The Golden Tooth, Newington Green

"There's nowhere good to eat in Newington Green", nobody ever says. You'd think a part of town that already hosted Parilla, Jolene, Cadet and Primeur not to mention the dozens of top-quality ocakbasi and Eritrean/Ethiopian spots up and down Green Lanes, wouldn't need yet another notable spot, and yet here we are. I'm sorry if I sound like a stuck record, but as a Battersea resident yes of course I appreciate what Ploussard are doing, but I shouldn't have to rely on one (admittedly excellent) place to shoulder the weight of mid-budget fine dining for an entire square mile of south west London. Yes, OK Archway is good too, but that's pretty much Vauxhall. And Soif? That closed last year.

Anyway, you're not here to listen to yet another tiny-violin rant about how bad I have it in SW11, so back to N16. The Golden Tooth (not a particularly appetising name, I know) is run by the team behind the recently-closed Papi in Hackney, which I quite liked despite the cramped room and a broken booking system only giving us an hour and a half to wolf down our dinner. Up here in Newington Green the pace is much more relaxed (a bit too relaxed as it turns out, but more on that later), and this grand Victorian building populated by very capable and charming staff is altogether a much more sensible environment to enjoy the kind of food head chef Matthew Scott likes to make. A giant skylight in the restaurant section towards the back (there's still plenty of room for pubby activities at the front) bathes the area in soft light while the sun's out, but as you can probably tell from my increasingly murky photos, once the sun goes down the atmosphere becomes a little more clandestine.

I began with my usual control variable, a gin martini, which was great. Frozen glass, blisteringly cold liquid, and at a very reasonable £12. I've been criticised recently for a somewhat cavalier attitude to what counts as 'reasonable', and there's every chance my perspective as a Londoner who eats out as much as he can (which is increasingly less as costs continue to skyrocket) is a little less grounded than the national average. But in this New Normal, where it is not just accepted but a genuinely pleasant surprise when a meal out costs less than a return to Alicante, I think all of our perspectives need to shift a little bit. And anyway, £12 is very reasonable for a good martini.

House bread was OK - I'm automatically a bit suspicious of places that toast their bread, as if the raw version wouldn't be up to snuff - but the butter was lovely and light and soft, and the focaccia-style bread itself had a pleasant slight sweetness to it.

One of these dishes is grilled peaches with pata negra lardo, and one is hot and sour grilled cucumbers with whipped yoghurt. I do remember both were very nice, each using use of the charcoal grill to add smoke and flavour and texture to the main ingredients, and with some very clever (bordering on weird in the case of the peaches and lardo) flavour combinations used to good effect. But as you can see, they do have a strange compulsion to hide all of their lovely seasonal cooking under a layer of undressed green leaves, as if someone had snuck into the kitchen and emptied a bag of M&S salad over the plates just as they were heading out of the pass. So apologies if I can't tell you exactly what you're looking at - identifying them at this later stage is a bit of a challenge.

The same fate seems to have befallen these steamed clams, buried as they were under a washed-and-ready-to-eat layer of dry leaves, but, again, the clams themselves were plump and full of flavour even if I could have done with a bit more of the advertised chilli, or at least more of an even spread - some clams had none. I've not yet reached the stage of eccentrically carrying around a pot of dried chilli flakes to add to my dinner if I feel the spice levels are inadequate, as an ex-boss of mine used to do, but I do wish some places would be a bit more bold with the stuff (with certain notable exceptions of course).

Tuna with tomatoes and strawberries sounds like it might be slightly the wrong side of wacky, but everyone agreed this dish was one of the evening's highlights. They'd done that clever restaurant-y thing with the tomatoes where they'd been peeled and slow-cooked and steeped in something to turn them into little flavour bombs, and the sweetness of the strawberries actually worked rather well. Of course the star was still the tuna, big fatty slices of top quality fish.

Sheep's Ricotta dumplings with girolles were every bit as good as that sounds, draped in rich bechamel (I assume) and a thinner but no less-powerfully flavoured sauce made from (I think) whey. Perhaps £19 is a bit on the punchy side for 5 dumplings, cheese and mushroom hardly being premium ingredients, but they were done well.

And finally of the small dishes, an ex-dairy beef tartare shot through with bagna cauda (would you like some umami with your umami?) topped with a distressingly addictive mound of puffed beef tendons which I think I could have eaten until I was 90% tendon. The seasoning here was bordering on excessive but got away with it because the ingredients were clearly top-notch and it was all put together very well.

