Hereford Road Restaurant, Notting Hill
As you would expect from a graduate of Fergus Henderson's St John, chef-owner Tom Pemberton specialises in common-sense cooking. His kitchen works diligently to extract maximum flavour from often neglected ingredients (skirt steak, mutton, mackerel etc) and Pemberton tries to keep the prices down accordingly. At £13, the two-course set lunch is excellent value, but with this feature's self-imposed £10-a-head price limit in mind, the express lunch (£9.50 for a daily changing no-choice main course, a glass of wine and coffee) is an absolute steal.
A sample plate of lentils and roasted quail was great. Cooked-down with rosemary, garlic, onion and spinach, the lentils were fragrant, alive with flavour and rendered to a fraction-past-al-dente perfection. The quail, whilst not the tastiest game bird ever, was supremely juicy, the skin well seasoned and crisp. Washed down with a glass of light, nicely tannic Portuguese table wine, it was a thoroughly enjoyable 45-minute break. Service is spot on and the restaurant itself is a light, coolly modern space. Foodies will appreciate the two-person booths opposite the open kitchen where you can earwig on the chefs as they work their way through the service. It was unspectacular stuff. This is a venue where, you sense, Ramsay-style meltdowns would be anathema. But, nonetheless, it was interesting listening in on the comments and instructions.
• Express lunch £9.50. 3 Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, W2 (+44 (0) 20-7727 1144, herefordroad.org)
Orange Pekoe, Barnes
Barnes feels less like London than Henley-on-Thames or some similarly sedate corner of Oxfordshire. Orange Pekoe, a speciality tea room and cafe in the modern style – all jazzy, expensive wallpapers and tastefully deployed vintage chintz – exudes that gentle atmosphere. Its calm cheerfulness is particularly welcome over breakfast. The morning menu stretches from freshly baked pastries to Scottish smoked salmon and cream cheese on toasted muffins, and includes the Pekoe Florentine (£6), where the expected hollandaise is replaced (presumably with calorie-counting yummy mummies in mind) with fresh spinach and a dressing of olive oil. The irony tang of the spinach and the grassy, pungent oil work surprisingly well.
Elsewhere, the daytime menu runs the tarts-salads-sandwiches gamut, with everything from breads to pies made from scratch on site. The takeaway sandwiches (£3.90) looked good, and the baking is top notch. A piece of fudge-like chocolate brownie was full of dark berry fruit flavours. Incidentally, Orange Pekoe might specialise in fine teas (60 loose leaf or flower teas, £3.60 a pot) but it isn't pretentious. For those who require something dark and strong to kick start their day they also serve a robust, subtly earthy breakfast blend in a proper big mug.
• Breakfast £1.30-£8, sandwiches/meals, £4.50-£8.50. 3 White Hart Lane, SW13 (+44 (0) 20-8876 6070, orangepekoeteas.com)
Santa Maria Pizzeria, Ealing
Naturally, this Neapolitan-owned pizzeria has a wood-fired pizza oven. That's unremarkable these days. Few restaurateurs, however, would go to the trouble of bringing over a fourth-generation Italian specialist to build said oven, using handmade bricks prepared from specific sands and clays from around Vesuvius and the Amalfi coast. Such is the determination at Santa Maria to produce superlative pizza. And Ealing clearly appreciates that effort. On a Thursday evening, this small, neat, off-grey space – dominated by a striking image of Santa Maria di Merino, a maroon patchwork on a huge plywood board – was hot and busy with people picking up takeaways and squeezing in at the tables.
Like the sandwich, pizza is at its best when it is kept to a few superb ingredients, and Santa Maria's bufalina exemplifies this. The base is foldable, paper thin in the middle, expertly charred and ringed with a springy edge. Essentially, it's a shallow pool of vibrant, seasoned tomato pulp and exquisite, melting buffalo milk mozzarella. At times, it is like eating a pizza topped with double cream. Superb.
• Pizza £4.50-£8.95. 15 St.Mary's Road, W5 (+44 (0) 20-8579 1462, santamariapizzeria.com)
Clarke's Shop, Kensington
All diplomatic number plates, small dogs in rain coats and ludicrously expensive designer sunglasses, Kensington is an unlikely place to stop off in search of good, affordable food. But this deli-cafe next door to Sally Clarke's flagship restaurant is a useful address to note. Something of a pioneer in her day, Clarke has been promoting the virtues of simple, sensible, seasonal cooking at these premises for more than 25 years. The shop's tiny, 10-seater cafe section, however, could do with freshening up. The service lacked the kind of warmth and dynamism you might expect and the tables weren't being cleared promptly between guests. A sample breakfast croissant – a delicate pillowy mound – was fine but not quite the zinger expected. It all felt a little glum.
