Even after you leave the mainland and cross the bridge to Skye, The Three Chimneys is still over an hour's drive in a broadly North West direction, Skye is a bigger place than you might think. Accordingly, it is unlikely that you will ever just be 'passing by' or visit the restaurant on a whim unless you already live on Skye. On our previous trips to Scotland, we had been unable to fit a visit to The Three Chimneys into our schedule but the strength of their reputation and the high praise afforded to Chef Michael Smith personally from other great chefs we know and respect meant that we have been aching to go there for some time and we pretty much planned our recent Scottish adventure around our stay there.

With a two night stay in their on site accommodation (The House Over-By) and consecutive dinners booked in the restaurant, we really hope we are going to like it or things could get a little awkward for everyone. Expectation too can be the enemy of experience and we had been looking forward to our Skye holiday for some time. Fortunately, there was no need to worry, The Three Chimneys is absolutely fantastic, the food, everything you could ever wish for on a plate, and all the people there so lovely that when it was time to leave, even though it had been just two days, we felt that we were saying goodbye to old and dear friends. 

Dining options at The Three Chimneys centre on two menus, an a la carte and a tasting menu (Taste of Skye), both of which can be enjoyed in the cosy front restaurant, while the tasting menu can also be taken at the Kitchen Table, which here, is exactly that, a table in the kitchen with space for up to six people. But this is more than just a chefs table experience peering into the kitchen form a favourable vantage point, for all guests at the kitchen table are invited to get up from the table between courses and be a part of the kitchen, stand at the pass if you like, talk to the staff and generally be involved. On our part, after a few queries of 'really?' and 'sure you don't mind?' to Michael, it was clear that it is a genuine invitation to join the kitchen family and we soon lost all inhibitions to wander freely around the kitchen at will. And to be clear on this point, this is their normal practice and not simply an invitation extended to us as bloggers. Without doubt it is one of the friendliest and most welcoming kitchens we have ever stepped in. 

The menu they offer is heaven and includes everything you would hope to find when going north of the border: oysters, crab, lobster, prawn, scallop, lamb, venison. As the menu name suggests, Taste of Skye, this is a very local affair so that oysters are from just over the way, the crab from Loch Bracadale on Skye, the lobster from Loch Dunvegan on Skye... you get the idea. A splash of Talisker also finds its way onto the menu just in case the penny has still not already dropped.

We love the Scottish larder and this is a beautiful Scottish affair. Chef Michael clearly has a deep affinity with the local area and that translates into a massive respect for the ingredients. There are nods to heritage so the meal starts with tiny bowl of Scotch broth that is hearty and comforting and leaves you wanting more (which we fabulously got the next day for lunch). Colbost Skink comes with Stornoway black pudding (Marag Dubh) and a drizzle of Talisker, perfect for a Hebridian February night (was raining cats and dogs outside).

Other big flavours come for example with the lamb rib where Talisker again lends smokiness to the deep and sticky BBQ sauce, but Michael also displays much lighter touches where required. The early seafood dishes such as the crab, lobster and scallop are all well judged affairs, nicely enhanced with the additions on the plate but never gilded, so the point of the dish is never lost and the principal ingredients shine; it's Scottish seafood heaven. 

The other special mention must go to The Three Chimneys famous marmalade, an allowable exception to their local ethos. The marmalade pudding has been on the menu for 30 years and is unlikely to ever come off and it is absolutely fabulous, while serving it with Drambuie custard then moves it on a step further to pudding nirvana. On the tasting menu it is sightly transformed into an orange marmalade souffle, but really, don't go all the way to Skye and leave without having eaten this pud.

This was a glorious meal, fun to eat but serious in execution, and a beautiful celebration of local ingredients. If Robbie Burns is Scotland's national poet, Michael Smith must surely be a candidate for their national chef (and he is @kiltkuisine on Twitter after all). For us, spending a night at the Kitchen Table, enjoying this food, being a nuisance in the kitchen yet still being so warmly embraced there, not only was a it a highlight of the holiday, it was as much fun as we can remember having in a restaurant since starting the blog. It made us happy then and it makes us happy now simply remembering. 

The Three Chimneys is 633 miles from our house but is without doubt worth every mile of the journey. We are already plotting our return.

Roy Brett is one of Scotland's finest chefs, proprietor of Ondine Restaurant in Edinburgh (which won the AA's Restaurant of the Year award for Scotland 2013/14) and an absolutely top notch fella to boot. Recently, he has also taken on the position of consultant chef at Loch Fyne, and given our love of the Scottish larder, we jumped at the opportunity to spend a few days with Roy and the folks at Loch Fyne to learn more about what they are up to. Given that Loch Fyne is famous for both its smoked salmon and oysters, we arrive hungry.

