Gwineas Bar & Bistro, Cornwall

There’s nothing fishy about this kitchen!

Part of the delightful Llawnroc hotel in the pretty hamlet of Gorran Haven, South Cornwall, The Gwineas Bar & Bistro makes the most of the light, space and restfulness afforded by its wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and glorious sea view beyond.

Brixton Eating – Seven @ Brixton

A toast to the tapas!

The Market Row end of Brixton Village is HOT right now, with more nooks and crannies morphing into delicious eateries than my poor brain can handle. The hotly anticipated opening of Wishbone (from the team that brought us Meatliquor!) is coming soon, but in the meantime the crowds are packing out Bukowski’s Charcoal Grill, Mexican hot spot Casa Morita and this: Seven @ Brixton, a two-storied, eye-poppingly coloured tapas bar and cocktail den boasting vintage jumble-sale Spanish decor and a hipster clientele.

The Hare and Hounds, Lingfield, Surrey

The Hare & Hounds, Lingfield, is a charming, powder blue pub, sitting unassumingly along the slip road outside the quaint, Midsommer Murders-esque village of Lingfield, famed for its racecourse. Inside is a colourful explosion of mismatched furniture, oriental flourishes and borderline kitsch-tacky details which somehow coalesce to produce something like the sitting room of my dreams -all of this arranged neatly around a large log fire.

The Moti Mahal Motivational

Even the rice whipped the pants off any other Indian I've ever eaten in.

There’s not much one can answer to a colleague you don’t know so well when the first thing they utter upon picking up the “surprise” keyring from the office party Christmas cracker is “ooh, that’s an odd looking cock ring.” But then merriment and jokes bordering on the inappropriate being de rigueur at these functions, one can only answer with a large guffaw and then encourage said person to keep going. Which was apparently my solution.

Moustache-less at The Botanist

The Botanist - Sitting proudly on Sloane Square

In case you’ve been on planet zog for the last month, you’ll know that this is “Movember” – up and down the country, teenagers with smelly socks disguised with Lynx have been trying desperately to grow a bit of chin fluff for charity, and older generations have relished the thought of finally finding out exactly how they’d look with a Hercule Poirot ‘tache. Everyone, that is, except Neil of superb whisky blog CaskStrength who in a defiant mood shaved OFF his legendary groomed moustachio and faced this chilly month with nary a protective bristle for his upper lip.

Which is how we met him at The Botanist – under the thin pretense of a press lunch, I was here to sample to goods and see if it lived up to the hype I had created for myself.

Oysters Shmoysters at Hix

Oyster Shmoysters. Yummylicious!

It doesn’t bode well that I suffered manic food poisoning two days after lunching at Hix – although I have since realised this had nothing to do with the large plate of fabby Kingdom of Mourne rock oysters, nor the sweet, plump Duchy of Cornwall natives. It was in fact an office-borne 24-hour bug-like monstrosity that had me hugging the loo for dear life and seeing a repeat  reemergence of a Marks and Spencers mexican chilli chicken salad…

Everyday is Noël at L’Atelier de Joël (Robuchon)

Entering L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon is like stepping into a kind of deliciously sexy combination of Japanese geisha ryokan, Manhattan boutique hotel bar and upmarket Greek island disco lounge. The décor of dark woods, deep red, soft lighting and the living wall of climbing plants are as soothing as the staff who might as well stroll around offering hot facial towels and sponge slippers or the odd shiatsu shoulder massage such is the attention and gentle lulling towards the eating experience.

Sizzling Kimchi at ARANG

Arang Korean restaurant/barbecue sits on Golden Square in Soho – a large, spacious cantine-style room with tables lit by what appear to be neon snooker table lamps each of which has an industrial ventilation tube zooming out of it that hovers, Bladrunner style, over your table’s hotplate.

Toothpicks and Tosh at Foxtrot Oscar

So A. and E. were reunited once again for a third “date” evening of culinary experimentation, hilarity, wine-guzzling and mutual exchanges of geek knowledge. A. tanned and relaxed after three weeks swanning about in Corsica gorging on smelly cheeses and wild boar, E. shaking from caffeine overdoses, soaked to the bone and pale as a corpse. This time they met at Foxtrot Oscar, in who’s hype E. was naive enough to believe because of the blasted words “Gordon Ramsey” so often attached to this place. The fact is, beyond owning it, and – according to his fan club of diligent waiters – coming in now and again for a cheeky snifter, good old Gordon clearly has nothing to do with this place whatsoever except perhaps inflate the staff’s sense of self-importance and fill them with pretentious twaddle.

Jean Christophe Novelli meets The Itinerant Epicure

Yours truly chilling with “J.C”

Oui my little croissants, yesterday was spent in a glorious flurry of champagne-quaffing and celebrity chef hob-nobbing, whipping up a meat storm with cookery TV’s Mr. Handsome: Jean Christophe Novelli.

J.C, as we call him, (“we” being the 20-odd starry-eyed journalists swooning over cheddar cheese cubes) was at L’Atelier des Chefs being “the face” of a new campaign by Flora to promote healthy heart awareness in Britain.