Jeune & Jolie, Carlsbad

To a visitor from lands afar (me) who sees this part of the world in little two-week periods twice a year, Jeune & Jolie feels like it did all the work of establishing itself as one of the best restaurants in California in a metaphorical blink of an eye, a few short months between opening, winning its Michelin star and becoming the last word in sophisticated Cali-French dining.

Of course, it didn't happen quite that easily. They opened all the way back in 2018, and won their star three years later right in the middle of the Covid pandemic, which must have felt like quite the reward for making it through lockdowns and the whole home delivery rigmarole. It's probably fair to say they were always trying to get a star - French fine dining, even Californian-French fine dining, needs Michelin recognition more than most other types of cuisine for validation of their efforts - but let's not forget it's never inevitable, and never easy, and always welcome. Even if, occasionally, the choices made by the tire company can be bizarre bordering on insane.

Anyway, in this case, as anyone who's ever eaten at Jeune & Jolie will tell you, Michelin got it exactly right. While most of the mid-to-big budget restaurants in the San Diego area do their best to project an air of laid-back California cool even as the prices they charge creep ever upwards, Jeune & Jolie give you smart surroundings, sparkling (and - crucially for this part of the world - not over-familiar) service and, yes, some of if not the best food (certainly that I've been lucky enough to try) on the West Coast for less than you'd pay at many less impressive places.

Alongside a round of cocktails - a perfect gin Martini my own choice, a lovely little thing indeed - we had cheekily ordered a plate of truffled gougères from the bar menu because, well, if gougères are available you have to order gougères. That's the rule. And even though they would have been perhaps even a little bit nicer warmed, they were still excellent, delicate little puffs of cheese and truffle, top pastry work.

The raw bar at Jeune & Julie has its own menu, so you can either skip this course entirely (as if) or order as many little extras as you think you might be able to fit in before the four courses of the main event. Here are 3 different types of oyster and an extra dressed version, a local bay scallop, a huge blue prawn and a dressed mussel, all of it impressive but the dressed oyster being the particular standout with its balanced pan-Asian dressing.

Amuse of duck liver and peanuts were next, with a scattering of edible flowers to add a bit of colour. But as with the gougères it was the pastry that was the most impressive element - impossibly thin and light and dissolving in the mouth to brilliant effect.

I have the capacity to enjoy even a fairly ordinary steak tartare (I'm good like that), but when it's done well it has the potential to be a highlight of the meal. This was definitely in the second camp - lovely loose, richly flavoured veal chunks shot through with just enough wasabi to season and provide a bit of heat but not too much that it overwhelms the meat. On top, crunchy sliced radish sprinkled with seaweed, and underneath, a subtle layer of white soy providing more seasoning and Japanese-leaning flavours. This really was very good.

Amberjack crudo, I hope you can tell even through my terrible photo, was a beautiful plate of food and tasted it too, the fresh fish nicely matching the sharp ceviche-style dressing and topped with bits of pickled pear, celery and passionfruit. One of the best things about eating out in a part of the world so far away from your own is the chance to sample a completely alien range of fish and seafood - some vaguely familiar but some genuinely new. Amberjack is a Pacific game fish which I'm going to suggest tastes a bit like wild sea bass, although until I try them side by side I won't know if that description is useful or completely off the mark...

Last of the pre-starters (sorry, course "Un") was this bowl of some kind of melon soup with (real) caviar, crème fraîche and cucumber and though I didn't get to try it myself (there's only so much passing around of dishes you want to do to keep the front of house spending most of their time mopping up spilled food) I heard only good things.

The bread course was marvellous - a big, fluffy, glossy brioche served with soft lemon butter, it was as dangerously addictive as the house bread at the Devonshire, and anyone who's had that will tell you how difficult it is to have just the one portion.

