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hand picked restaurants

Diners visiting Vienna get to taste not only good food and drink but elegance and lots of style. The former Prudential building is in a prominent location that sits above Nottingham's Old Market Square and owner Dave Caddick ensures customers enjoy themselves every time they visit his bar and restaurant.

The popular lounge has designer sofas and a champagne table, and diners cannot help but relax in the pleasing surroundings. Special functions are well catered for there. The stunning V shaped bar, serving Mediterranean delights, sits in the centre of the building and is built around the original pillars. Live music enhances the atmosphere.

The menu changes every six weeks to remain seasonal. With dishes such as roast scallops, crayfish and leek mousseline or saddle of lamb with confit shoulder, fondant potato, roasted salsify, baby spinach and thyme jus, diners are assured of being served reasonably priced food that meets high standards of quality.

Sitting pretty in Pepper Street in Nottingham just off trendy Bridlesmith Gate, Thai restaurant the Pretty Orchid is as good a place as any in Nottingham in which to enjoy the piquant flavours of a Thai meal. Its unpretentious exterior, cozy interiors and a fair selection of well-known Thai dishes offers patrons an unremarkable yet enjoyable evening.

Get started with sarong king prawns, wrapped in pastry and basil leaf and served with a plum sauce dip, or aromatic duck, served with warm pancakes and special hoi sin sauce, and move on to red sea bass curry or chicken green curry or weeping tiger, medium cooked sirloin steak in tamarind sauce. Alternately, try chef's special, salmon miso, salmon spread with miso paste and cooked with seven spices, or floating market, spices, herbs and vegetables combined with a medley of seafood. The Pretty Orchid offers set meals, a vegetarian platter, a seafood platter and a gourmet platter, individually tailored courses for a minimum of six people.

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.

Le Bistrot Pierre in Nottingham is part of a small but well-established group of stylish French restaurants where a passion for provincial French cooking and warmth of both atmosphere and service shine brightly through.

The Nottingham outlet in Milton Street is known for its lively yet relaxed ambience, and customers love to stop by after spending a tiring day in the city's shopping district. Responsible sourcing is taken seriously at Le Bistrot Pierre, and you can trust the chicken to be free-range, the Scottish beef to be 21-day-aged and fully traceable, and the pork to be reared outdoors.

Dishes from a regularly updated à la carte that could catch your attention include a salad of quail's egg, bacon lardons, baby chorizo, flageolet beans, Stornoway black pudding and dressed leaves, and mains of overnight slow-roasted shoulder of lamb with smoked garlic sausage, rosemary and red wine reduction, or fillet of pollock and clams braised with tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

Le Mistral is one of a group of several new and very perky restaurants in the North Midlands, with an accomplished style and approach, and French flavour. They work on two menus, one a daytime job that deals with the requirements of a working day, offering such delights as croque monsieur, croque mistral, freshly baked baguettes with imaginative fillings such as brie and roasted grape, a soup du jour, minute steak, and an omelette du jour. This is quality food that meets the need and paves the way to something rather more relaxed and elaborate in the evenings.

Expect to find on the dinner/supper menu special starters from the blackboard, pate du jour, or platters, olive, charcuterie, cheese or 3 dips, all substantial enough for light meal status.

Main courses offer good French staples such as moules marinieres et frites, Marseilles meatballs, beef bourguignon, and steak hache, followed by desserts of tarte tatin and chocolate chilli cake.

An elegant wine list offers a carefully selected range of bottles, and is a happy hunting ground for connoisseurs, with a large number by the glass. Their house wine from Domaine de Laroux is a gift from the gods. Continental lagers and bottled beers from UK feature some of the best, including Liefmans Kriek and Marston Pedigree.

If these restaurants do not succeed there is no justice on earth.