Earlier this month I was lucky enough to eat probably the best burger I've ever had in my life. It was a smash burger, cooked quickly on a flat-top to a good crust, placed inside a toasted sweet bun and dressed with little more than deli cheese. And before I get accused of being deliberately misleading I'll say now - it wasn't at Whole Beast. The Friendly in San Diego is a slightly bizarre little operation serving just two things - decent, if unspectacular, pizza by the slice in the New York style, and probably the greatest burger on the West Coast. It's a simple concept but then the greatest things often are - good, coarse, high fat content ground beef, smashed onto a searing hot flat top and aggressively seasoned. Deli cheese is melted on top, and then the single patty goes into a wide, flat bun. So far, so 2025. So this is a tale of two burgers. Or to be more accurate, three burgers across two burger joints. It's not Whole Beast's fault that I had a life-changing sandwich made to a very similar spec in California four days before I found myself heading up Blackhorse Road towards their residency at Exhale taproom, but then I'm afraid life isn't fair. Just ask Dick and Mac McDonald. Whole Beast are clearly burger-lovers, and burger aficionados, as they are doing pretty much everything right in the construction of their offerings. Both have a generous amount of good beef, smashed out flat and wide, spilling attractively outside of the soft toasted buns. The cheeseburger (£13) is a thing of wonderful simplicity made with care and heart - the toasted bread and crisp beef crackle deliciously as you bite down into it, and the melted cheese eases the whole thing along. It really is a superb burger. I like the green chilli cheeseburger slightly less, perhaps because the chilli element comes in the form of a kind of smooth, cold chutney, and there's quite a lot of it, which throws the delicate balance of textures in the smash burger off slightly. I did appreciate the hit of chilli though - they didn't hold back on that - and this was, all said, still a very well constructed burger, with the same crunchy, almost honeycombed beef patty and squishy soft/toasted buns. Their crinkle-cut chips are also excellent, every bit as good as those served by Shake Shack (the only smash burger chain worth bothering with), and holding a nice, greaseless crunch right to the very bottom of the bowl. Smoked chicken wings had a fantastic hearty, bouncy texture that spoke of very good chicken, and a lovely note of smoke accompanied every bite. I will forgive them for leaving the wing tips on (why serve something you can't eat? You might just as well leave the feathers on) because they were so fun to get stuck into, and the "wild leek ranch" they were coated in was a refreshing counterpoint to the smoked meat. The only slight disappointment of the lunch were these cucumbers, which despite the addition of "whipped tofu dressing, chilli crisp, furikake" and something else obliquely referred to as "GGG" (your guess is as good as mine) mainly tasted of, well, what they were - plain, unpickled, chopped cucumbers in a vaguely Japanese salad dressing. And I don't know about you, but I can prepare raw cucumbers fairly easily myself at home. And they don't cost £7. So again, it's hardly a disaster that Whole Beast's version of the smash burger isn't quite on a par with what is regularly spoken about as one of North America's greatest (just ask Reddit) - it's just sheer coincidence I managed to try both in the space of a week, and there was only ever going to be one winner in that battle. The fact is, the E17 variety is still, by any measure, a smashing (pun intended) achievement and a lovely way to spend your lunch money. And London's burger scene is all the better for its existence. I forgot to take a photo of the bill but the damage per person came to about £33 with a pint of Exale beer each. And yes, that is a terrible photo of the Friendly Dirty Flat Top Cheeseburger, sorry - you'll have to take my word for it that it looked a lot better in person.