"Deux" - for want of a better word, starters - continued being supremely enjoyable. A mushroom tart had yet more impeccable pastry work encasing a deliriously rich and complex autumnal mixture of chanterelle, chestnuts, almonds and black truffle. "Saint Jacques" was a giant scallop roasted to a beautiful golden brown served with grapes, tarragon and various foraged sea vegetables, and my own dish of pork (sorry again about the godawful photo) was a generous chunk of just-cooked fillet, served alongside some slow-cooked belly (with superb attached crackling), quince and chicory and all bound with one of those brilliant glossy French sauces that you want to take home and eat spoonfuls of in front of the TV. Well, that might just be me - but it was a very good sauce, honestly.

For "Trois", a single mousse-like ricotta gnudi came next to an artfully arranged series of braised and fried seasonal vegetables, the crunchy/creamy artichoke hearts and enoki mushrooms being particularly noteworthy. The food at Jeune & Jolie, as you may have noticed - is neither austere nor rustic, but a perfectly fine balance between the two, ending up impressing with technique and presentation but also never being anything less than accessible and easy. It's an irresistible formula.

This was my main of guinea hen (about as close to game birds as you'll get in this part of the world), cutely ballotined and sliced into medallions, drenched in another gloriously rich and glossy sauce and served with sliced mushroom and sticks of "garleek" (a cross between garlic and leek - who knew?) that had been charred up nicely on the grill. Again - again and again - it all worked perfectly.

And we needn't have worried that the Jeune & Jolie kitchens were putting all their efforts into the savoury courses and leaving desserts as an afterthought. Not a bit of it - an apple-treacle tart served with soft ginger ice cream (I think it was anyway) had a bewildering number of techniques on display all producing a ridiculously moreish result, a dish that would not have been out of place on the menu at l'Enclume or Moor Hall. And I won't inflict the distressing photos of the other desserts on you, but suffice it to say they were equally enjoyable, an autumnal berries dish having some lovely floral notes of orange and violet mixed with toasted nuts for texture.

Petit fours consisted of some weeny tartlets of some kind of citrus mousse, and sticks of Ecuadorian chocolate. I've become slightly obsessed with Ecuadorian chocolate after stumbling across it in a specialist shop in Girona (Spain) recently - and these were just as good as I remember, coffee and citrus notes released with every bite with a lovely snap.

You will have gathered by now that I had a great time at Jeune & Jolie. As I said earlier, it's almost certainly one of the best restaurants in California, never mind just San Diego, a city that has traditionally been left behind by Los Angeles and San Francisco when it comes to this kind of thing. It's smart and serious enough, with an experienced enough kitchen, to serve sophisticated and intelligent food without coming across as pretentious or needy, but does so with such love and flair (aided by a front of house team who didn't put a single toe on any foot wrong) and at such eminently reasonable prices (relatively) that it's virtually impossible not to fall in love with the place. And so I'm afraid I did - hook, line and sinker. And chances are, you will too.

10/10

64 Goodge Street, Fitzrovia

The first thing we were given to eat at 64 Goodge Street was a little plate of truffle-cream gougères topped with shaved Comté. These turned out to be important for two reasons - firstly, they weren't on the menu and as unannounced bonus extra dishes go you could hardly do more to tap right into my personal pleasure points. Secondly, they were absolutely, extraordinarily wonderful.

And these things are important because the way you react to this (spoiler alert) hopelessly fawning review rather depends on whether you think my critical faculties have been impaired by a group of extremely talented restaurateurs knowing their audience inside-out, or whether you think that despite the near-impossibility of my not enjoying a new venture from the Quality Chop House guys, 64 Goodge Street really is, objectively, as blindingly good as I say. And I very much hope to convince you of the latter.

So yes, those gougères. Warm and silky smooth inside, with a supremely light crust, they packed a heady truffle punch and almost dissolved in the mouth they were so delicately put together. I am able to enjoy even slightly cackhandedly constructed gougères - I mean, what's not to like about truffle, cheese and pastry - but when they're made with care they're great, and when they're this good something very special indeed is going on.