Which was in stark contrast to the takeaway samples from the deli counter. A slice of celeriac and parmesan tart (£3.10) and a Gloucester Old Spot sausage roll (£3.25), were both very, very good. Still warm from the restaurant kitchens, they were clearly baked by somebody of considerable skill who loves what they do. Go, buy, eat on the run, and Clarke's will brighten your day.
• Eat in: breakfast £1.90-£6, lunch £2.90-£7.80. Takeaway snacks and sandwiches: £1.50-£4. 122 Kensington Church Street, W8 (+44 (0) 20-7229 2190, sallyclarke.com/shop.php)
Mr Falafel, Shepherd's Bush
Whatever it is that brings you to Shepherd's Bush, be it BBC Television Centre, Queen's Park Rangers Football Club or Westfield shopping centre, do not miss Mr Falafel or Abu Zaad (below). The former is found at the entrance to Shepherd's Bush market, where, from a simple cafe unit, Ahmad Yassine dispenses nutty, herby crisp-fried falafel of a remarkable fluffy lightness in various wraps.
Accompaniments such as hummus, tahini sauce, pickled turnips and cucumbers add layers of spiky flavour. In the deluxe version the fried cauliflower florets are sensational and the "fried potato" pieces (actually, cold chips) work better than you might think. It's a dynamic dose of carbs. There is mint or orange blossom tea, alongside the usual soft drinks. Wholly vegetarian, the Mr Falafel menu is largely vegan-friendly, too.
• Falafel wraps from £3. Open 11am-6pm, closed Sunday. Units T4-T5, New Shepherd's Bush Market, Uxbridge Road, W12 (+44 (0) 7798 906668, mrfalafel.co.uk)
Abu Zaad, Shepherd's Bush
A little bit of downtown Damascus on the Uxbridge Road, this buzzy Syrian restaurant – all carved wood and ornate Arabic brasswork, satellite TV and genial bustle – offers eye-opening food at remarkably low prices. Syria shares many dishes with its Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours (hummus, tabbouleh, Lebanese fattoush salad, moussaka, Moroccan tagines and myriad grilled kebabs) and, naturally, the aubergine plays a significant role in the Abu Zaad kitchen.
Moutabal – one of the many starters which can also be eaten as a meze-style selection – is grilled aubergine blended with lemon juice and sesame oil to produce an intensely smoky, yet unusually sour thick wet paste. It certainly gets the saliva glands going. Makloba, meanwhile, is a dish of rice, aubergine, lamb and pine nuts cooked together in a special sauce, which has none of the heat you might expect. Instead, the dish is full of warm, savoury woodland flavours, like a wild mushroom risotto. There is no alcohol at Abu Zaad, but its exotic fresh juices (£1.75) are brilliant. A blitzed lemon and mint juice was the colour of the Incredible Hulk, perfectly balanced, and one of the most refreshing things I have ever tasted.
• Takeaway/eat-in prices: wraps from £2.25, starters from £2.50/£3, mains from £4.50/£5.50. 29 Uxbridge Road, W12 (+44 (0) 20-8749 5107, abuzaad.co.uk)
Mr Christian's, Notting Hill
Originally opened by chef Glynn Christian – famous in the 1980s as the resident cook on BBC's Pebble Mill at One and Breakfast Time programmes – this delicatessen has been driving up food standards in Notting Hill for some 37 years. Now owned by wine merchants Jeroboams, it may not have the sleek designer looks or the eat-in cafe of its newer rival, the Grocer on Elgin, just across the road, but it's a little bit cheaper, and, from what I sampled, just as tasty. The daily takeaway menu includes the shop's own hot pasta bakes, soup, samosas, salads, various pies, sausage rolls (£1.10, and a little too heavily seasoned with sage and pepper, in my opinion) and seriously good cakes.
Mr Christian's sandwiches (pre-prepared, but that morning) are as fresh as the proverbial daisy and generously loaded with good things. Everything about a sample salmon and cream cheese bagel (the dense, chewy, almost sweetish bagel; the rich, thick, sharp cream cheese; the bright, lightly cured salmon; the fastidious scattering of fresh chives and ground pepper) was testament to Mr Christian's enduring quality. The staff are engagingly friendly, too.
