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hand picked restaurants

Windsor is one of England's most beautiful towns, steeped in history and located in a wonderful natural setting on the banks of the Thames. There is so much to do locally with great shops, wonderful museums, Windsor and Ascot racecourses, The Great Park and of course Windsor Castle, home to the Royal Family.

The only thing lacking was a flagship restaurant and bar that the residents could be proud of and in which visitors could indulge themselves. That was until Browns opened in May 2002.

Browns Windsor became a favoured location in less than two years. In the winter months the restaurant oozes warmth and charm as shoppers, tourists, business folk and Windsor's discerning residents utilise Browns as the ideal place to relax and meet friends and colleagues.

However, in the summer the restaurant really comes alive. Browns Windsor is the place to people watch and be seen, whether you are there to enjoy a meal on the balcony, or a long cocktail on the riverside decking.

The restaurant is located opposite the river ferry which takes people to the races at Windsor and Ascot, and makes Browns an ideal location for corporate entertaining and race-goers. Browns Windsor combines modern style with the high values of excellent service, quality food and drink that has made it the much loved restaurant it has grown to be.

Browns is a classic English restaurant with a menu that evolves rather than changes and there's always a dish to suit your taste. So typical starters might include pan seared scallops on a bed of pea and mascarpone purée with chorizo and chilli butter sauce or lobster and crab croquettes with a garlic cream leading on to main courses such as slow cooked shoulder of Welsh lamb in Rosemary and garlic jus with minted broad beans and peas, and sweet potato dauphinoise or grilled chicken breast topped with prosciutto and taleggio with basil oil, served with watercress and crisp seasoned fries.

A quick look at the dessert menu brings you to the conclusion that this is no place to skip on sweets, so indulge wholeheartedly in the apple, gooseberry and elderflower crumble with custard, profiteroles with warm chocolate sauce or the lemon and mandarin tart with clotted cream.

Browns offers a genuine value for money experience but also can cater for large parties with a more expansive budget. A full wine, cocktail and champagne list, with the champagnes being particularly famous for their sensible pricing, ensures that every occasion is well-blessed with joie de vivre.

For more information, including their full menu, have a look at their Website.

Bella Italia is a restaurant that pulsates with Italian style and fashion, where the day starts with breakfast, not least the Inglese, the familiar bacon, sausage, mushroom, tomato and fried or scrambled eggs and sauté potatoes with ciabatta toast so beloved of hearty eaters seeking a good start to the day, particularly when they don't have to prepare it. A vegetarian option is available, along with the bambini of sausages, tomato and scrambled egg, or a strapazzata, scrambled eggs on ciabatta toast. A cappuccino or hot chocolate offers a more gentle awakening and croissant or pastries are welcome at almost any time.

It is always worth remembering that eating Italian is a great opportunity to work away through something rather more liberating than the conventional 3 course English meal. Little and often seems to be the motto but move on to the antipasti and it's immediately obvious this is no easy task, confronted with well over a dozen dishes, not one of which you really have the heart to turn down. The selezione classica assembles a few of the favourite starters; oven baked lemon and rosemary chicken wings, spiced meatballs, calamari, mini garlic butter-filled calzoni and lightly battered courgettes served with flamed pepper and lemon herb dips.

A speck e rucola pizza, added to a traditional margherita brings together two traditions with Italian speck ham providing the second, but it is within the pasta and risotto dishes that you can adapt almost any main ingredient, as well enjoy some of Italy's most traditional treats. Who can deny a well formed spaghetti Bolognese or penne Marco Polo? And not for nothing is a nicely prepared spaghetti carbonara the preferred dish of many.

From a selection of five choices amongst the secondi many will head unerringly for controfiletto ai ferri, a 7oz sirloin steak char-grilled to preference and served with garlic butter, roast field mushrooms, fries and rocket, or the fritto misto, lightly battered prawns, cod fillet, calamari and courgette with fries and a herb lemon and caper dip.

Could anything be more appropriate than The Godfather, for 1 or 2 naturally, with nutty chocolate fudge brownies, vanilla and toffee ice cream with chocolate sauce, fresh cream and wafer curls, and rest assured the coffee will do justice to the meal.

With a wine list that makes few concessions to other countries - and why should it - good Italian food can receive an equally national baptism by wine. For further enlightenment, news about their on-line shop and special deals, a click on their lively Website will reveal all.

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.

Café Rouge has over one hundred branches throughout Britain all offering a wide range of dishes drawn from the French cuisine. Slightly less than half their branches are in or close to London. Almost inevitably the décor and design of each restaurant differs from the others, but there is a general curtsy towards La France.

Many restaurants do an excellent breakfast, or shall we say petit dejeuner, at which such delights as scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toasted brioche, croque Madame, croissants and pain au chocolat make welcome appearances, and to their credit the English traditional gets top billing.

An array of small dishes takes in pulled pork pâté with French bread, and spicy beef and lamb sausage with harissa mayonnaise. Salads and pasta feature largely, as do baguettes and croques. Quick dishes, ideal for lunch, include slices of saucisson and cured pork loin with French bread.

Moving on to more serious stuff we find steaks, an 8oz bavette and thin cut rib eye, with a choice of béarnaise or peppercorn sauce. No French menu would be complete without the poulet jaune grille, pan-roasted breast of corn-fed chicken served on a warm taboulé of bulgar wheat and a medley of roasted vegetables with minted crème fraîche, or a steak frites before moving on to the crème brûlée, or the tart tatin. Almost invariably the coffee tastes like coffee should, something that sadly can all too often still not be said of our English restaurants, who depend too much upon technology and too little on the acquisition of a certain flair for this important conclusion to a meal.

