Jikoni: modern Indian home cooking in the heart of Marylebone

What makes you want to go back to a restaurant? It may be because it’s convenient for where you live or work. The food certainly has to be good but I think the most important factor is the warmth of the welcome - whether you feel at home there.

Ravinder Bhogal’s new restaurant Jikoni has warmth in spades. it’s a simple, cosy place if you can call anywhere in pricey Marylebone simple with decor that’s more like an upmarket tea room than a smart West End restaurant. You could be in Ravinder’s home

If she’s not on your radar, Ravinder - aka Cook in Boots - is a fabulously pretty young British chef, food writer and TV presenter who shot to TV fame when she appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word although her subsequent billing as the new Fannie Craddock couldn’t be wider of the mark.

Her style of food is clever and witty, bringing an Indian touch to British and American classics without doing anything as clumsy as fusion food. One of the highlights of the menu, for instance, is a range of tiny Scotch eggs made from quail eggs (below) of which the prawn toast scotch eggs are particularly wonderful.

Other highlights (between 5 of us we managed to eat our way through pretty well the entire menu) were an addictively crunchy sweet potato bhel, an absolutely gorgeous lobster ‘khichdee’ a fragrant lobster curry with coconut milk and a saffron and prawn fish pie which makes you wonder if you ever want ordinary fish pie again. About the only dish that didn’t do it for me was the mutton keema sloppy joe but then I’m not mad about the original. Ravinder, I suspect, is more of a fish than a meat gal.

Leave room, if you can, for the kheer crème brulée and the outrageously good banana cake with miso butterscotch, an Anglo-Indian-Japanese spin on sticky toffee pudding.

The short but imaginative wine list compiled by restaurant manager Pierre Malouf includes an attractive prosecco - and I don’t often use those words in the same sentence - from Cantina Binardi and one of my favourite South African whites, Force Majeure Mother Rock Chenin Blanc from Swartland. We also cracked open a bottle of P.U.R Beaujolais Villages which was perfect with the gently spiced food.

The final bill was about £50 a head which is more than fair for the quality of the food and this part of town. And you could probably spend less if you didn't pig out to the extent that we did.

Frankly I can’t wait to get back to Jikoni and I don’t often say that.

Jikoni is at 19-21 Blandford Street and is open for dinner 7 days a week, for lunch from Tuesday to Friday and for Sunday brunch. Ravinder’s book Cook in Boots seems to be out of print at the time of writing but second hand copies are available on Amazon

Mampuku, Bordeaux

My heart usually sinks when I’m recommended an Asian-fusion restaurant in France. It generally means a mishmash of dishes devised by a chef who’s never set foot on the continent.

Or who insists on putting a fussy Gallic spin on the food, presumably in the hope of winning a Michelin star.

But a friend I trust recommended Mampuku and another winemaker friend had invited me there so who was I to quibble?

My fears were immediately allayed on walking through the door. This is a sophisticated space - all curving contours and blond wood with a modish open kitchen along one side.

There is a concept but (thank God) our friendly waitress didn’t feel the need to explain it. You order four or six dishes between you (at 25€ or 32€ per head). Out of sheer greed and inability to make up our minds we ordered six but four would have been enough. And, hallelujah! - they were served one by one in a logical order instead of all arriving at the same time.

We kicked off in Asian mode with osakayaki - a take on okonomiyaki with authentically fluttering bonito flakes, punchy ginger puree and cebettes (spring onions/scallions) and an exceptionally good hand-chopped korean-style steak tartare with black garlic. Then Vietnamese pancakes with a punchy filling of pork with oyster sauce, with crisp lettuce leaves to roll them in and dunk into an accompanying dipping sauce. Messy but tasty.

Bao buns made with brioche dough were a clever idea but the filling was a little lacking in punch. The sweet-flavoured, seared scallops with shitake and shimeji mushrooms in an umami-rich sake broth that followed was a much better course (albeit at a 2€ a head supplement). But best of all was what amounted to a Moroccan meatball pie - deliciously light aromatic meatballs with chickpeas under a fluffy sesame flatbread lid that went incredibly well with the friend’s medium-bodied merlot-dominated Bordeaux red.

Desserts were a little half-hearted by comparison and are not I feel their strongest suit though they are included in the price of the menu. The pastry in my knafeh with poached pears was too soft and the pears too hard but it did work quite well with the Sauternes my friend had brought along. And it has to be said he demolished his Gen Mai - grilled rice ice-cream with a chocolate brownie - without too much trouble.

As he had brought his own wines (a privilege afforded to local winemakers so don’t get the idea that this is a BYO) we didn’t dip into the rather engaging and eclectic winelist which includes wines from Canada, Morocco and Israel as well as a wide choice of sakes which are available by the glass

If you’re staying in Bordeaux for a few days and tire of French food Mampuku is ideal. I’d be more than happy to go again. Expect to pay about 30-35€ a head for food.

Mampuku is at 9 Rue Ausone. Tel: +33 5 56 81 18 75

Here's Le Fooding's review (in French) if you want another take on it.