• Snacks from £1, sandwiches/ meals £3.20-£6. 11 Elgin Crescent, W11 (+44 (0) 20-7229 0501, mrchristians.co.uk)
White Horse, Parson's Green, Fulham
The White Horse is famous for two things: beer and its popularity with braying hoorays. Thankfully, on this visit, the former (eight well kept real ales from £2.80 a pint) were far more in evidence than the latter. On a sunny Thursday evening, this handsomely polished Victorian boozer seemed to have attracted a reasonably diverse cross section of west London life, and the room was suffused in that easy-going good cheer that is generated by that great leveller: good beer. Harveys Sussex Bitter, Adnams Broadside and Fuller's Chiswick are the pub's regular real ales and a sample pint from the guests – Brewster's zesty Hophead – was in excellent condition. The White Horse also carries a very impressive selection of draught and bottled lagers, US and continental beers.
Foodwise, there are various good quality sandwiches (eg. home-cured honey roast ham; deep-fried cod cheek with lettuce and salad cream) available until 6pm, and, outside of that, bar snacks of the ploughman's (£7.50), potted crab, pork pie and homemade piccalilli variety. A sample rare roast beef sandwich (£5.60) was a good size, all the components were fresh and the horseradish had a decent kick to it. The beef was a touch fridge cold at first, but it had good flavour when it warmed up a little. On the bank holiday weekend of 29 April-2 May, the White Horse hosts the Hop-Forward Beer Festival, with a barbecue and hog roast.
• Sandwiches and bar snacks £4.50-£8.25. 1-3 Parson's Green, SW6 (+44 (0)20-7736 2115, whitehorsesw6.com)
Books for Cooks, Notting Hill
The self-explanatory Books for Cooks is also home to the Test Kitchen – a bright little cafe space, the walls painted colourfully with pictures of De Cecco pasta packets, artichokes and aubergines – which every lunchtime puts some of those recipes from the shelves through their paces. Quality is high, prices remarkably low (three courses, £7) and you have to get here early (around 11.45am), to secure one of the 20 or so seats. Otherwise, you might squeeze in just after 1pm, as people begin to drift away, but the kitchen stops serving at 1.30-2pm latest.
The daily menu typically consists of a starter, a main and several cakes, with customers free to eat as much or as little as they wish. A sample plate of Turkish-style chicken with black-eyed beans was boldly flavoured peasant food at its best. A moist leg and nicely crisped thigh arrived atop a tomato and bean stew which had a good long flavour and a surprising paprika heat. It wasn't a huge portion, but it was a filling lunch and, at £4, incredibly good value. It is ironic, of course, that wealthy Notting Hill has such an affordable resource on its doorstep (the middle-class chatter here is of media careers; you may recognise some of your fellow diners from Newsnight Review), but it would be churlish to resent that.
Instead, get down here. Treat yourself to lunch. It will be £7 plus your tube fare well spent. The staff, incidentally, are happy to chew over the details of the dishes with interested foodies, after which you can get back to browsing the shelves for that must-have study of Tudor cake decoration.
• One course £4, two for £5, three for £7. 4 Blenheim Crescent, W11, (+44 (0) 20-7221 1992, booksforcooks.com)
Tosa, Hammersmith
By the door sits a 15kg box labelled "premium grade restaurant charcoal". An indication that Tosa is not your typical Japanese restaurant. Yes, it serves sushi, sashimi and familiar udon noodle and tempura mains, but the real draw here is that robata charcoal grill at the front of the restaurant, where the chef prepares his grilled kushiyaki skewers (from under £2). If you are one of those people who likes the raw visceral simplicity of smoky, caramelised, lightly charred meats, then Tosa will transport you to hog heaven. Literally in the case of the butabara, a grilled skewer of pork belly upon which the rectangular pieces of fat crisp up into a kind of supra-bacon. The chicken livers (rich, velvety, carrying a little tang from their marinade) and the ox tongue are not to be missed. The texture of the latter may be more squid than steak, but ox tongue, here seasoned with salt and lemon, delivers a sensationally beefy flavour – better, in fact, than most modern beef.
The only potential problem at Tosa is that, at £10-a-head, the four or five skewers you can squeeze in for that money may not quite fill you up, if it's your main meal of the day. In that case, if there are two of you, pool your cash, share a main noodle dish, drink tap water, and then spend the rest on skewers. You won't regret it. Alternatively, Tosa does takeaway, so if you're passing at lunch, drop in and pick-up some grilled uzura (quail's eggs) or torikawa (chicken skin). Tosa also does a full-meal lunch deal including a main dish, rice, miso, salad etc for £11.
• Skewers from £1.70, mains £6.60-£10. 332 King Street, W6 (+44 (0) 20-8748 0002, tosauk.com). Second branch at 152 High Road, East Finchley, N2 (+44 (0) 20-8883 8850)
Tony travelled from Manchester to London with Virgin Trains (virgintrains.co.uk)