Day 1

Our first stop is the Restaurant & Oyster Bar which remains located on the original site overlooking the loch. Inside however has enjoyed a recent refurb and the menu of course is overseen by Roy Brett. A dozen oysters that have traveled no more than a mile to our plate give us a Loch Fyne welcome and they truly are fabulous. Loch Fyne has exceptionally pure water and the oysters deliver intense salty freshness that is as good as it gets. Roy is in the kitchen today and the food keeps on coming. Smoked salmon is clearly a must and that too is of the highest quality. Four amazing scallops with venison sausage are delivered while Roy's hot seafood platter that is one of many triumphs at his Edinburgh restaurant is also delivered to the table here and leaves us delighted, but by the end, beaten. Indeed, it wasn't till day three that we could even approach dessert, for me a Glengoyne Whisky Tart that has also made its way from the Ondine menu. 

To balance out our lunch, a bracing walk along River Fyne in the afternoon with Virginia Sumison, head of marketing and events at Loch Fyne and niece of founder John (Johnny) Noble filled us in on the wonderful history of her family and the origins of Loch Fyne as an oyster business. Johnny sadly passed away in 2002 but was surely the type of person all of us wish we could know. In the obituary published in The Guardian it states:

He ate in his own restaurant several days a week... anonymous to the coach parties that surrounded him... he had a gentle manner but a loud whisper, which got him into difficulty. Once, in his restaurant, a woman luncher overheard him discussing another, obnoxious luncher with a member of his staff, and asked that he be removed. Noble left obediently with the words "fair enough"'

But as the article also observes early on:

His largest achievement was the prosperity and optimism he brought his own small community in Argyllshire.

The result is that in Cairndow where Loch Fyne's operations are based, there are more jobs than there are people such that Loch Fyne is as much a community as it is a business and that was demonstrated by the warmth and pride of the many people we met during our time there.

As if we weren't already lucky enough to be at Loch Fyne, we must say a huge thank you to the Sumison family who let us stay at their remarkable family home, Ardkinglas, a house that is simply breathtaking as it first comes in to view as you proceed up the driveway. See the pictures below to view just how fabulous this house is and for anyone visiting the area, it is possible to have a private tour of the house, a wedding, or even stay there as we did (details available on the Ardkinglas website.)

Day 2

Sunshine. Blue skies and a walk down to the loch before breakfast. It's little wonder we love Scotland so much.

Later that morning we visit the oyster farm and Andre talks us through the process. Despite our years of food blogging our oyster knowledge (beyond eating them) is somewhat (embarrassingly) sparse and we're amazed to learn that oysters are bred initially in hatcheries (not on site) after which it can take up to three years for an oyster to grow to the size that is served in a restaurant. We're amazed too at the number of oysters packed off each day by Loch Fyne, and that each and every oyster is checked (for being alive) by tapping the shell (dead ones have a hollow ring) and that this is done by just two people, Andre and his colleague Alistair. What's more, despite Loch Fyne having pure enough water to serve oysters without purification, that's done anyway but with Loch Fyne water so that the essence is never lost. It goes without saying that despite the volume of oysters shipped, Loch Fyne Oysters is a sustainable business.

Andre was amazing and yet another perfect ambassador for the Loch Fyne community and of course, put us in the mood for another dozen oysters at the Restaurant and Oyster bar where some crab also seemed like a good idea.

Three men and a boat. And us. 

Sea legs for the afternoon as we board a RIB and head out to Loch Fyne's IMTA site to see first hand the very latest developments in sustainable aquaculture. IMTA stands for Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture and the ever useful Wiki describes it thus:

Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) provides the by-products, including waste, from one aquatic species as inputs (fertilizers, food) for another. Farmers combine fed aquaculture (e.g., fish, shrimp) with inorganic extractive (e.g.,seaweed) and organic extractive (e.g., shellfish) aquaculture to create balanced systems for environment remediation (biomitigation), economic stability (improved output, lower cost, product diversification and risk reduction) and social acceptability (better management practices)

Put another way, Loch Fyne has salmon farms and that leads to a concentration of certain factors in the water surrounding these farms. Can this be balanced out by the encouragement of other native species around the farms for improved environmental practices and enhanced sustainability? Yes is the current best thinking on the topic and therefore alongside the salmon farms marine biologist David Attwood is overseeing the cultivation of seaweed, mussels, oysters, scallops and even sea urchins providing a win-win for the business and the environment. 

We got so see the tiniest baby Queen Scallops alongside the bigger versions. It was really something to see David and Iain bring up some sea urchins from the loch also, though perhaps the highlight was to pull up the oysters and shuck them while still wet out the water. A bottle of Chablis had even found its way on board to be enjoyed alongside the oysters, but this was a highly educational trip and our thanks to David, Iain and Richard for spending time with us to explain what is very much a leading edge research project.

