It's very often the case about the very top London hotels that despite the amount of money they have at their disposal, and the pick of whatever celebrity or otherwise feted chefs they can choose from, the restaurants end up being rather mediocre. Partly this is due to the unique demands placed on a hotel restaurant, who have to cater for all kinds of requirements at all times of the day, and often various wildly different cuisines (burgers, curries, pasta) and inevitably end up doing none of them well. If you have room (and money) though, you can divide up your food offering amongst various different restaurants in the same hotel, and stand a much better chance of getting things right. In the brand-new Rosewood Chancery on Grosvenor Square there are fully six dining options (or at least will be - some are not going yet), ranging from super-spendy Japanese (Masa from NYC which once held the dubious title of New York's most expensive restaurant) down to GSQ (no I don't know what the letters stand for) a much more informal deli selling pastries and sandwiches. We began (after a decent gin Martini of course) with house breads - a sesame "koulouri" and a buttermilk pita. Both were either straight out of the oven or cleverly reheated as they were warm and fluffy and salty in all the right places. I've never been to Greece, but if these are indicative of the kind of bread they're eating over there, I need to make plans. Taramasalata was also superb - supremely smooth and light, full of flavour and presented neatly. It's become a cliché over the years that Greek food doesn't travel - that you eat very well in Greece itself but that Greek restaurants outside of the country tend to be a bit ropey - but places like here and Peckham Bazaar are enough evidence that it can be done if you approach it in the right way. This is beef loin with preserved tomato, studded with little blobs of 'grape must mustard'. Grape must (Wikipedia tells me) is an early stage of winemaking, and how they go about making mustard out of it is beyond me, but the effect was good, lifting what would be otherwise rather bland beef into something more interesting. Much better were scallops with peas and marigold, the sweet seafood (and a pretty generous portion for your £22) boosted by fresh herbs and really good fresh garden peas. This was one of the highlights of the dinner, a genuinely surprising and innovative preparation that was quite unlike anything I'd ever tried before. Not rocket science of course, but quirky and clever and a departure from your usual raw scallop dishes. Raw tuna (we tried ordering the sardines and the langoustines first but both were unavailable - don't put them on the menu, then, is my advice) was another top bit of seafood work, studded with lovely toasted hazelnuts, bottarga and - my favourite element - caper leaves. Like the scallops dish it took a familiar raw ingredient and added just enough intelligence and style to twist it into something new without losing what makes raw tuna so much fun to eat in the first place. Middlewhite pork "souvlaki" was a neat little arrangement of beautifully tender chargrilled pork, not overly fatty but with just enough to create crunch and ooze, dressed delicately with fennel seed, mustard and lemon as well as some colourful pickles. Technically impressive, of course, but crucially succeeding on the strength of the main ingredient - this was very good pork. And it was a slightly less than impressive main ingredient - the beef, again - that somewhat let down this grilled sirloin. As with the pork, the protein had been expertly grilled with a lovely pink colour and dark, dry crust, but just didn't really taste of much. The mixture underneath, in fact - aubergine peperonata - was the most notable thing about the dish, but you wouldn't really spend £40 just for that. We had a couple of sides I think but for some reason I've only ended up with a photo of the "fried potato", actually a Quality Chop House style confit/mandolined affair. They had a very good texture but I'm not sure 5 bitesize pieces for £8 is very close to anything approaching value. Yes, that's me moaning about prices in a brand new 5* hotel in Mayfair. Sue me (don't, I can't afford it). There was another main of wild prawn tartare pasta, which I didn't try because raw seafood on warm pasta makes me feel a bit queasy, but it looked like good pasta and I believe it went down pretty well. The only dessert I tried was the Sicilian lemon sorbet, which they offered to convert to a sgroppino with a shot of vodka so obviously I did. It was very nice actually - the lemon flavour boosted by grated lemon rind on top. too crazy and we had a good time so I suppose it could be worse. And when the food was good, it was very good, and sometimes it really is worth paying extra to sit in spectacular surroundings, and get cosseted by sparkling service. So if the prices bring the overall score down a bit, bear in mind that this is still way better than meals I've had in some other equally prestigious - and often far more spendy - places, and I can still recommend Serra, for trying to bring something genuinely new to top-end hotel dining. 7/10

