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.

Impala, Soho

If you know what to look for, you can work out the restaurant lineage of Impala just from a quick scan of the menu. Firstly, and most importantly, you want to try every last item - a feat frustratingly unavailable unless you're eating with at least ten of your friends. Between four of us last week, I think we managed to try about half of what was on offer, and looking back on the menu now some of the things we had to leave unordered still make me quite sad.

But it's the attention to ingredient detail that's another giveaway - strictly seasonal foraged things like greengage and wild herbs, intelligently placed offal such as sweetbreads and caul fat, and - the big flashing neon light as far as I'm concerned - the presence of Matt Chatfield's cull yaw, an extraordinary product which means only one thing: this is a Super 8 restaurant.

Together with Brat, Smoking Goat, Kiln and Mountain, places that are regularly spoken about as some of the best in London, a Super 8 restaurant is a stamp of quality like almost no other, and as close to a guarantee that you're going to have a good time that exists in town. And so yes, inevitably, Impala is brilliant - blindingly, uncompromisingly brilliant - a showcase of style and technique that thrills from the very first moment to the very last.

We began with martinis, because if any way you can, you should. These arrived alongside two types of bread - fluffy aish baladi which was warm and crackly and lovely and absolutely would have been the best bread I'd eaten all week if it wasn't for the other type, honey and olive oil, which was closer to fine French pastry than anything so humble as a house bread. Dipped in the grassy olive oil and some kind of salty chilli chutney it was absolutely superb - the kind of thing it would be way too easy to fill up on before the rest of the food arrived. It took a great deal of self-control not to.

I couldn't visit a Super 8 restaurant without ordering some cull yaw, in the form of these delicate little pastries a bit like samosas. The mutton flavour was rich and powerful, and a light dusting of icing sugar, which I was worried might be a bit weird, seemed to enhance the overall effect somehow - very clever stuff. That little dollop of sauce by the way is pickled walnut, which was very lovely too.

Borek had a supremely light and delicate pastry with all lovely little crisps and folds, and a fantastic spinach/feta filling. You get the impression that everything that makes it onto the menu at Impala is considered equally worthy as everything else - there's no "token" veggie dish, there are just dishes that happen to be veggie.

Ftira looked as good as it tasted, and it tasted amazing. Yet another masterclass in baking (the bread was warm and soft inside with a beautiful crust) was filled with a delightful avocado mixture and surrounded with a wreath of super fresh, and nicely dressed, herbs and edible flowers. I'm sure Impala wouldn't do anything as trite as design a dish for Instagram deliberately, but they may well have done it accidentally just by virtue of having an artist's eye for presentation.

Each new dish to appear maintained the same stunning standard. Sweetbreads are always a direct route to my heart but these were - or rather "this was", a giant single specimen - absolutely breathtaking. The sauce was deeply flavoured, glossy and perfectly balanced, the shredded onion salad crunchy and full of flavour but of course the real star was the offal itself, tasting of wood smoke and marmite and absolutely unimprovable. In any other restaurant I'd describe them as a "must-order" but must-orders are a bit useless when everything else is just as good.

Mackerel was a dainty little fillet, with moist, meaty flesh and a delicate crisp skin. It came with two separate - and excellent - sauces, one earthy walnut puree and one shockingly good taramasalata which, again, anywhere else would be one of the highlights of the meal. That Impala can make a tarama this good and have it appear as one of two sauces in a dish and nowhere else on the menu just shows how much talent this place has in the kitchen.

Birds tongue pasta came soaked in an oxtail ragu that had clearly been a long time in the making given the rich, complex flavour of it. Again, anywhere else this would be a dish to recommend to anyone you met for the next few days; at Impala it's just yet another thing to knock you sideways. Pasta had a lovely bite too.

Perhaps the only dish that didn't completely overwhelm with brilliance was a roast duck, which only managed to be excellent rather than exceptional. Perhaps it was just in comparison to everything else, but although it was cooked perfectly pink and had a nicely rendered skin, the molasses sauce was a little bit one-note and one or two pieces was enough before you started looking for interest elsewhere. Also at £68 for a quarter it was not exactly value either - you can get a whole one for £133 at Park Chinois in Mayfair. Perhaps not an entirely fair comparison, but still.

Monkfish wrapped in grape leaves, smokey and perfectly seasoned, were meaty and rewarding and about as good as an example as you will find anywhere. But even more impressive than the fish itself were the accompanying vegetables, particularly a leaf of kale soaked in a completely wonderful umami-rich jus of some kind and still crunchy and crisp from the grill. All the myriad of techniques on display, from the baking to grilling to sauce-making, were absolutely nailed over and over again.

Even a tomato salad was impressive - clearly using very good tomatoes, expertly dressed and topped with more crunchy fresh herbs. Beautiful colours on it too.

And still Impala had one final trick up its sleeve - this date and pistachio custard tart which put every other similar tart in London to shame. Of course the texture of the custard and the base were both impeccable, but you'd expect that of somewhere like this. The real stroke of genius was just a touch extra of salt in the mixture, which rather than proving a distraction just boosted the flavours to stratospheric levels. We'd eaten a lot by this point, but three portions of this tart all disappeared in record time.