Day 3

Can't be lucky forever and it's raining again on Day 3 but Ardkinglas looks lovely in all weathers. Fortunately our activities are mostly indoors today.

If you visit the Deli at Loch Fyne and look through a window behind the counter, you might see a machine delivering perfect sides of salmon. This is the smokehouse where all of Loch Fyne's famous salmon is smoked. Donning our shoe covers, white coats and hair nets, Production Manager Raymond MacAffer walked us through the process of one of Scotland's most famous food products. Again, to see, smell and later taste the finished product (which we of course eagerly did many times during our stay) allows for a much greater appreciation of food that is all too easy to take for granted. 

With so much going on, we didn't even have time to visit Fyne Ales for the brewery tour (next time!) before it was time to move on, but we left Loch Fyne not only with a deep appreciation of the food they produce and how they produce it, but of the people behind all of this and how Loch Fyne Oysters has brought people together as a community, colleagues and friends. To be welcomed into that family for the duration of our stay was very special. 

Our thanks then to all those mentioned above as well as Campbell and Bruce with whom we enjoyed a very pleasant dinner, learning more about Loch Fyne from the top down view, as well as Martin, Richard, Alastair and Moyra in the restaurant and deli who looked after us so well every day and kept those oysters coming. And three years from hatchery to plate: never again will we take oysters for granted.


Disclosure: we were guests of Loch Fyne

Where to visit on our trip to Cornwall? Port Isaac is a beautiful and ancient fishing port that is quintessentially Cornwall, a short drive from our Padstow base and for good measure, it's where Nathan Outlaw has chosen to open his latest restaurant, Outlaw's Fish Kitchen; it seems just the ticket. We haven't checked on the map exactly where Outlaw's Fish Kitchen is within the town but we're not concerned, for Port Isaac isn't that big, the whole place fits neatly on a postcard, and as it turns out, Nathan has bagged the best location in town, you can't miss it. Port Isaac being built on a cliff, gravity naturally leads weary legs downhill to the port entrance where a cart of lobster pots sit outside the RNLI lifeboat station; next door to that is the Fish Kitchen. Sit at one of the front tables and the view through the window is of the boats in the harbour, quite possibly the same boats that brought in the catch that you're about to eat. It's perfect.

While Nathan's flagship Rock restaurant and his London restaurant are both Michelin star holders, the Port Isaac restaurant seeks something a little different, a more casual affair, recognising the importance of the tourist trade such that our hiking boots and weatherproof coats in no way make us feel out of place on entry; the waitresses meanwhile are wearing official Fish Kitchen T-shirts and there's a relaxed friendly vibe to the place as soon as you enter. This is the kind of seafood restaurant you wish every port had and certainly feels like what every port deserves.

The menu is small plates, around starter size, order a few and if you want to order more at any time, just add them on, no problem. Plates came out in no particular order we could discern, just when they are ready and you graze through lunch. It's exactly the right thing for here: we entered the restaurant after exploring rock pools, now we're exploring fish dishes in the same leisurely way, a more formal affair wouldn't seem appropriate. Small plates, hungry, us - we got to try most of the menu and the specials too.

Porthilly oysters to start, and they are so good, briny not milky, substantial, fleshy, best enjoyed with a bit of chewing, but no accompaniment needed benefiting as these do from purity. We have a couple of crispy oysters too with pickled veg and oyster mayonnaise which are really nice: gateway oysters for anyone taking their first oyster steps. A smoked mackerel dip and toast is also an early dish. Then it's onto the hot fish dishes.

From the menu there's Grey mullet, mushrooms & parsley, potato, saffron & garlic puree as well as Outlaw's fish burger (which is already for us a legend). From the day's specials, there's Grilled brill fillet, anchovy & tarragon butter, cider onions as well as Seafood & Bean Stew, Octopus, Mussels, Seabass. Clearly, to make this restaurant work you need two things. First, great ingredients, and here, well, just look outside. Nathan's name also underwrites a quality product so no worries, tick. Second, you need a chef who understands how to make the most of those great ingredients, and here, Outlaw's Fish Kitchen has Paul Ripley (@ChefPaulRipley). Admittedly, we weren't familiar with Paul ahead of our visit to the Fish Kitchen but we had heard nothing but good things about him and discovered that he was formerly Head Chef at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, where during his time he trained up a young chef named Nathan Outlaw; subsequently he held a Michelin star for six years at his own restaurant Ripley's in St Merryn. Put another way, you really couldn't ask for a stronger chef in the kitchen than Paul, tick. The food then is excellent, beautifully cooked, done with understanding such that the fish is always allowed to shine on the plate.