One of the downsides of writing a daily blog is that there's also a daily deadline. This means I'm often preoccupied during the day researching, fieldtripping, writing and editing, which can sometimes get in the way of other things. Today's post is therefore simply a list of the stuff I got done yesterday, things I otherwise would have put off (again). Morning ✔ hang up wedding suit; return suitcase to stash; return swimming shorts to drawer after hot tub excursion ✔ clean out chest of drawers; rationalise tie collection (not sure I still need 50); bin subfusc; return checked 1984 pullover to circulation; retire a dozen work shirts from rail to drawer; bin five shirts and a 90s sweatshirt; shift big jackets into spare room; clean bike leathers; reallocate shirts and jackets to more practical rails; return handkerchiefs to circulation; rediscover all sorts of t-shirts I tucked away last time I rationalised; attempt to work out a better place for the polo shirts to go; bemoan my lack of wardrobes and cupboard space ✔ look up location of nearest clothes recycling bin Afternoon ✔ make a start on sorting out my 'dealt with' paperwork pile; start piles for gas bills, electricity bills, bank statements, etc; spread these out across bedcovers; throw out unnecessary pages; extract at least a dozen letters urging me to get a smart meter; watch piles grow; start new pile for 'one-off letter from mobile phone company'; work down original pile through 2024, ah 2023, oh also 2022, blimey also 2021, sheesh also 2020; realise I haven't attacked this paperwork since the start of lockdown and this is why it's now such a massive task ✔ add sorted paperwork to appropriate files in filing cabinet; remove once-essential now non-essential paperwork from files; close filing cabinet with a feeling of job well done, only took three hours; stare admiringly at empty space on bedroom table ✔ pile of discarded paperwork weighs 3½kg, hell yes Evening (this feels odd, I should be writing something for tomorrow but I am instead crosslegged on the floor sorting stuff) ✔ take pile of leaflets from places I have visited and sort geographically; bin plenty; realise this pile also goes back five years (although the 2020/2021 contribution is small for pandemic reasons); multitask sorting while watching TV ✔ add remaining leaflets to appropriate shoeboxes with relevant regional label; split 'Midlands' box into 'West Midlands' and 'East Midlands'; stack shoeboxes away ✔ flick through my 'to do' shoebox to see if there's anywhere interesting I could go tomorrow I did well. You've therefore done badly, sorry.

Open House envy.

Yesterday TfL launched a consultation for the introduction of the next Superloop route, the SL13, which will run between Ealing and Hendon via the North Circular. » One end of the SL13 will be at Ealing Broadway station and the other at Hendon War Memorial. » The War Memorial bit is ignorable, the terminus is essentially Hendon Central station but the bus has to turn round somewhere. » The SL13 is essentially an express version of route 112 (with the Finchley end lopped off) » The SL13 will link two existing Superloop routes - the SL8 and SL10. » The SL13 will be the first all-zone-3 Superloop route (the original orbitals were generally 4/5) Verdict: great » The single-decker 112 will be shadowed by the new faster SL13, both running at a 12-minute frequency. » This is a reduction in frequency for the 112, down from every 10 minutes, so if you use any of the intermediate stops you're about to get a worse service. Verdict: expected ...and that would be all were it not for a lack of parking space. » A lot of bus routes terminate around Haven Green outside Ealing Broadway station and there isn't room for another. This means one of them has to be booted out to make way for the SL13. Sorry Ruislip. » TfL have chosen to boot out the E7, a route which runs through Greenford to Ruislip. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 will therefore be continuing three more stops along the Uxbridge Road, not quite as far as Ealing Common station, so buses can park and turn round. This will take a few minutes longer. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 is operated by 11 vehicles. To cope with the extended journey time TfL could buy another vehicle or they could cut the route's frequency. Because they're skint, they've chosen to cut the route's frequency. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 will now run every 15 minutes rather than every 12 minutes, purely to save money. Sorry Ruislip. » For three miles between the White Hart Roundabout and Ruislip the E7 is the sole bus route, but local residents of these outer suburbs will now see fewer buses. Sorry Ruislip. » The SL13 and E7 will not overlap anywhere along their routes, but the introduction of one is screwing the other. Sorry Ruislip. Verdict: unnecessarily poor (sorry Ruislip) For a laugh, here's how all-over-the-place the numbering of the Superloop routes now is. » TfL have also just published the results of their consultation on Superloop route SL12. This will be introduced next year between Gants Hill and Rainham Ferry Lane. Only one significant change has been agreed, that buses will additionally stop at Rainham Tesco, which is so fundamentally sensible that it should have been part of the original plans. Like I said back in March, "if they don't add an additional stop at Rainham Tesco that would be lunacy". » The SL11 (North Greenwich - Abbey Wood) is due to start in January and the BL1 'Bakerloop' (Waterloo - Lewisham) will be with us before Christmas. » Consultations for the SL14 (Stratford - Chingford Hatch) and SL15 (Clapham Junction - Eltham) are expected in the next few months.