Of the mains, common consensus was that the hogget was the most impressive, a giant chargrilled chop with a healthy ribbon of fat, seasoned perfectly and with a fantastic texture that managed to both melt in the mouth but also carry enough chew to be interesting. It was a little on the cooler side than we would have liked, in common with the rest of the mains (there was a good 25-min gap before the larger plates arrived), but the quality of the ingredients still shone through.

Bacon is far less forgiving of temperature errors, and this smoked chop with parsley sauce really needed to be quite a bit hotter so that the fat wasn't quite as mealy. That said, as for the hogget the ingredients did a lot of the legwork and there's every chance any other day of the week they could have nailed the timing and produced something truly excellent.

I'm not sure what it is about John Dory, but I've never really understood why people consider it premium. To me it tastes soily and flat, and I've never had any example that makes me think it's worth the same as, say, turbot or Dover sole. So yes this was £54 worth of slightly disappointing fish, seasoned perfectly and not wrong in any major way, just a bit forgettable. £54 worth of forgettable.

Grouse was excellent, however, which is just as well as grouse is my favourite thing in the world and I've been known to hold very longstanding grudges against places that don't know how to treat it properly. Nicely aged but not too aggressively funky (I like aggressively funky but can appreciate I'm in the minority there), it came as lovely pink cuts of breast topped with a confit and breadcrumbed leg and alongside a wonderful confit potato thing which soaked up all the glossy grouse jus.

At this point I had run out of time and had to leave (did I mention that all the best restaurants are an hour and a half from my house?) so I left my friends to enjoy desserts (they were apparently quite nice, mint choc chip ice cream being a particular favourite) and split the bill after the savouries. With a couple of cocktails, a bottle of Marlborough Pinot Noir that seemed expensive at £80 until you find out it's £42 retail which is a markup almost unheard of for London restaurants, and a few extra bits and pieces (nice fat olives, salad, mash and some house fries that I think had been coated in powdered vinegar flavour), the bill came to £91.50pp. Which is, and I make no apologies for using this word again, pretty reasonable.

The Golden Tooth isn't the ultimate answer to gastropub dining in London, but it does hold its head amongst some quite good company, and there is a certain quiet level of ambition here that doesn't need to always be successful to be good value overall. I notice that the menu changes wildly from week to week - in fact hardly a single dish from one of my dining companion's previous visit a few weeks previously was available on this her return, which is absolutely to be applauded. And as I say, when it's good (the tuna, the hogget, the grouse) it's really good, and such relentless imagination and drive means there's a good chance there will be something worth your journey, no matter how long your journey is. Even if it's all the way from Battersea.

7/10

Osteria Vibrato, Soho

Lunch this particular Saturday started on a bit of a sad note. To get to the restaurant from Shaftesbury Avenue requires walking past the site of 10 Greek Street, once one of the most reliable restaurants in Soho, now sadly empty and forlorn. I know, it's 2026, lots of places are struggling and restaurants open and close all the time but I thought 10 Greek Street would be there forever, a kind of Soho stalwart bistro like Duck Soup or Antidote Wine Bar or Noble Rot, always available for a glass of something natural and some reasonably-priced small plates.

Anyway, life goes on, and after welcoming the lovely Impala into the Soho fold we also have Osteria Vibrato, a buzzy, already-popular little spot aiming to do for Italian food what Impala did for, well, whatever the cuisine at Impala is. After squeezing onto our table (the food may be Italian but the distance between the tables is very Parisian Bistro) I was presented with an ice-cold martini in a pretty little frozen glass, so on the martini front at least they're doing everything right.

Decent sourdough, crispbreads and olives were also very nice - a surprising amount of flavour from the bread/crackers, and the miniature olives were little flavour bombs. These were all unordered, but weren't free - a cover charge of £3pp appeared on the bill later, which is either fine or a minor irritant depending on your point of view. Would an experience at Osteria Vibrato be measurably worse if guests were allowed to skip the bread and olives? It's hard to imagine it would.

Sicilian red prawns were the first menu item to arrive. Drizzled in excellent olive oil (you really do notice the quality of some of the ingredients at Osteria Vibrato), they were sweet and salty and although perhaps not the very best prawns I've ever had in my life, could certainly have a shot at the top 10. They were also £4 each (£16 for 4) for these fairly small beasties so I made absolutely sure there was no head juice left un-snaffled to get my money's worth.

Sardines stuffed with pine nuts and raisins felt like the kind of dish the ancient Romans would have enjoyed, although from what I can gather from my ancient Roman food history they would have eaten the whole fish - bones, tails and all - which we didn't do. Still a fun little dish though.

