishes such as East Sussex Coast turbot with watercress and béarnaise are in the mains, but few dishes seem more English than whole grilled lemon sole, Cornish crab and salt marsh samphire. The pigeon and lamb sweetbreads pie has baby beets and summer turnips to fill any places the pie misses.

As well as featuring British cheeses and savouries, Winston's nursery style puddings such as sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and Jersey clotted cream; buttermilk pudding with summer fruits, are not to be missed.

The Chop House has a comfortable bar, with a set menu at incredible value that features some of the classic dishes from the restaurant, and a set menu of daily specials. The bar stocks a fine range of traditional English beers including Old Speckled Hen and Black Sheep Ale. The bar also offers a lunch and dinner menu daily - what could be more civilised than sitting out on the terrace of a sunny Saturday morning enjoying breakfast and the morning paper before moving on in the fullness of time for a little mild activity, defying the famous Churchill dictum.

Further details on group bookings, plus their daily changing menu, can be found on their Website .

A positive vibe animates The Southwark Rooms, a cocktail bar in Southwark Street. Guests can take their pick from an international selection including tapas. Relax and unwind in the pleasant ambience.

All the meat served here is free range and sourced from Packington Farm in Staffordshire. The tapas selection includes tempura prawns with mango salsa, lamb kofta with tzatziki, chicken satay with peanut and coconut sauce and fat rosemary chips with sour cream. For the main course diners can select from organic ribeye steak with fat chips and creamy mushroom peppercorn sauce, fish and chips with tartar sauce, organic lamb shank with mash and chicken schnitzel with chips and salad. The burger and sandwich selection includes fillet chicken, organic beef and mushroom and tuna. Desserts feature apple and almond tart, carrot cake and pecan, peach and toffee cheesecake. A variety of cocktails and wines lend additional sparkle to the occasion.

Zerodegrees has embarked on a drinking and dining concept that pioneers the emerging trend in fresh, hand crafted beers brewed by microbreweries. Diners are guaranteed a theatrical experience with the sight, sound and smell from the working brewery and a busy kitchen with its traditional stone-fired pizza oven dishing out favourites such as mango tandoori chicken and Peking duck.

The menu encompasses a selection of gourmet pizzas, delicious salads, speciality sausages, pastas and kilo pots of mussels served with a variety of sauces. International wines and freshly brewed beers seek out the tastiest and most exotic flavours from across the world, while adding their own seasonal and speciality numbers. The range extends from black lager to pale ale, with some delicious fruit beer in between.

Incorporating the mechanics of the working brewery into the building's architecture has resulted in a functional and futuristic place and the industrial feel whilst unavoidable is an added attraction.

Located next to the world famous Borough Market, the Wine Wharf is a stunning and eclectic restaurant known for its classic and unusual variety of wines. The atmosphere is relaxed and informal with comfortable seating, soft lighting and a sophisticated coolness that manages to merge a modern ambience with a warehouse industrial chic. Part of the famed Vinopolis complex, it offers guests a range of quick bites like Mediterranean vegetables and goats? cheese bruschetta to calamari with salad and tartar sauce.

The menu includes a variety of dishes tailored for different occasions such as cured beef with sun-blushed tomatoes, seafood tagliatelle, and asparagus with green herb risotto with scallops topped off with desserts of deliciously wicked chocolate tart with vanilla ice-cream and vanilla pannacotta.

Guests can also partake in wine tastings with a sommelier guiding them through different wines that the restaurant has on offer. So whether you are fond of a Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay or the more exotic Albarino and Gewerztraminer, there will be something for every discerning palate.

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.