I'm sure the Manoir (as I will call it for this post) can impress whatever the weather, but when the early summer sun is shining, and punters are welcomed into the gardens for their aperitifs and/or digestifs, the place is surely at its best. When you've got gardens like these, sprawling over several manicured acres, including orchards, vegetable allotments, lawns and ponds, all in the shadow of a honeyed Cotswold stone country mansion, you need to make the most of them, and after the first glass of English sparkling wine I was thinking that whatever else happened during the day (and despite the weirdly cheap-looking garden furniture) that well, this is just lovely isn't it? Of course, we weren't just at the Manoir to drink champagne in the sun (although I get the feeling the staff would have no issue with you doing just that) but to see what on earth you get for the eye-watering £230 per person lunch menu - a figure that puts it right out in the top 1% of dining experiences in the country. Paying this amount of money puts a place firmly in the 'extremely special occasion' category, and brings with it a certain set of expectations that, for better or worse, only a near-flawless (or actually flawless) experience can meet. But it was during that first drink on the lawn, once we'd had a few minutes to settle down and take it all in, that we began to notice something. Good service is pretty much the norm these days in the UK - we took a while to catch up with the rest of the world but can now easily hold our own. But the staff at the Manoir appear to be operating on another level entirely. They dance around the place, nimble as ballerinas, confident, happy, assured, attentive yes but not overly-so, chatty and pleasant but never too much - it really is a world-class lesson in front of house. So in all honesty, the food only needed to be good enough and we still would have had the time of our lives at the Manoir, as it's impossible to not enjoy being a part of a service routine so utterly dazzling. But it's a pleasure to report that the generous number of dishes that made up the lunch tasting menu were almost as faultless - starting with these bitesize canapes of beef tartare with shimeji mushroom, salmon tartare with trout roe, and (my favourite) a dainty beetroot and goats' cheese meringue sandwich which absolutely exploded with flavour in the mouth. House bread was a sort of tomato-laced brioche thing which reminded me very much of the onion brioche they used to serve at the Ledbury back in the day. Maybe they still serve it at the Ledbury, I don't know I haven't been in a while. Anyway that was, just like this is, excellent, just moreish enough that you worry about filling up on it before the menu proper starts. This confit egg with pea and smoked bacon was perfectly nice but perhaps the only dish that didn't feel quite in the same 2-Michelin-star league as everything else. I liked the little cheese straw thing wrapped with ham, but there was something a little bland and textureless about the egg and pea mixture itself. Still, another person on our table said this was his favourite dish, so there's every chance this is just a matter of taste. Next up (for some of us at least) was a lovely big slab of seared foie gras. For a £35 supplement - because presumably a menu costing £230 per person is barely even covering their costs - it came (as you might hope) beautifully cooked, absolutely dissolving in the mouth, and alongside a dainty little apple tart. With a tamarind sauce dropped on top, it really was a fantastically enjoyable plate of food. The non-supplemental alternative was a scallop ceviche with cucumber and Thai spices, which I didn't get to try but am reliably informed was also excellent. Looks the part as well, doesn't it? Everyone absolutely loved this next course, a huge single morel mushroom stuffed with chicken and sweetbreads, sat in a white asparagus and Jura wine foam. Sometimes when French food goes full, no-holds-barred, Frenchier-than-French haute cuisine, there's absolutely no stopping it. This was a course to remember, certainly. Nobody felt confident enough to go for the £50 supplement A4 Wagyu, but there was a certain amount of soul searching when we saw it presented to other tables, above a mini charcoal grill sending waves of incredible beefy flavours wafting around the room. But fortunately, lamb with sweetbread, asparagus and wild garlic was stunning - a piece of loin so tender you could have cut it with a spoon, and new season asparagus and wild garlic from the gardens adding the perfect vegetable pairing. We also loved the little potato tuiles made into the shape of flowers, and the brilliantly sharp dots of mint sauce which added another talking point. Cheeses next - I forget which is considered more 'French', having cheese before dessert or after, but Le Manoir have gone for the former - and a relatively short but focussed selection of cheeses in blindingly good condition. There was an aged Comte (of course) and an English blue, but the stars of the show were two soft washed-rind cheeses, one French and one English, which I completely forgot to write down. Hopefully someone can identify them from the pictures. They were great, anyway. As a palate cleanser with elements of savoury (lime and bitters) and dessert (cream and chocolate), the pre-dessert bridged the gap to the sweet courses perfectly. With a base of bitter chocolate and cocoa nib topped with a dome of lime foam, it looked gorgeous and tasted even better - just ridiculously easy to eat. The strawberry dessert was absolutely perfect in every way. A hundred different pastry techniques all on show at once, all masterfully done, all showcasing a main ingredient at its absolute best and treated beautifully. I particularly liked the way they'd incorporated strawberry into the brandy-snap crunchy topping, and also placed a bit of strawberry puree into a sample of the actual strawberry so you can see where it all started. Also, though