Crudités - baby carrots, radishes, chicory - came with a luxurious Roquefort dip topped with caramelised walnuts. In all fairness, there's only so mind-blowing a plate of raw salad can be, but the Roquefort dip was lovely, and it all looked very pretty and summery.

From here on, almost everything that came out of the kitchen at 64 Goodge Street was not just good but close-your-eyes-and-can't-believe-it's-so good. Chicken liver parfait, as good as chicken liver parfait has ever been in this country or any other, came squiggled (neatly) onto the top of dainty brioche fingers, with some slices of cherry (no doubt treated to some extremely clever cheffy technique) providing sharpness and colour.

Kintyre smoked salmon - which I assume is from Kintyre smokehouse up in Campbeltown but happy to be corrected if I'm wrong - was excellent both on its own and draped over warm blinis and topped with crème fraîche and roe. 64 Goodge Street can do fireworks and fancy techniques, but are also otherwise confident enough in their own skin to occasionally sit back and let the ingredients do the talking.

The fact we didn't order these smoked cod's roe tartines and they appeared as a little blogger bonus extra makes me eternally grateful that I was able to have my terrible ordering blunder so easily rectified, but was left seriously questioning my skills in reading a menu. Of course a smoked cod's roe dish from the team behind Quality Chop House would be good - how on earth did I not spot that? - and these were world class little nibbles, a layer of tarama on a delicate stick of pastry, topped with pickled radish and onion.

Snail, bacon and garlic is never going to be anything less than a winning combination, and treated to the 64 Goodge Street's skill with a deep-fat fryer they became little crisp "bonbons" that exploded with meaty, buttery goodness.

Then, lamb sweetbreads, gorgeous tender bitesize things in a light crisp breadcrumb coating spritzed with some kind of vinegar, then topped with blobs of mint & tarragon purée. Another marriage of brilliant ingredients and dazzling technique in an accessible, deliriously enjoyable little package.

Oh, and so far these were just the "snacks". The menu proper - at least my own - began with this pretty little fillet of sea bass with wild fennel and pastis. The fish itself was - needless to say - beautifully cooked with a delicate crisp skin, and the sauce, creamy and light and heady with aniseed, was a perfect match. But dotted around the place were these little elements of - well I'm not sure, they were sharp and pickled and citrussy, perhaps gooseberry or some other seasonal fruit, and really lifted the dish to something else.

On the other starters, duck sausage and crab with asparagus, I can't report firsthand as they disappeared before I could beg for a taste, but the general consensus from my fellow diners appears to be that they were sophisticated, generous of flavour and extremely enjoyable. And given everything else we were served, I'm quite happy to take them at their word.

My main was a porc - sorry, pork - chop, portioned into even, chunky slices each containing a morsel of tender meat and melty fat. It was all covered in a charcutière sauce, a glossy, meaty affair studded with cute little buttery girolles, spinach and herbs. Perfectly seasoned, masterfully cooked and with one of those fancy French sauces that probably take a lifetime to perfect, it was everything you (or, more importantly, I) would ever need from a pork dish.

I got to try a bit of the turbot, which although perfectly decent perhaps lacked a little bit of the power and dazzle of the pork. This could easily be a personal taste thing though, or even a victim of contrasts - perhaps I should have tried the fish before the pork.

And I didn't get to try the hogget at all, but I heard nothing but satisfied noises coming from those who did. Looks nice too, doesn't it?

All the desserts were at least worth ordering, but I got the impression the Paris-Brest (traditional, in a classic way - none of your weird fruit flavours added to this, thank-you-very-much) and the strawberry tart (fantastic balance of pastry and fruit in a stunning red gelée) were very slightly more accomplished than my own apricot tarte tatin which needed a lot more sugar to counteract the rather sour fruit element. But that said, I still enjoyed it, and the almond ice cream was superb.