Our waitresses for the day, Hayley and Megan were fantastic: friendly, smiling and contagiously enthusiastic about all aspects of the Fish Kitchen. We had a chance to talk to Paul Ripley too who was also really super and simply everything and everyone in the restaurant endears you to it further. Outlaw's Fish Kitchen does full justice to the sea's riches and you feel a genuine connection to Cornwall, its people and its food when you eat here. We are endlessly sad about seaside towns that don't have a good fish restaurant, such a waste; in Outlaw's Fish Kitchen, Port Isaac has possibly the best incarnation of what a fish kitchen should be staffed by the best people possible. 

In summer, we can imagine this place is simply rammed, queues out the door. In winter, there's a peacefulness to it that is better for the soul. But whatever season, Port Isaac itself is worth a visit and it would be criminal to visit the town without stopping by Outlaw's Fish Kitchen to get the real taste of Cornwall, courtesy of the talented Mr Ripley.

If one name has become synonymous with the best cooking of the best fish in the UK (and world), it's surely Nathan Outlaw and his flagship two Michelin starred restaurant at St Enodoc Hotel continues to go from strength to strength. A trip to the Cornwall hardly seems complete without a visit there and it was fabulous to return. The fish is of course perfect, and the staff, well, they're pretty perfect too. The same FOH team from our previous visit continues to offer guests the warmest of welcomes, which was so nice to see, while Nathan himself was in the kitchen working hard cooking up fish directly sourced from local fishermen.

A full write up of our previous visit to Restaurant Nathan Outlaw can be read here. 

In our own travels we've heard a few top notch chefs talk whimsically about throwing in the towel on fine dining and opening a fish shop, but this is the first time we've come across a chef actually doing it. Arguably, Des McDonald, owner of The Fish & Chip Shop is more than a chef, having been we understand the right hand man to Corbin & King as well as Richard Caring. The website accordingly affords him the title of CEO. In addition, Executive Chef at The Fish & Chip Shop (hereafter TF&CS) is Lee Bull, former Head Chef of Le Caprice while Head Chef is Steve Wilson. A fish and chip shop with a CEO, Executive Chef and Head Chef sounds like a serious case of title inflation or does it lift itself above the genre? Always partial to fish & chips, I headed to Islington last week to find out.

A takeaway menu is available at TF&CS but don't expect to walk through the door to be greeted by Steve wrapping up a portion of fish & chips in newspaper, it's not that sort of place. It does have a bar manager though who was formerly with... you guessed it, Caprice Holdings. Cocktails? Yes, it's that sort of place too. While on the subject of drink, I note they advertise BYO Monday where you can bring your own wine 'for just £5 corkage'. Aside of this hardly being the offer of the century, what this all means of course is that TF&CS is a proper restaurant, bookings are taken and you shouldn't really mistake it for, well, a fish and chip shop. It's a restaurant that serves fish and chips.

Despite being a restaurant that is less than a year old, they've done a good job to make it look like it's closer to 40 years old with the design, though the newness of the old furniture gives its more recent origins away. It has its own charm however and has clearly been thought through, even if the booth in which we sat required us to breath in before sliding between the banquette and the table. Elsewhere, adding to that old fashioned feel, a pot of tea is served with milk in a small milk bottle that TF&CS's target market would have been served at school during playtime. TF&CS then is something of a nostalgia play also.  

On food, with a friend, we shared a couple of starters. Well, the breaded langoustine tails (no scampi here) is really a main course but sharing it makes for a good starter. A decent portion of crisp, fresh white langoustine tails, toss in a couple of lemon wedges, it's again good traditional fayre. The London Particular Fritters, named such that you can guess what they might be, but are 100% guaranteed to ask just in case, beg to be ordered. It is pea and ham hock similarly breaded with a quick spell in the deep fryer. The fritters are actually quite nice, the peas fresh not heavy and the ham having enough depth to carry the fritter so that it doesn't seem just a gimmick with a clever name. So after starters, we are happy.

Cod and haddock for the mains, both priced at £9.50 without chips, arrive looking very proper, so well behaved. The fish is straight, the batter coating it like a glove rather than arcing off here and there with crispy batter bits. A dark gold that betrays little and not in the least bit greasy. From memory, The Ivy serves fish and chips, I've never had it, but I can imagine that it looks a lot like this. What's more, I can imagine that every fish that is presented here at TF&CS looks exactly the same. It's the kind of fish a place with a CEO would serve: disciplined. It's actually rather good and I instantly like its structural integrity. At Poppies, the batter was so crispy that taking a knife to it fractured it into a million pieces so you in fact had to then scoop batter up onto your fish to enjoy the two together. Here, the batter and fish were in union and as a proper bonus, the batter had a deep flavour to it, imparted I presume by the Camden Hell which they use in the batter. It doesn't look initially the most impressive piece of cod you've ever been served in a fish and chip shop, it is too flat, a bit like the fish that comes out of boxes in the supermarket, but there the comparison must stop for it was most enjoyable and I really have no complaints.

