This new establishment has a menu offering choices of authentic Turkish and Italian cuisines, not some kind of fusion idea, the dishes are distinct and separately listed on the menu. Nar certainly is offering something a little different, delivering great food, it is well worth the trip to Vauxhall to sample it.

Past 3D cameras and an increasingly famous commissionaire, ‘No. 20’ is the restaurant at Soho’s ‘Sanctum’ Hotel. This is London’s answer to Paris’ boutique ‘den of opulence’, the Hôtel Costes. Chic and shiny, dining room details include crocodile-skin chairs (not crocodilette), taut, bronzed banquettes, glass sheathed pillars and positive photo panels by the MOD’s official artist, Xavier Pick.

Spring is still in the air at Morgan M, the fine dining restaurant in Islington and the eponymous Monsieur M has generously invited us round to sample the Spring Menu, just as it is about to end. It has to be done at lunch though; the restaurant is far too popular with the well-heeled locals to be able to sacrifice an otherwise productive table in the evening.

Many art galleries have their cafes tucked down in a basement but the architects of the Tate building, which was opened to great acclaim in 1993, have given over their most prestigious level, the top floor, to the all-important purpose of visitor sustenance with The Café priding itself on sourcing its ingredients from Cornish growers and suppliers.

With a set menu at £14 for two courses, and just £17 for three, that looked really very tempting and excellent value Harrison’s goes up against a restaurant group like Locale (also in Balham) and wins by classy mains cooking and a far more central, buzzy, location.

Five months after the actual event, I was being treated to a birthday dinner at The Dorchester’s Cantonese, ‘China Tang’ which takes its name from Sir David Tang, clothes designer, gold-miner and cigar aficionado – Cuba’s Honorary Consul no less.

‘The whole area was an orchard before 1892,’ says co-owner Edward Bracken, thoughtfully spearing a warm garlicky olive, part of a large spread of tapas he’s had set out in front of us. ‘It once served as the Turkish Embassy, but otherwise was a hotel almost from the start almost a hundred years ago. As a hotel it was originally run by two descendants of Captain Cook!’ Such links to the past seem to come naturally to this unique place.

They apparently used to make arrows in Fletching – the fletch being the bit with the ‘wings’ on. Arrows used by the English at Agincourt were made here and anyone who has seen Olivier’s Henry V will recall that those arrows pretty much saved the day. Is a meal here going to save my day though?

Situated in Richmond’s fashionable shopping area, Brouge has been created out of the basement of a former cinema. Delivering great food and an exrensive range of Belgian beers, Brouge is well worth a visit.

If Kirsty Young invited me to name my desert island dish rather than disc, I would probably say ‘shellfish”, which seems apt. A recent craving for crustaceans took me to Essex, but not as you know it. Colchester’s Mersea Island is just five miles by two of tidal salt marsh