Amol Rajan finds near-perfection at a brunch-and-dinner establishment in Islington

'It's the restaurant equivalent of BBC Four - upmarket but quirky'

Chef might be too busy to pop over, but his food rules, says Lisa Markwell.

'It has a jolly, Mexican-seaside vibe, not something you often find in Shoreditch'

Good things come to he who waits. He, in this case, being the most singular waiter one could hope to meet, says Amol Rajan.

People think this job is easy, but it's hard, I tell you, damned hard. My mission this week: to spend an entire day queuing for, and then eating, burgers. Like Morgan Spurlock in a hurry, I will be attempting my own Vine-length version of Super Size Me.

Smitten by the mouthwatering meats and delicious empanadas he'd tasted in Buenos Aires, Matthew Bell signs up for a Gaucho cookery masterclass.

The food is as authentic as it is comforting at old-school Italian Acciuga, says Lisa Markwel.

Amol Rajan finds bad upholstery undermines good food at Eric Chavot's newest spot

At a scrubbed wooden table, a dapper, Rumpole-ish gentleman is taking lunch, in immaculate suit and wide red braces. Behind him, also eating alone, is a troll in human form – a small, wild-haired oldster wearing a plunging singlet and very short shorts, his abundantly furry chest and shoulders on proud display. Both of these unlikely fellow diners look perfectly at home.

Lisa Markwell finds a new vegetable nirvana behind an old transport hub.

Following a deafening dinner at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen a few years ago, when twenty-somethings maintained a roundelay of "Happy Birthday" for much of the evening, I've steered clear of restaurants run by TV chefs. So it was with trepidation that I entered the refurbished mansion (Pevsner: "probably c.1840") that houses the Talbot Hotel in Malton, North Yorkshire, since the owners Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland and his son Tom have installed local boy James Martin, an ornament of Saturday Kitchen and other televisual bonbons, as executive chef.

Amol Rajan finds brotherly love at a new family-run restaurant in west London

Well, this is awkward. I've arranged to meet David Baddiel at Restaurant 1701, a smart new kosher restaurant in the grounds of Britain's oldest synagogue, but I'm having trouble finding it. David has phoned me to say he has arrived, and "it's much more Jewish than I was expecting".

Des McDonald's name is legendary in the food business – the legends in question being Midas and Croesus. When Nick Lander published The Art of the Restaurateur last year, McDonald was one of its stars. An Irish baker's son, he opened two restaurants in the City of London by the age of 22 and become executive chef of Caprice Holdings, founded by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the chaps who triumphantly revamped The Ivy, Scotts of Mayfair, Le Caprice and J Sheekey.