I imagine the chips cause a few heated arguments among diners however and possibly a few grumbles. Like the fish, they're a little posh, and certainly not the big fat chip shop chips that you would expect from a place called TF&CS. They're not bad, rather, quite decent chips in fact, they're just not what you think you're going to be served alongside fish in a chip shop. They are however what you think you will be served alongside fish at The Ivy. Some people will no doubt be furious. We didn't mind, it was good fish and chips, so all is forgiven.

Only on dessert do I actually want to grumble. What's Whyte & Mackay "white pot" I ask our waiter after being given the dessert menu? It's a posh bread and butter pudding I'm told. There's a lot of posh grub going on here it seems. But with some fond memories of recent bread and butter puddings, I give it a go. When it arrives, I pull a spoonful from the edge of the pot and it's okay albeit a touch on the heavy side. The closer to the centre I go, the heavier it becomes to the point where event though we are sharing the dessert, we don't finish for it is too dense to wade through. Rather than the bread feeling sliced, it instead feels like a whole uncut loaf squeezed into a small pot. It's a blot on an otherwise enjoyable meal.  

Service was friendly and overall I like what they are doing at TF&CS. It's set up to be old fashioned but perhaps that is done to soften the impact of the modern touches they felt necessary to make the place a success (like serving cocktails). Most importantly, the fish and chips are good to eat and that has to be key factor for a restaurant that has aligned itself with the genre, though the inability to see a man in a white coat gently lowering battered fish into a fryer seems at odds with the venue's name. Indeed, I can't imagine anyone calling this place a 'chippy.' If I lived or worked local however, I would be delighted to have this on my doorstep and would be for sure a regular visitor (while avoiding the bread and butter pudding).  

The Royal Exchange is such a significant and historic London building that I find it hard not to love it though its latest incarnation as a Bling palace is not perhaps the best look in its 500 year history. The priceless diamonds that surround you however also give rise to men in suits and earpieces who run at the first sign of a camera in fear that you are 'casing the joint' for a future robbery. My agenda however is nothing more evil than to photograph their fish and chips. I snuck in a picture of dessert too for good measure at the risk of eviction, boldly putting myself out there for the blogger's art.

That said, I wouldn't be the first to fall foul of the authorities here since in 1570, a group of women were prosecuted for 'amusing themselves in cursing and swearing to the great annoyance and grief of the inhabitants and passers by'. Wiki meanwhile tells me that during the 17th century, stock brokers were not allowed in the Royal Exchange because of their rude manners.

Restaurant-wise, the ground floor, the previously open air space (covered in 1990) is occupied by the Grand Cafe while Sauterelle seeks to deliver a more classical fine dining experience on the mezzanine level; both are run by D&D group. The attraction of the Grand Cafe, beyond its situation, is that it does all day dining (12pm to 10pm with breakfast served before that). What's more, the menu is substantial though we're generally wary of large menus, preferring to see a small menu done well rather than a bigger menu delivered in a mediocre fashion.

There's a choice of starters (7 options), sandwiches (6 options), pasta and eggs (6), a shellfish bar, salads (6) and main courses (7). Fortunately I am in the mood to keep it simple and while my choice is simple, fish and chips, it's highlighted on the menu as a'dishes of the decade', a celebration of the restaurant's 10 year anniversary. For my dessert, I pick another dish of the decade, something about 'After Eight' and Orange Sorbet, I didn't enquire, just ordered.

The fish and chips was okay but not particularly better than that, never coming close to match my recent outing to the award winning Poppies. The key issue was that the fish at times felt too meaty, too chewy, not possessed of that white flakiness that tells you it was delivered just earlier in the day. Perhaps it was but I wonder if such a large menu (and too few diners, we'll come on to that later) make inventory management difficult. The batter was mostly crispy but had a somewhat dirty look rather than a golden sheen. No criticism can be levied for the chips being 'restaurant chips' rather than 'fish and chip shop chips' for we are in a restaurant but they were somewhat bland and failed to convince me to finish them. The tartare sauce was however excellent and for once sidelined the ketchup. 

Dessert teamed up classic flavour combinations, chocolate and mint, chocolate and orange, but for the most part lacked finesse. Compared to any number of cup cake vendors around London now selling that same combination in their cakes, here, the dense chocolate sponge and basic mint additions seemed more suited to a home birthday party than a restaurant flanked by De Beers and Tiffany.

Perhaps it is because the Grand Cafe shares the same problem as Starbucks: its purpose in the City (as seen by the locals) is not to sell food and drink, but instead to rent space by the hour, a by-product of open plan offices. At the table next to me, as I ordered, received and ate both my fish and chips and my dessert, a suited man interviews a woman for a job with only a single latte for him and a bottle of water for her consumed in that same time. While I wanted service, he wanted to be left alone to talk to the candidate, making me wonder if stockbrokers should continue to be barred. The waiters were all quite nice, as we've said before, D&D underwrite a minimum standard of service, but being a waiter here would suck in my view.