If this doesn't look like a lot of sage and butter agnolotti for £28 then it's because they let us split two portions between the four of us, which was nice. I mean there's still a debate as to whether 6 agnolotti are worth £14 either, but they were certainly very well made and incredibly moreish.

Whole grilled sole was absolutely beautiful, and at £39 for a whole fish, actually noticeably better value than a lot of the other dishes. Simply cooked, drizzled with olive oil and capers and seasoned well, the meat lifted off the bone in satisfying meaty chunks, and in fact I've just noticed on the bill they only actually charged us £35 for this so it was even better value than I thought. If you go to Osteria Vibrato, if they have the sole, you should order it.

The mixed grill was, I'm told, nicely done too - chunks of lamb and veal (I think - I didn't try this one) cooked pink piled on top of roast potatoes.

And yes £95 is a lot for a T-bone steak but it was expertly cooked with a good, dark, crunchy char and lovely strong, smoky beef flavour.

Sides were enjoyable too - a pommes boulangère affair (sorry, patate al forno) with a nice crunchy top above rich, beef-stock soaked layered potato, and even a green salad was noticeable for a good sharp dressing and bold seasoning. Or maybe by that point we were just desperate for something that wasn't a giant slab of meat.

I have heard the Osteria Vibrato amaretti described variously as "a must-order" and "the best you'll ever have". So maybe they were having an off day or accidentally missed an ingredient because despite clearly being straight out of the oven they were distressingly dry, to the extent they were actually quite difficult to swallow. Or maybe real fresh Italian amaretti are supposed to taste like hot bags of sand. Either way, I'm not sure I can recommend them. Very odd.

Buckwheat, fig and almond cake was better though, as were a selection of house gelato and sorbets I forgot to take photos of. And credit where credit's due, staff were lovely and helpful and attentive, which more than made up for the occasional niggle I had with the food. It's clearly a very slick little operation and has definitely already got a fanbase - tables are quite hard to come by and the place was full this particular Saturday lunchtime.

Maybe I've just been spoiled recently with some literally flawless meals, and my standards were unreasonably high. It's perhaps just unfortunate timing on behalf of Osteria Vibrato and that, objectively, the place has a lot going for it. Don't get me wrong, it is very good, but I think at these prices (£136pp which included a rather cheeky 14% service charge) it should be something approaching great, and really only the sole reached that level. Still, they seem to be doing something right, as I say, as the place seems to be running almost full occupancy, so well done them. If I was going to spend that amount of money again, I'd go to Impala. But as my Grandma used to say, it wouldn't do if we were all the same, would it?

7/10

670 Grams, Birmingham

I love restaurants of all kinds. All budgets, all styles, all cuisines, whatever the location and whatever the level of ambition. I can be equally happy ordering a mixed grill at Tayyabs as being cossetted by the world class service at the Ledbury. There are many different ways to enjoy the talent in kitchens here and elsewhere in the world, and it seems silly to restrict yourself to any kind of comfort zone when there's such joy to be found in discovering something new, or going out of your way to gather new experiences.

All that said, I'm not too ashamed to say I'm a bit of a sucker for an ambitious fine-dining tasting menu. While I appreciate some people don't get on with them, I've always thought that if you like eating out at all, the modern British fine dining tasting menu can be the ultimate expression of everything the restaurant experience can be. It's become trendy to dismiss Michelin-level cooking as pretentious nonsense - and believe me, it certainly can be, but when it's done right it can be life-changing.

If you like fine dining then, you'll love 670 Grams every much as bit as I did, and I absolutely loved it. Despite being a whole hour delayed (thank you Avanti West Coast) the staff were completely unflappable and we began our late lunch with a very pleasant cocktail called Citrus Monster (which very much lived up to its name) in a very pretty (albeit not frozen) glass.

A few moments later, "snacks" arrived. I use the inverted commas deliberately as the sheer number and variety of perfect little bitesize morsels that landed on our table was gasp-inducing. There was a "Balti Pie", a nod to a local speciality, which was full of curry flavour and seasoned well....

...little curried trout tartlets which dissolved delightfully in the mouth and with which we had great fun popping the roe that came on top...

...an extremely clever melon and ham jelly thing which I've somehow lost the photo of but looked like a Haribo sweet and tasted powerfully of the main ingredients...

...a citrusy steak tartare studded with pickles and olives and topped with a lovely little coil of (I think) fried shallot for texture...

...a wonderful rich, dark, glossy Birmingham soup presented in a nicely rustic bit of handmade ceramic which I ended up leaving completely dry...

...slices of house cured duck with a perfect taste and texture which gleamed on the table like meaty jewels...

