The Independent

The Nobody Inn has a beautiful thatched roof, low black roof beams, a blazing fireplace and rickety, beer-stained tables

The Nobody Inn, Doddiscombsleigh, Exeter, Devon

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

One bad pun aside, few country inns live up to this Devon delight

Temple of hedonism and fun: Every surface is covered with some kind of billowing draped fabric or planked with timber

Hotel Maiyango Restaurant, 13-21 St Nicholas Place, Leicester

11 February 2012 12:00 AM

It's such a leap of faith, going to a completely unknown restaurant in an unfamiliar town. Rather like going on a blind date with someone you've met online (or so I would imagine, she adds hastily). Their profile photo looks appealing, they sound as though they'll be fun and they seem to like all the same things you do. Then you meet them, and you can tell at first glance it just isn't going to work out.

With its stained-glass windows and airy feel, Quo Vadis has simply been pared down further from its already quiet elegance

Quo Vadis, 26-29 Dean Street, London W1

05 February 2012 12:00 AM

Soho institution Quo Vadis undergoes an unfussy makeover to get tongues wagging.

First impressions: From outside, The Well is a rather cheerless-looking place with uncurtained windows

The Crooked Well, 16 Grove Lane, London SE5

28 January 2012 12:00 AM

There's been a lot of nonsense talked already about The Crooked Well. The spectacle of a middle-class restaurant opening in apparently hard-as-nails Camberwell – a gastropub (gasp!) run by a chap called Hector (shriek!) whose website brazenly mentions that he worked in a French nightclub during his gap-year (snigger!) and whose partner is a double-barrelled posho called Matt whose career began in Tunbridge Wells (stop! Stop!) – is being greeted as if Heston Blumenthal had opened a restaurant in Wormwood Scrubs.

Intimate: Angela's features a small, familiar main room with paintings by local artists

Angela's, 38 New Bridge Street, Exeter

22 January 2012 12:00 AM

It takes a lot to qualify as a 'local' restaurant – can Angela's in Exeter pull it off?

Masculine and clubbish: 34's dining room is tasteful enough, but bland

34, 34 Grosvenor Square, London W1

21 January 2012 12:00 AM

I'm trying to cast my mind back to the tail end of 2011, when 34 was my lunch destination, rather than my waist measurement, and I'm struggling. My memories of this new Mayfair smoothie, the latest launch from Richard Caring's fast-expanding Caprice Holdings group, have soft-focused into a vague impression of luxury, of deep carpets and heavy silverware, all sepia-tinted by the glow from a host of flickering table lamps.

The Modern Pantry is renowned for its crisp, fresh produce and zingy flavours

The Modern Pantry, 47-48 St John’s Square, London, EC1

15 January 2012 12:00 AM

Our reviewer heads to freshly MBE'd Anna Hansen's The Modern Pantry

Sexy interior: The Delaunay hums with elegance

The Delaunay, 55 Aldwych, London, WC2

14 January 2012 12:00 AM

Simply walking into the Delaunay makes you feel you've found the perfect restaurant. Sited on the corner of Aldwych and Drury Lane, it hums with elegance. The rubicund doorman tips his top hat, a startlingly pretty Roedean-head-girl takes your coat and you enter a wide, welcoming, marble-floored space. To your right, a vast bar is lit up like a cathedral high altar; to your left is a line of tables for posers, chatterers, couples nursing cocktails. Riding on castors is a glass-topped trolley full of teatime cakes – millefeuille, Black Forest gâteau, sachertorte – in case someone fancies a sugar rush at 9pm. Beyond the grey pillars, you make out the dark, indefinably sexy interior where the serious eating goes on. Mein Gott, you think, das ist wunderbar.

Were it not for the very refined cutlery, you might feel you're in an American diner

Hereford Road, 3 Hereford Road, London W2

08 January 2012 12:00 AM

Hereford Road treads in the footsteps of Fergus Henderson. But can it fill his shoes?

Star attraction: The Pipe & Glass was named Michelin's Pub of the Year for 2012

The Pipe & Glass Inn, West End, South Dalton, Beverley, East Yorkshire

07 January 2012 12:00 AM

The flotilla of nightlights on the tables outside the Pipe & Glass – a welcome sight after much peering at the map and several U-turns on dark, narrow lanes – formed an infinitesimal reflection of the glittering constellations arching over rural East Yorkshire. Coincidentally, many of the customers, who pretty much filled the car park on a wintry Tuesday night, were lured by a single star of a distinctly non-celestial nature, being bestowed by a tyre company based in Clermont-Ferrand. Less than four years after taking over a "tired and unloved" pub in the village of South Dalton, local boy James Mackenzie was awarded his county's first and only Michelin star in 2010. This glory was further burnished when the Pipe & Glass was named Michelin's Pub of the Year for 2012.

New kid on the block: Granger & Co is set to become a favourite foodie destination

Granger & Co, 175 Westbourne Grove, London W11

18 December 2011 12:00 AM

Can our food writer Bill Granger keep service sharp from breakfast through to dinner?

Mishkin's is a cool, shabby-chic mix of reclaimed wood and scrubbed brick

Mishkin’s, 25 Catherine Street, London WC2

17 December 2011 12:00 AM

The cable channel Dave famously got its name because the marketeers believed everyone had a friend called Dave. Mishkin's, a new Jewish(ish) diner in Covent Garden, has a similarly ersatz provenance – named for its owner, Ezra Mishkin, who sounds like the kind of mensch who'd feed you good chicken soup and bad jokes, but who doesn't actually exist.

Copita, 26-27 D'Arblay Street, London W1

11 December 2011 12:00 AM

Perfect for courting couples, tapas bar Copita is less comfortable for everyone else

With its neutral decor, wooden floors, red-topped tables and zinc bar, Soif is more like a small-town French bar than a pricey London eaterie

Soif, 27 Battersea Rise, London SW11

10 December 2011 12:00 AM

EM Forster once wrote an essay called "Battersea Rise". It was the name of the house where his great-aunt, Marianne Thornton, lived, a very grand place somewhere among the huge Edwardian mansions around Clapham Common. The Rise itself never had many pretensions, however. It's a strip of London's South Circular up which, in the 1960s, enormous car-transporter lorries used to run through the night and make the houses shake.