Clearly a very limited sample of what they offer, though I do think that fish and chips is a reasonably decent litmus test. It was okay, but only okay and despite seeing only two dishes, I do feel that I have the measure of the place. The restaurant has been running for 10 years now and it has been busy whenever I've ventured inside the Royal Exchange, perhaps because it is a wonderful meeting place, perhaps because of a lack of nearby competition. On Urbanspoon however, despite 10 years of trading, there's not a single blog post on it at the time of writing. The Royal Exchange received its alcohol licence in 1571 and that alone warms me to this historic building; the restaurant is a mere 10 years old but in some ways more clearly shows its age.  

Fish and chips, or rather, fish and chip shops, seem to be making a comeback in the UK and that's something we very much welcome. As a long standing fan of fish and chips, and noting that our own local chippy seems to have dropped the ball recently, our minds turned to where else we could get some decent fish and chips in London. Google was as always tremendously helpful and we note in particular an article by Daniel Young (Young and Foodish) on London's top 10 fish and chip shops. Accordingly, over coming weeks and months, when nothing but fish and chips will do, we hope to get around a few of London's finest and put them up on the blog. This week we thought we'd check out the well regarded Poppies, Spitalfields branch (the other being in Camden).

Any discussion of Poppies needs to be divided into two parts, being the food, and the restaurant itself, because rather than just having the plain decor of a usual fish and chip shop/restaurant, they've gone themed. It's probably easiest at this point to quote the restaurant's own website directly:

Pop has recreated East End London between 1945 and 1955... sit and enjoy your meal served by our friendly ‘Poppettes’ dressed in wartime ‘land girl’ outfits. Our vintage-style décor, complete with a 1950s style jukebox playing doo-wop hits and other vintage memorabilia lovingly collected from local markets by Pops himself, will take you back to another era.

But while it is tidily done, personally, it was not my cup of tea. The waitresses I thought looked faintly ridiculous (and self conscious) in their outfits and, in line with industry norms, there's an Eastern European tilt to the service model which somewhat shatters the post war cockney theme they're aiming for. On top of that, is there anyone under the age of 60 who enjoys listening to 1950's 'doo-wop hits' while eating dinner? It makes Magic FM seem frighteningly cutting edge. The reality is that I, and I suspect this will be true of many diners there, not being a pensioner, don't feel any kind of nostalgia connection to 1950's, or to diners of that era, so the costumes and the music irritate more than amuse.

But I'm here for the food and there's a full three course menu. For starters, well, it wouldn't be the East End without jellied eels though I wimped out on this. There's whitebait, calamari, and I thought I might order the 'hand peeled prawn cocktail' though at the last minute I seemed to blurt out 'scampi' instead; maybe it was the uniform that threw me off my game. So more deep fried seafood.

But the thing is with Poppies, that doesn't seem so bad because it is all so clean and fresh. I think I've got used to bad fish chips over the years and forgotten how properly crispy batter is (or can be), how white and flaky the cod should be and how, with good fish and chips, you're not just tasting absorbed fats. Poppies are proud of their daily fish delivery (rightly so) and the quality of the cod used is readily apparent.

Fish and chips here then seems like fish and chips without the guilt and it's worth noting that the fish is fried in groundnut oil (which has less than half the saturated fat of lard). If that's still too unhealthy for you, there's a broader range of fish including skate, sole and mackerel that are offered grilled. Overall I'm happy with the meal and the chips, proper chunky chip shop chips of course, also have a nice fresh taste to them.

Dessert is a choice of ice cream, apple pie or sticky toffee pudding. I opted for apple pie but sadly it was terrible. With soggy pastry and a barely there filling, Mr Kipling or would have been a significant step up. Only later reading the website do I see that their sticky toffee is from Cartmel, Cumbria, so is most likely the better option, though for most diners, possibly a bit much after a big plate of fish and chips.

Overall then, for what you visit Poppies for, the fish and chips, they do well and with both eat in and take away options available (including deckchairs outside), it's certainly worth a visit. If I return there to eat, I'd have to consider taking ear plugs to block the music and I'd avoid the apple pie. Live and learn. But with the restaurant recently having reached the semi-finals of the National Fish & Chip Awards 2013, no one can say they're not serious about their fish and chips.

When the sun is shining, Angler restaurant has one of the best places to enjoy lunch in the City with a 7th floor roof top terrace situated atop South Place Hotel. These tables can't be booked however - first come, first served - so it pays to be early, or late, when you can pick up a turned table. This is in fact my third visit to Angler (both previous visits took place in 2012), but while the first was excellent, the second took place during the busy run up to Christmas and was less good. We decided that this meal would act as the decider.