again I didn't get to try it, there was something called a "Cafe creme", a cup made of actual chocolate filled with various coffee-flavoured mousses, parfaits and (I think) ice cream. And as per the scallop dish, I didn't hear any complaints, even about the £35 supplement. And perhaps a supplement for foie gras I can understand, or Wagyu beef, but coffee and chocolate? Petits fours, including a wonderful mini magnum on a stick, were served back out in the garden under the late afternoon sun. And it's just as well that the final bits of food we were served here were just as impressive as the first as it was here, sozzled and sated, that we were handed the bill. £1902 for 4 people. But there's two points I need to make about what is clearly a lot of money for a single meal. Firstly, Le Manoir do not hold back on the old wine refills. I think we must have had about double what they advertised (125ml per glass) - at least it certainly felt like it once we'd barrelled out of the place into an Uber - and none of these extras were added to the bill or even mentioned as an issue. They just always made sure our glasses were full. Secondly, and I realise I'm repeating myself, but bloody hell that service. As we had visited on a "very high pollen" day, one of our party sneezed (discreetly I may add) at the table and within seconds a box of tissues had appeared by her side. Our waiter wasn't just charming but fun with it - I realise that has the potential to be completely insufferable but I honestly think he just completely clicked what kind of day we wanted and went with it. The smiles never left our faces for the whole afternoon (at least apart from the times we were filling them with food and booze) and it transformed what would have been an extremely pleasant experience into an exceptional one. Pied a Terre or, I don't know, even £350 better than somewhere like etch in Hove despite having lovely formal gardens to enjoy. A lot of places do very good food now, and the Manoir is no longer the exclusive island of gastronomy it once was over 40 years ago. 8/10

It's coming up on a year since I was last in this part of the world, when I had a very lovely lunch in the sun at Dominic Chapman, then a brand new restaurant in the Relais hotel on the banks of the Thames. Strolling around town before lunch last week I was pleased to see he was still at the Relais - he's a talented chef and deserves to do well - but I do remember being one of about 6 people in a vast dining room last May. It's strange how some of the wealthiest areas of the country need to be persuaded to spend money on food, even as they drive around town clogging up the tiny streets in their Range Rovers and Aston Martins. So I was a little concerned that for the whole of a Saturday lunch service we were the only people eating at the new Duke Henley. But I suppose the point of these invites is to change that and get the word out, and perhaps it's not too much to hope the people of Henley can be persuaded out of the giant Wetherspoons round the corner and into this charming, dynamic little startup. Aged beef fat focaccia was the first thing to arrive, which I hope you can tell even from my slightly blurry photo (I really think it's about time I got myself a better camera - any suggestions welcome) was nice and bubbly on top, smokey from the grill and came with whipped wild garlic butter (first week of the season apparently) and rosemary salt. I'm always a bit torn about having butter with focaccia - I have a feeling it's not very traditional Italian - but then rules are meant to be broken, aren't they? Apologies to any Italians out there. Venison tartare came hidden under a layer of powerfully wasabi-spiked cream - horseradish cream, basically, only with wasabi. We were instructed to scoop it out using the accompanying prawn cracker style puffed snacks and while this sort of occasionally worked there weren't really enough crackers for the generous portion of tartare, and they had a habit of disintegrating when you attempted to scoop. So we basically ended up having the crackers on the side and then eating the tartare with a spoon. Tasted good though. These were "Toastie"s, big chunks of chargrilled toast covered in gooey grilled bechamel and umami-rich black garlic, topped with shaved parmesan and what I think were crisp fried shallots. The trick in "poshing-up" cheese on toast is to not have too many confusing flavours, but black garlic and cheese are a perfect little partnership, and the bread was light and easy to eat despite being a generous portion. King prawns with yuzu, jalapeno and cucumber made a delightful counterpoint to the richness elsewhere, adding more of those Asian ingredients to complement plump, meaty prawns. The yuzu and cucumber made a kind of Japanese gazpacho, and there were all sorts of micro herbs and interesting vegetables (sprigs of fennel maybe, and parsley) added to the mix. One of the highlights of the lunch. We certainly only have ourselves to blame for ordering so many dishes with the same ingredients, but it was testament to the skill of the kitchen that these tube-shaped chips, that came with yet more cheese and black garlic, were ethereally light and ridiculously easy to eat. Topped with Rachel, a semi-hard goats cheese, it was another one of those dishes that would have gone great with a pint at the bar, or picked at in their little walled beer garden. We had enjoyed everything up to this point so much that we went for both sweet desserts to finish. This is miso salted caramel tart, with pineapple chutney and crème fraiche, which was dense and gooey and almost slightly too salty but shared between too people not too overwhelming. And this is Yorkshire forced (I assume) rhubarb, chunky and jammy, served with ice cream and shards of berry-studded meringue, which had a lovely summery flavour profile and some fantastic complimentary textures. Both desserts disappeared in record time. 8/10 I was invited to the Duke and didn't see a bill.