I may have raised my eyebrows at the cost of the duck, but the overall bill (no pun intended) won our hearts back and then some. Impala could I'm sure charge double what they do and you'd still feel like you'd got your money's worth considering the quality of everything on offer, but £120pp with plenty of cocktails and wine is pretty close to a bargain for London in 2026. If you didn't drink (and didn't order the duck) you could probably get away with around £80. Back in January a meal at Dorian soared north of £200 a head and though was extremely enjoyable it wasn't twice as good as Impala - in fact it wasn't quite as good.

So I return to my original point. It was perhaps inevitable that this, the latest Super 8 restaurant, would impress. But never underestimate just how difficult it is to put together an operation as good as this, no matter what experience and talent you have at your disposal. Plenty of places can pull together a menu of seasonal and foraged brilliance. Plenty have a warm welcome, great service, a lovely atmosphere. But there's very few indeed that can produce dish after dish of stunning invention and technical mastery that add up to one of the very best restaurant experiences anywhere in the country right now. It's not easy, being this good. They just make it look like it is.

10/10

Chinzano, Liverpool

I have come to the conclusion that all Italian restaurants set in old railway arches are brilliant. I'm basing this assertion on the fact that all Italian restaurants set in old railway arches I've ever been to have been brilliant, and I see no reason to just write it off as a coincidence. First there was Archway in Battersea, where an ex-River Cafe team serve a menu of exciting Modern Italian food. Then the third (or fourth? Or fifth? I've lost count) branch of Bancone in Borough Market serving house made pasta to a way higher standard you have any right to expect from what is now essentially a chain. And now, underneath what I think is the abandoned track that once terminated at the grand Liverpool Exchange station, is Chinzano.

The first thing you'll notice about the place is how nicely spaced the tables are. We've become so accustomed to being squeezed into antisocially cramped restaurant environments, where you're very often closer to a stranger on the next table than your own +1, that for somewhere to have proper distances between guests is a genuinely pleasant surprise. I'm not necessarily blaming restaurants trying to maximise the return on their floorspace, and presumably the rent in L3 is not quite in the same ballpark as Farringdon or Marylebone, but the fact is that Chinzano probably could have shoehorned in a half a dozen more tables into this room, and that they haven't is to their credit.

Also to their credit is the use of a frozen glass to serve a negroni. Again, not every restaurant has the luxury of the freezer space to store glassware, but it's these little details that make the difference when you're otherwise just one of a multiple dozen places in Liverpool that can mix gin, Campari and vermouth together. And very nice it was too.

And so was everything else. This is an off-menu special of grilled peach panzanella that impressed in many different ways at once. Chunks of crunchy fried bread sat beneath a robustly seasoned collection of summer vegetables, all topped off with a bulb of burrata. It would have been a very enjoyable thing as a straightforward panzanella but the grilled peaches added a lovely sweet/smoky touch and the creamy burrata was clearly top quality.

Another off-menu special was this fried courgette flower stuffed with salt cod mousse, which came alongside a dollop of fantastic aioli. I've had this dish in various places and in various forms over the years, but I can't remember a version as successful as this, packing so much flavour into the seafood element and boasting a batter so light and delicate it was close to Japanese tempura.

Next, an extraordinary take on tuna crudo which ranks as one of the best things to have been done to raw fish I've enjoyed in a long time. Chunks of fresh tuna were bathed in a fantastic tomato and nduja dressing, lifting and highlighting the seafood without overwhelming it and providing an addictive punch of chilli while slices of cool radish on top provided some crunch. This was a bold, exciting and intelligent balance of textures, colours and flavours that demonstrates a kitchen right on top of their Italian food game.

Mains were no less impressive. Pork chop had a beautiful dark crust from the grill but was supremely tender and tasty within, and the hazelnut and potato dressing had all sorts of lovely textures and roasted nut flavours going on. It was also a hugely generous portion - you got plenty for your £26.

And crab taglioni was basically the perfect crab pasta dish - bouncy, moreish ribbons bound with enough brown meat to lend that earthy spritz of the sea, impossible not to love and yet another masterclass in Italian cooking.

Even truffle parmesan fries, a menu item perhaps not winning many authenticity points, were executed superbly - crunchy outside and creamy inside, staying crisp until the very bottom of the bowl, and topped with a healthy dollop of preserved black truffle and shaved parmesan. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention the service, which was as attentive and pleasant as you could want from a waiter who - certainly from behind - bore a striking resemblance to Hagrid from Harry Potter. I hope they don't mind me saying.

There's a whole other half of the menu that we didn't even try - Chinzano make a exciting sounding range of pizzas, with toppings like aged lamb ragu, or confit garlic and herb. And I'm sure they're lovely - and almost certainly worth a return visit - but that's for another time. Purely based on the primi and secondi we ordered, this buzzy little spot tucked away in a strange Victorian-industrial landscape north of the city deserves to be spoken about as one of the best Italian restaurants in the country never mind the North West - it really is that good. So you can add Chinzano to your list of must-visit restaurants today, and if you're ever wondering whether or not a particular Italian joint you may come across is worth your custom, check to see if it's in an old railway arch. If it is, you're probably onto a good thing.

9/10

I completely forgot to take a photo of the bill - I must have been enjoying myself too much - but with a bottle of nice organic white it came to £76pp, very reasonable for the level of cooking on offer.