...and at least two or three other things which I'm afraid I could make notes on quickly enough (one of them I see from my menu is called 'Cheese & onion' and could be the thing above) and so are lost to the restaurant gods. But all you need to know is that they were all as pretty as they were fun to eat. Start me off on a menu with a dozen bitesize elements of loveliness and that's it, as a restaurant, you've won.

The bread course was notable not just for the quality of the sweet Japanese milk bread glossed with Digbeth (the area of town where the restaurant is set) honey but also a fantastic mushroom and truffle butter arranged like petals on a flower and almost too beautiful to eat (I said almost).

Course one (!) of the menu proper was a savoury miso custard that was so good I never wanted it to end. I could have probably eaten about ten of these and done myself a real damage but 670 Grams know me better than I know myself, and both the portion control and pacing of all the dishes was absolutely spot-on. Obviously a dollop of Exmouth caviar boosted the overall levels of luxury, but the real star here was the custard itself, a proper achievement.

A kind of potato-based velouté of smoked eel and wild sea bass had an insanely rich and powerful flavour, again exactly the kind of thing you go to places like this for. Yet more caviar obviously didn't do any harm but even without it this would still have been a world-class bit of cooking.

Perhaps the only one of the "starters" I didn't completely love was this curried scallop, but this could perhaps be due to the fact that I'm not the world's greatest fan of scallop anyway. It was still very enjoyable but I would have liked a bit more citrus (in the form of little bits of finger lime underneath) to contrast the sweetness of the seafood. But my friend loved this, so what do I know.

Next up, piri piri quail from the chef's dad's recipe (he's Portuguese) arriving as a cute little chargrilled leg and a stuffed ballotine. This was all fantastic, from the crunchy smoky leg to the soft and herby ballotine, but bringing it all together was a wonderful piri piri sauce that I'm not ashamed to say I mopped completely dry with my fingers.

Finally of the savoury courses, duck breast next to a little slab of foie gras on top of a kind of sausage made from the duck bits. This was one of those dishes that could have been made just for me, containing a number of my favourite things to eat in the entire world. The duck was perfectly pink, the foie gras melted in the mouth, and a dollop of preserved plum provided a gently fruity highlight to the wonderful Albufera sauce. Magical stuff.

The cheese course - a Baron Bigod - was presented at this stage to give us an idea of what was to come before being whisked away. First of the desserts (not pictured, sorry photo didn't turn out) then appeared, a sourdough ice cream in warm brown butter, served with a choice of jams. I chose gooseberry, my friend went for tomato. Both were fantastic, as was the smooth ice cream.

Another ice cream followed, this time fig leaf on a bed of marshmallows and damson puree. You'll notice how strictly seasonal things like gooseberries and damsons are woven into the menu without it turning into a gimmick or being distracting - first and foremost they're great ingredients used well.

Hiding under this Cadbury-purple (this is the city of Bourneville after all) sheet of tulakalum chocolate was a mixture of roasted almonds and prunes soaked in Pedro Ximenes sherry. So, a posh Cadbury's Fruit and Nut then - the dish was called 1926 after the year the bar was introduced.

The Baron Bigod reappeared next, grilled and gooey under a healthy layer of shaved black truffle...

...and then finally, yet more Portuguese influence in the form of this utterly amazing pastel de nata made with cascara, a byproduct of coffee making.

I should probably take a bit of a break from tradition and mention the wines which included a very nice Polish rose, an orange from Midlands Press Winery which is literally just up the road from the restaurant, and ending with a lovely 2022 late harvest Tokaji - so quite an eclectic list, but one that made perfect sense at the time. Oh and if you're wondering where the name 670 Grams came from, it was the birth weight of owners (and very accomplished front of house) Kray and Sacha Treadwell's daughter, who you'll pleased to learn is now a happy and healthy young girl.

So clearly, 670 Grams is a restaurant worth visiting, one that deserves a special journey (to borrow the expression from Michelin who should clearly be awarding stars at some point) no matter what part of the country you're from. But to West Midlands locals what is happening in this converted custard factory (Alfred Bird's lab was just over the road) should be a source of great pride. Taking all the best traditions of fine dining and applying it to hyper local produce is the best possible showcase of food from a city that already has a good, and growing reputation for food. We rolled back to London happy and inspired, swapping stories of our favourite dishes and wondering how soon we can plan a return.

10/10

I was invited to 670 Grams and didn't see a bill, but the menu says the signature tasting (which is what I assume we were given) is £135pp so expect to pay about £170pp with booze I reckon. They also do an a la carte for £45 and a shorter tasting menu for £90 so there's something for most price points.