As its name suggests, Angler is a seafood restaurant and while there are non fish dishes (1x beef, 1x pork, 1x lamb, 1x veggie on mains), it's best that you're a fish fan if you eat here. Located in the Square Mile, a place still short of good restaurants and certainly fish restaurants (the awful Catch at the Andaz has now closed and been reinvented as a champagne bar thankfully), Angler has become something of a City lunchtime favourite it seems and on our visit, there were no shortage of suits on display. Given the clientele, and with South Place Hotel positioning itself in the market as a stylish boutique hotel, don't expect prices to be cheap, with starters averaging about £13 and mains £25. On our visit, there was however a good looking great value set lunch menu at £30 that included three courses and a glass of Laurent Perrier champagne; we were almost tempted.

The first page of the menu has headings Crustacea, Oysters, Caviar, Starters. We picked half a dozen Rock oysters to start (split between Colchester and Mersea) with the Colchester oysters just huge though the slightly more expensive and smaller Mersea were the better of the two. After that, starters proper, with a langoustine and lobster cocktail that is priced at £18, and a shellfish ravioli at £13.50. Both of these dishes were excellent, and as we mused on the £18 price tag for the cocktail (Orkney Island langoustine at Angler are priced at £5 each so the cocktail price is perhaps no big surprise), because this classic had been re-imagined so well, there was no later remorse.

Mains fared less well. We chatted with the restaurant manager later about the merits of leaving the skin on a fish if it is not intended to be eaten. With the steamed wild sea bass, because of the cooking method, the skin remains soft and not suitable for eating but is left on for presentation purposes. We recalled Michel Roux Jnr telling a Masterchef contestant that things that aren't supposed to be eaten shouldn't be on a plate. The sea-bass itself however was nice though the ragout of razor clams, chorizo and marjoram was dominated by what seemed like tomato paste, sadly allowing the razor clam to offer only texture to the dish.

The halibut meanwhile was a cross section cut through the fish and then halved along the spine. Accordingly there was skin top and bottom of the steak, neither of which was asking to be eaten, and while the main spine bone was easy and obvious to remove, inappropriately, over a dozen other bones of around 10mm in length were also present through the fish. Management apologised for this error and offered a free glass of champagne to us. Angler is not trying to be Nathan Outlaw and do something super clever with fish, it's mostly classic stuff, and having been open for around 6 months now, they should be nailing dishes like this every time, surely? If this were a business meeting with a client (or being a client) which are so plentiful here, hunting for and pulling a bone out of your mouth with each bite would be a major distraction during the meal at the very least.

For desserts (around £7), it was a chocolate fondant with cherry yoghurt ice cream and hazelnut cake, salted caramel, lime and vanilla sorbet. They were the weakest part of the meal. The hazelnut cake, offering no thrills, was dominated by a biting lime sorbet, the salted caramel not registering at all. The chocolate fondant was good enough but the cherry yoghurt ice cream not so. With so many high quality ice creams available from the supermarket now, a restaurant should never fall at this particular hurdle.

This is not a cheap meal, with prices appropriately pitched for the City market (which is mostly expensed), but at those prices, the dishes should be nailing it more than they are. The setting was lovely, the service generally good, though stretched due to the good weather adding 40 more outside covers to the lunchtime tally, and the early part of the meal excellent. While there is a shellfish platter as a shared (?) starter, we would have been more happy to see a big fruit de mer available as a main course, especially with hindsight. Third time lucky still sees me pondering the merits of Angler. Overall, we enjoyed our meal, but should have enjoyed it more.

The pictures below were taken at a dinner in 2012.

We visited Wheeler's of St James's as part of our restaurant deal series: 7 days, 7 restaurants, 7 deals. 7 bargains? where we seek out value deals on the London restaurant scene.

The offer

Set lunch menu: £22.50 for three courses. Also available pre theatre.

Booked with

Walk in.

Why I chose it

Set in the stylish St James's area, carrying two big names in food, I've been intrigued to try Wheelers for some time.

Downsides or drawbacks

None apparent.

What I ate

- Potted duck & sourdough
- Sea bream with samphire & roasted tomato
- sticky toffee pudding (though not strictly on the set menu - see below)

Food quality

The food quality was adequate but this felt most like a set lunch of the meals I tried in this series. Probably not attributable to the set lunch format however, bread was particularly poor being two slices of a baguette (from local supermarket?), strangely placed in the middle of my place setting like it was an amuse bouche. The potted duck for my starter was the star today and I really enjoyed this. The sea bream however was nothing special, served in a smallish quantity bulked out by more samphire than I can ever remember seeing on a plate. It felt like they were using up sea bream that didn't make the cut for the alc and which otherwise had no future. After, they gave me the pudding list, but the full alc version; when I pointed out that I was on the set lunch, they said I had the menu now and was free to choose any dessert which was nice of them. Disappointed with my main, I had a sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream (not available on the set lunch) which was a nice, if run of the mill, dessert.

