"The best London restaurant guide." The Guardian "In line with other rough guides this guide is clear, concise and eminently usable." M. Thronley, amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the fourth edition of The Rough Guide to London Restaurants. If you used the first three, you will have noticed that the number of restaurants has stabilized around the 350 mark, but it is surprising how many openings and closures there have been within the space of a year. This edition has been extensively revised and as well as reassessing all the previous entries we have added a wide selection of new establishments. But the way we have organized the book has stayed the same. Anyone who has lived or worked in London knows that, while it may seem like one big metropolis to the outsider, it is really a series of villages. If you live in Clapham, you know about Clapham and Battersea, and maybe Brixton or Chelsea, while Highgate or Shepherd’s Bush are far-off lands. And vice versa. Yet almost every other restaurant guide is divided up by cuisine, which assumes that this is your first criterion when choosing a place to eat. It shouldn’t be. If you’re meeting friends in Chiswick your best options might be Italian or Modern British; in Wembley or Tooting they might be Indian. But you want to know about that oddball great restaurant, too: whether it’s an interesting newcomer like Mosaica in Wood Green, or a new gastropub like The Victoria in West Temple Sheen. This book divides London into five geographic sections (Central; City & East; North; South; West) and then breaks these down into the neighbourhoods, with restaurants arranged alphabetically in each section. Keep this guide handy and it will tell you where to eat well from Soho to Southall.
Another important thing to note about the restaurants selected and reviewed in this book is that they are all recommended – none has been included simply to make up the numbers. There are some very cheap places and there are some potentially pretty expensive places, but they all represent good value. The only rule we have made for inclusion is that it must be possible to eat a meal for £35 a head or less. In some of the haute cuisine establishments, that will mean keeping to the set lunch, while in some of the bargain eateries £35 might cover a blow-out for four. This guide reviews restaurants for every possible occasion from quick lunches to celebratory dinners. It also covers many different kinds of food – some fifty cuisines in all. In reality, we cover even more, as for simplicity we have used "Indian" and "Chinese" as catch-all terms.
PRICES AND CREDIT CARDS
Price is one of the most difficult areas for any restaurant guide to master. Every review in this book has at the top of the page a spread of two prices (eg £12–£40). The first figure relates to what you could get away with – this is the minimum amount per person you are likely to spend on a meal here (assuming you are not a non-tipping, non-drinking skinflint). The second relates to what it would cost if you don’t hold back. Wild diners with a taste for fine wines will leave our top estimates far behind, but the figures are there as a guide. For most people, the cost of a meal will lie somewhere within the spread.
For a more detailed picture, each review sets out the prices of various dishes. At some time in the guide’s life these specific prices (and indeed the overall price spreads) will become out of date, but they were all accurate when the book left for the printer. And even in the giddy world of restaurants, when prices rise or prices fall, everyone tends to move together. If this book shows one restaurant as being twice as expensive as another, that is likely to remain.
The reviews also keep faith with original menu spellings of dishes, so you’ll find satays, satehs and satés – all of which will probably taste much the same. Hieroglyphics have been kept to a minimum, so opening hours and days are spelled out, as are the credit cards accepted. Where reviews specify "all major credit cards accepted", that means at least Amex, Diners, MasterCard and Visa. Acceptance of Visa and MasterCard usually means Switch and Delta, too; we’ve specified the odd exception, but if you’re relying on one card it’s always best to check when you book.
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