There's no sign of a cost of living crisis on the King's Road, but then the people of Chelsea aren't known for their frugality. The Cadogan Arms is a grand old Victorian boozer - which means it has nice high ceilings, stained glass and a big carved wooden bar - but then this is also Chelsea so they can do a good cocktail and have oysters and fancy salads on the menu. The place had been on my list for years thanks to the "new" owners (this was in 2021, when the country was in full plague mode) being JKS of Gymkhana, Hoppers and Trishna fame, but also because it's not that far from my house in Battersea, and living in Battersea, believe me, a short journey home is a rare treat indeed. It was a good thing we'd booked - the place was completely slammed on a Friday night, not at all a given in many city centre pubs I've noticed lately. Welcome cocktails (well, we welcomed ourselves with them) were very good - an El Diablo with both mezcal and tequila, and a Sticky Toffee Pudding Old Fashioned which combined buttered bourbon and PX to produce a remarkably authentic STP flavour profile. There's a definite North-American-Mexican lean to the drinks list - I also notice they sold Agua di Madre as a non-alcoholic option, and interesting range of drinks made with fermented kefir. I mean, this is Chelsea, after all. Now, I hesitate - usually - to review a place after having just one dish (each) but this is, after all, a gastropub and we definitely weren't the only people just popping in for one dish before heading home to watch the new White Lotus. My burger was perfectly fine - a good shape and size, easily eaten with my hands so many marks for that, but unfortunately the beef was overcooked to grey and rather dry. They didn't ask me how I'd like it cooked, so maybe this is just how they want to serve it. Much better was a £34 sirloin, a giant chunky thing cooked accurately albeit a little timidly - we'd like to have seen more of a dark crust - but it tasted great and it really was something almost approaching a bargain for your money. Both sets of chips - chunky and fries - were decent, and the bill which I completely forgot to take a photo of but we did pay honestly, was £47.88 each, about right really. I mean, we didn't leave hungry. It's almost always the case that when a restaurant doesn't have to be good to make money - when your customer base is the captive audience of an airport terminal, for example, or a posh suburb of London where residents are independently wealthy and not very discerning - it isn't. I have had some genuinely diabolical meals in Kensington and Chelsea - and Belgravia, and Hampstead - over the years, to the extent that it almost puts you off trying anywhere in this places again. But I'm glad I challenged my prejudices at the Cadogan, and found a place that both knows its audience and tries to do things well. And such an easy journey home, too. 7/10

Three down, one to go. My determination to visit all of the restaurants in this particular restaurant mini-chain - because, so far at least, they've all been that damn good - has now taken me to a northern suburb of Leeds and to the Dastaan there. My worry is that all of the things that made Black Salt and Koyal so remarkable also very much apply to their Leeds location, and so this post may end up being a bit, well, familiar. But a good restaurant deserves to be talked about, and indeed the fact that this team is able to run 4 (I assume... or at least 3) world-class spots at once is even more reason to shout it from the rooftops. Dastaan Leeds is big and brightly lit, and on this particular cold Tuesday evening pretty quiet, although the room did begin to start filling up towards the end of the evening. It's a pleasant enough space - functional, slightly corporate - but your experience is lifted immediately thanks to the attention of the staff, who are so charming and welcoming and enthusiastic about everything that you feel like the only people in the room (even if you actually are). Dinner began - naturally - with papadums and chutneys. Interestingly, there was one more kind of chutney than Koyal, and one fewer type of papadum, so we didn't get the Walkers Max-shaped crisps but did get a tomato and chilli chutney alongside the coriander and mango types. They were still all superb though, particularly the coriander which had a deep, rich, vegetal flavour. Pani puri were just as powerfully flavoured as the puri at Koyal but the pastry casings were just a bit smaller, and therefore far more comfortable to eat. Like all the best versions of this dish, they explode in the mouth in a riot of spices and a blast of tamarind, one of the all-time great vegan dishes. But just look at that lamb chop. Just look at it. Have you ever seen a more beautiful thing? The way the extremities are darkened and crunchy from the grill, the way it has that incredible tomato-soup colour from yoghurt and spices, the way you just know the center is soft and just-pink, expertly conceived and beautifully timed. Then, let me tell you, it tasted even better than it looked. This was a monumental achievement in chop-craft, an absolutely stunning bit of cooking that even had the edge on the excellent version at Koyal a couple of weeks previously. This may, in fact, be the best lamb chop I've ever eaten in my life. The problem is, you get the very strong impression that you could just order anything at Dastaan and it would turn out to be great - narrowing our choices down to a sensible amount for two people was more of a case of deciding what we could definitely not live without. These are veggie samosas, grease-free and generously portioned, with another fantastic coriander-based chutney. And this is a bowl of marvellously fragrant jackfruit biryani, studded with peas and topped with crisp caramelised onions. The vegan version doesn't come with the famous Gymkhana-style pastry lid to smash apart (my dining companion on this trip was a vegan) but has the same room-conquering aroma as it's brought to the table. Finally, another contender for dish of the day, pork cheek vindaloo. The complex, vinegar-spiked sauce could have credibly made a paperback book edible but the meltingly tender chunks of pork served to lift it into the stratosphere - this was a genuinely breathtaking dish, quite an incredible thing. But, sadly, there's only so much of the menu at Dastaan it's possible to eat in one go, and so we reluctantly finished up and paid, vowing to return next I was in town. The bill, with a couple of beers and 10% service came to just over £42pp, which considering the expertise on offer here (remember, these are ex-Gymkhana people serving 2-Michelin-star quality food) is one of the great dining bargains of the country. 9/10