Interestingly, the table next to me were also having the set lunch menu and ordered the fish and chips, which actually looked very good and made me a little jealous. The fish and the chips were in good quantity also.

Food quantity

As above, I felt the main course was bulked out by samphire.

Service

Service was professional and attentive regardless of me being a set lunch diner. There were lots of staff buzzing around, I never had to wait for anything, though smiles and an affable attitude were concentrated very much in the younger members.

Meal deal verdict

With three courses here £22.50, I felt the set lunch provided what you paid for, with nothing really extra on offer. At Social Eating House (set lunch £21.50), I felt I had received a better quality meal than I had paid for and therefore had achieved exceptional value. In that sense, at Wheeler's seems to me not so much a deal, simply a cheaper menu option.

With one glass of house white plus service, the bill came to £31.50, near identical to New Street Grill where I drank a bottle of champagne for that same money. Accordingly...

Score

4/10

Additional note on Wheeler's. 

There are two dining rooms in Wheeler's, a respectable front room, and a back room that is lined with largely fetish artwork. Possibly best avoided if you are taking your parents (unless you deliberately want to start a conversation about something very personal). 

I am unclear whether Marco Pierre White is an owner or consultant here, my waiter didn't know, and conceded that the only time he had ever seen Marco was on TV.

While Wheeler's of St James's and Wheelers of Whitstable were for some time run by the same owners, the restaurants are now only connected by name.

The Savoy doesn't do things in half measures. After the 2010 grand reopening, the River Restaurant proudly opened boasting Escoffier inspired menus, but as a fine dining restaurant it wasn't, the evidence would suggest, bringing enough non resident guests through the doors. While we enjoyed the food there (see our River Restaurant blog post), and we described it at the time as 'classy', it was undeniably a little on the old fashioned side. Rather than trying to force a fine dining square peg through a more casual dining round hole, they have decided instead to start from scratch and the result is Kaspar's Seafood Bar & Grill.

From our memories, no trace of the River Restaurant is now evident and the space has enjoyed what we can only assume is a (multi?) million pound makeover to create something that is entirely new. With no expense spared, the quality of the finish is outstanding and brings to bear the full class of The Savoy experience, yet Kaspar's is pitched as an all day dining restaurant where there is no dress code. With a decor that sparkles and a menu that pleases all tastes (see below), it is a very nice place indeed to take a lunch or dinner, or something in between if you prefer.

Returning to the menu, the seafood bar, centrally placed in the room, offers a offers a variety of smoked and cured fish in a small(ish) plates format (choice of two £14, or four £22) and these include on the smoked option: various salmons, eel and sable fish; on the cured side: halibut, sea bass and monk fish. There's also a fruit de mer (£34) that makes an excellent shared starter providing oysters (2x rock, 2x native), poached prawns, scallop and Cornish crab. Not included, and to be honest, not missed, was the often space filling item of winkles and whelks that too often are more effort than they're worth. The quality of the seafood served was first class.

If seafood is not your thing, other starters include snails, beef tartare, chicken liver parfait and oxtail consomme as well as a variety of salads. Even in listing all these, we have not covered all of the available choices. Dedicated mains similarly offer over 20 options where more than half are not in fact seafood.But seafood was our choice and we opted for a grilled Cornish lobster (£36) and a Dover sole (£34) that was so expertly filleted and plated, you could be tempted to believe sole is a boneless fish. On a second visit, we also tried the Hereford rib-eye steak (10oz, £28). The verdict on each of these was the same, the ingredients are excellent, well cooked, and served honestly, without unnecessary fuss on the plate.

For dessert, there's Savoy classics like Peach Melba, as well as a chocolate sphere, a version of which I had so thoroughly enjoyed at the River Restaurant we named it as a dessert highlight of the year back in 2011. In keeping with the move away from fine dining, it too has changed with again less fuss on the plate (though it still sees a hot sauce pour melting the sphere tableside). While the previous version offered white chocolate and marshmallow inside, this has now been replaced by 'passion fruit sensations' providing crisp acidity rather than unending sweetness. 

While the old River Restaurant was enjoyable, it was not a venue we might consider regularly, except perhaps for entertaining our parents. Kaspar's however is a restaurant that we envisage using a great deal. It is a high class environment but not gaudy or pretentious, the menu much more than seafood (for those who don't want to be shackled) and the service always smart (this is The Savoy after all) but still friendly. While we were lucky enough to be guests at the pre-opening, we enjoyed it sufficiently to return just two days later for lunch and we already have a further return visit booked. A small part of us is sad to see the River Restaurant go, but in Kaspar's, they have created a fabulous, and no doubt significantly more popular, successor.