Overall though, we had a blast at 64 Goodge Street, and left all agreeing it was one of the best meals any of us had had all year. Which is just as well, because the bill, with 2 bottles of wine between 5, came to £137pp - certainly at the higher end of what you might expect to pay for modern French food in London, even food as sophisticated and intelligently constructed as this.

But it still felt like value, and I'd pay it again on any given future special occasion, because all said and done, when French food is done this well, there's very little that can beat it. Certainly you can pay a lot more for a lot less - especially (whisper it) in France. 64 Goodge Street, like Quality Chop House before it, is a place so good that it makes you that bit more happy (and, let's face it, smug) to live in London. And there's no higher compliment than that.

9/10

Restaurant Dominic Chapman, Henley-on-Thames

This isn't going to be a very long post because, well, it wasn't a very long lunch. Sometimes you want to spend all day cooing over a tasting menu, getting through way too many bottles of wine and ending up leaving just as the next set of guests are arriving for dinner. Sometimes - quite often, in fact, in my case - that is very much what you want.

But then some other times, you want one or two courses, a glass of well-chosen fizz, and to then head off for a day in the sun. That's not to say Restaurant Dominic Chapman isn't a lovely place to hang around - it's the flagship restaurant of the very smart Relais Henley-on-Thames, which can boast some buildings dating back to the 14th century, and has for the best part of the last 300 years been a hotel right on the banks of the river. There's a plush dining room with conservatory opening on to an expansive, sun-drenched (at least on this day it was) courtyard, but I recommend you get the best of both worlds by sitting on the soft furniture just by the open doors, which still feels quite al-fresco.

As I said, we skipped starters and dove straight into mains. House burger was very nicely done, with a huge lump of lovely crumbly beef and what felt very much like a kind of custom house dressing somewhere between mayonnaise and a Caesar dressing. Fries were perfect - crunchy and golden and moreish, and were very swiftly all hoovered up. They make their own actual mayonnaise, too, which as any Belgian will tell you is the best thing to dip chips into.

I've been served enough dry, mealy, overcooked duck in my time to know that to get it as good as this - tender as you like, pink in the middle, with just a touch of crunch on the skin and a good thick, salty, rich sauce - requires proper kitchen skills. And this might be a good idea to talk about the titular Dominic Chapman, who I first bumped into cooking at the (now sadly departed) Royal Oak Paley Street. He then spent a good few years touring round some of the best kitchens in east Berkshire - the Beehive in White Waltham, the Crown at Burchett's Green - before finally opening this, his own place, with his own name above the door. His is a well-practiced and classically trained kitchen, and the years of experience shines through in every dish.

We were so impressed, in fact, that we decided to stick around for desserts. Both were basically fautless in that English country gastropub style, a sticky toffee pudding all gooey and syrupy, and a superb treacle tart, each served with lovely soft house ice cream. I perhaps would have liked to detect a bit more (in fact, any) advertised honeycomb in the treacle tart ice cream as it's one of my favourite things in the world, but maybe they forgot. Anyway, no real harm done.

The bill came to £94.60, which I realise isn't super cheap but then this is Henley, in rather plush surroundings, and did include a very nice glass of Rathfinny fizz (Sussex). I also notice that their website lists a £20 for two courses (£25 for three) lunch menu which we weren't offered, so this might just be weekdays. Either way, it is possible to eat here on more of a budget, just as it's equally possible to have four full courses, go HAM on the wine list and spend all day here. All approaches are valid.

However you approach your time at the Relais though - and plenty of people were just doing drinks and snacks in the courtyard, which also seemed positively encouraged - I can't imagine you're likely to come away disappointed. A kitchen as accomplished as this can, I imagine, turn their hand to more or less anything and make a success of it, but serving crowd-pleasing Fresh-British classics in lovely surroundings for a decent amount of money is a surefire way to win yourself fans, just just from the lucky residents of Henley but much further afield. They've certainly made one of me.

8/10