By now we all know that the French, despite their distinctive habits when it comes to matters of satisfying the inner man, maintain a miraculous longevity of life. This is generally attributed to a number of causes, of which a measured consumption of decent wine is foremost. Café Rouge, you may be pleased to hear, encourages this with a well-chosen selection of French wines. Their prix fixe lunch and meals for children, both at a very reasonable figure, also offer excellent value.

Their Website will keep you updated on menu changes, news and other competitions and offers from the Café Society.

Like most meze restaurants Green Olive works with a menu of around 40 dishes from which you can choose a light bite or a spacious meal, banquet, whatever. Ideal for communal eating, party nights, there is a party menu which includes a meze selection for a minimum of 4 people. As a casual form of eating it has much to commend it.

The usual suspects are all there: traditional Cypriot soft cheese grilled and served on a bed of rocket salad, beef casserole with baby red onions, red wine and herbs, marinated sword fish skewered and chargrilled, pork, onion, parsley, mint and spices made into sausages and chargrilled, mussels cooked in white wine, tomato, tarragon and cream sauce with a breath of chilli.

There is a chef's daily recommended selection of hot and cold dishes at £16.95 a head, for a couple. Desserts seem something of an anticlimax after such a savoury-feste but some of the Greek selection have an appeal all their own, and the Armenian-inspired honey and walnut cake is delicious.

The wine list makes for interesting reading, with contributions from unexpected sources that beg exploration, and prices that will bring a smile to your face.

The word cornucopia is Greek for 'horn of plenty' and conjures up (in my mind at least) images of flowing wine, amphitheatres and hot men in togas. Unfortunately on our visit to Cornucopia Bistro in Windsor there were no hot toga wrapped men, but the wine, good conversation and beautiful food were all flowing in abundance.

Cornucopia is the sort of place that doesn't need flashy advertisements or cut-out-and-keep flyers in the local paper to have an extensive and loyal clientele - its prime location and chic and eclectic vibe are enough to keep those in the know satisfied forever more. And for once, much to my delight, I was one of the chosen few in the know as 'the boyfriend' treated me to a visit to Windsor's secret gem, and with the excuse of work - I had the perfect reason for a three course meal.

Impressively, the bistro managed to be a hybrid of all things desirable in a restaurant, which was quite a shock and a welcome change - judging by the other restaurants on offer in 'Royal' Windsor. Pretension and formality are not what you will find at Cornucopia as it manages the impossible task of being lively and intimate at the same time - from the attentive and yet unobtrusive service to the chunky candles and the wonky, mismatched wooden chairs, funky coloured place mats and extra shiny cutlery littering our table.

The food on offer mirrored the rustic and understated atmosphere of the bistro with French, Mexican, Cajun and traditional English fare all fighting for attention on their extensive, yet unglamorously printed menu that would satisfy even the fussiest of eaters. Take my warm salad of Ribeye steak with a peanut and pineapple dressing (£5.75), a beautiful glaze that managed to perfectly complement the deeply flavoursome juicy steak without overpowering it. The generous strips of beef were nestled on a small bed of salad leaves; tasty, stylish and unfussy, not to mention delicious. It was so delicious that I (barely) glanced at the boyfriend's generous salad of smoked chicken, bacon, asparagus and roasted pepper (priced at a more reasonable £4.95).

For mains we decided to go all out and be carnivorous for once. I plumped for a traditional beef a la bourguignon (£8.90) served on a bed of rice and green beans - which ticked every box a main meal should, being hearty, scrumptious, and tender all in one. The boyfriend even managed to satisfy his greedy gene by ordering the vast Chilli con Carne (£7.90) that satisfied even his humongous meat craving after months of only being allowed to eat chicken (low fat yes, after three months - boring).

As for pudding, with me being devout chocoholic I went for the classic chocolate brownie dessert (from £3.00) and must say I was slightly disappointed. Although the brownie was on the right side of baked (slightly crisp on the outside, deliciously gooey in the middle) the globule of clotted cream ice cream that accompanied it was rather stingy, meaning that my greedy gulps of brownie were rather dry and not as satisfactory as they would have been had there been a more generous dollop on offer.

However, once dessert was cleared and the coffees came around, all was forgiven as I sank into a welcome vat of Tia Maria laced caffeine which more than made up for my brief (read shameful) moment of pudding jealousy as I glared at the boyfriend's perfect crème brûlée. It also made up for the fact that there were no toga draped hotties in sight for me to feast my eyes upon. Almost.

Review by Sarah Summerfield

December 2006

Next time you find yourself on the M4 with some time to spare or equilibrium to regain, head off at Junction 7 for Dorney village and the civilised delights of The Palmer Arms. This charming gastropub has changed many hands over the years, but with its current owners it has bloomed into the pride of the village. Refurbishment has been carried out keeping in mind a contemporary outlook and the newly added children's play area means that families will love heading out there, especially on weekends.

A light lunch is offered with hot or cold sandwiches and salads but it is the à la carte that takes the applause for its simplicity and avid usage of local produce and ingredients. Amongst the starters, the home cured gravadlax with brown bread and butter stands out while later on, the duck breast in a port and fig sauce with dauphinoise potatoes makes an excellent main course. Round off with hot fudge brownie; the well thought through wine list at Palmer Arms offers some superb global choices.