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London's
best new restaurant award from The Good Food Guide London goes to
Japanese "temple of cool" Sake No Hana.
Beating off strong competition
from the likes of Mayfair's Wild Honey and Notting Hill's Café
Anglais, Alan Yau's latest opening has produced more feedback from
Good Food Guide readers* than any other recent new opening. One
described it as "pure and unadulterated joy for people who
understand and love Japanese food."
The restaurant's design is
stunning; perfectly trained staff are "superb" (the expert
sake sommelier, in particular, has received more rave reader comments
than any other sommelier in the country); and the kaiseki cooking is
of a very high quality.
Sake No Hana is without doubt a
special occasion restaurant and certainly not cheap, but The Good
Food Guide London isn't just about expensive dining. It has given a
Best value restaurant award to Tom Ilic, Battersea, which looks and
feels more like a neighbourhood bistro than a "serious"
restaurant but produces imaginative, gutsy, big-on-flavour cooking at
very reasonable prices.
The ten award-winners are:
* Best new restaurant: Sake No
Hana, Mayfair.
* Best value for money: Tom Ilic, Battersea.
* Best budget restaurant: Viet
Grill, Shoreditch. Food is fresh, fragrant and incredibly cheap -
it's hard to believe that most dishes cost between £3-£6.
* Best gastropub: Carpenter's
Arms, Hammersmith. Daily changing, no-frills British menu, good value
for money, friendly staff, lovely sheltered garden - a perfect local.
* Best set menu: Wild Honey,
Mayfair. Three courses for £15.50 for food of this quality makes
it one of the best lunch deals in town.
* Best vegetarian: Manna,
Primrose Hill. One of Britain's first vegetarian restaurants is still
one of its best.
* Best for breakfast: Roast,
London Bridge. A strong British-produce ethos extends to the
wonderful breakfasts.
* Best wine list: The Square,
Mayfair. Astonishing in every department and not everything costs an
arm and a leg either.
* Best fish restaurant:
One-O-One, Knightsbridge. Creative and confident fish dishes, full of
twists and turns and surprising techniques.
* Best up-and-coming chef:
Tristan Mason, formerly of Orrery, Marylebone. This young chef is one
to watch. He allows modern ideas to impinge freely on classic French
cooking to stunning effect.
Elizabeth Carter, editor of The
Good Food Guide London, says:
"All our award winners
offer something more than just very good food. While décor
ranged from downright simple to architectural high jinks, service was
judged outstanding at all of them, and even at the very expensive
end, readers felt they had value for money. Sheer enjoyment
also played its part. In the end a good restaurant is one where you
choose to go back a second time and we think all these restaurants
will attract loyal customers."
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