Sartoria: a smart West End Italian

I’ve always been a fan of Francesco Mazzei’s cooking so when he suddenly left his previous restaurant L’Anima I couldn’t wait for him to pop up somewhere else.

It’s taken a while but now he seems to have found his natural home in the revamped Sartoria in Savile Row.

Like L’Anima it’s a posh sort of place designed to appeal to city boys on expense accounts (this part of Mayfair hosts a number of hedge funds) though I noticed there were a fair amount of what looked like well-heeled Italian businessmen there too. It’s warmer and more convivial than L’Anima with plenty of potential for people watching so you want to make sure you get a corner table rather than one that leaves one of you with their back to the room. (We managed to get ours changed. I can recommend table 6.)

Seduced by the idea of lobster tagliolini my friend Thane and I rapidly dismissed the affordable option of the set lunch menu in favour of exploring the à la carte. We were going to have a starter and a primo then felt we ‘should’ have a main and at least a couple of the sides should be explored. All in the interests of doing the menu justice, you understand, not because we’re pigs.

The lobster was just fantastic with fat chunks of sweet meat, silky pasta and a really intense shellfish sauce. We also loved the burrata with ‘torpendino’ tomatoes and smoked aubergine with an amazing hit of fragrant basil leaves and a chunkily cut beef tartare with anchovies and truffle. The fritto misto we ordered was slightly less impressive with as much courgette as fish though there were some delicious little monkfish tails lurking in it. And someone had been a bit too heavy handed with the nutmeg on the double baked potatoes with mozzarella, a dish that sounded more seductive than it tasted, even for this potato lover. Nice fresh rocket salad on the side though.

On the next door table a couple were tucking into a vast veal milanese that would comfortably have served three, served with an overflowing bowl of courgette fries. Seeing us eyeing it up they generously offered us a taste - and that was tops too - cut more thickly than the usual escalope from good veal with plenty of flavour.

After this we resolved to resist the zabaglione we’d had our eye on but hadn’t reckoned with Francesco sending out a couple of desserts - a really faultless tiramisu - not too creamy, not too sweet, and a clever, ravishingly pretty plate of lemon-curd stuffed meringues with crisp shards of rhubarb. It would have been rude not to really ...

We kept our bill under reasonable control by sticking to wine by the glass, a Verdicchio and a Pieropan Soave to start with, and a gorgeous Fiano di Avellino from Guido Marsella which was perfect with the lobster. It would be easy to be led into spending a good deal more by the persuasive waiters - although there are bottles for as little as £25 on the wide-ranging Italian wine list.

One of the big attractions of Sartoria is that it’s open all day so should you suddenly crave a tiramisu after a particularly fraught shopping session in Regent Street you could indulge the whim. Or, even better, plan a power breakfast. I particularly like the sound of the eggs purgatorio with spicy tomato and ‘nduja sauce (Francesco, coming from Calabria, is the man who started the whole nduja craze).

Sartoria is pricey but if you go with the idea of dropping in for a dish it’s affordable. And very cossetting, I must say.

Sartoria is at 20 Savile Row, London W1S 3PR. Tel: 020 7534 7000

Disclosure: we were given complimentary desserts and aperitifs

Lurra - the latest London restaurant you need to know about

With so much of what’s going on on the London dining scene happening east of the City it’s good to find a hip new restaurant opening slap in the middle of the West End

Actually Seymour Place (just off Edgware Road) is becoming quite the hotspot. Not only does it have Lurra (which means ‘land’ in Basque) but its elder sibling Donostia, Lockhart and a branch of the excellent wine bar and bottle shop Vinoteca. All within five minutes walk of Marble Arch tube.

Lurra ticks all the boxes for 2015 eating out: wood-fired grill, open plan kitchen, obscure seafood, Galician beef which, it turns out, the owners import and supply to other top restaurants and butchers including Kitty Fisher's and Turner and George. Smart cookies.

Only the bright, naturally lit, almost Scandi decor, a welcome change from the now standardised bare brick and reclaimed tables, is not au courant - maybe even sparking off its own trend.

I can’t claim my meal there was typical as I was invited for a press event which meant I got to eat both the turbot and the 14 (yes FOURTEEN) year old beef, an indulgence I would definitely have baulked at had I been paying the bill. Both are designed for sharing but still ... At £65 a kilo, they’re clearly priced more for the locals from nearby Connaught Village than cash-strapped twenty-somethings from the other side of town.

The turbot doesn’t look much but is delicious with its Txacoli (sharply flavoured Basque white wine) dressing. (Dressing? It used to be called a sauce in my day.)

The beef is great too though I’m not sure its 5000-odd day life makes it that much more flavourful than a well hung animal of a third its age. It certainly adds a lot of fat which the clean eating brigade may not appreciate. The accompanying fries and aioli though are stellar - as are the grilled veg which is probably what the clean eaters will stick to.

Before that we kicked off with some excellent prawn croquetas, ‘blistered Gernika peppers’ and some curiously unseasoned marrowbone (more fat) which could have done with a good sprinkling of salt - maybe it was just omitted on the pass. And I know they’re regarded as a delicacy and someone has to eat them if they’re not to be thrown away but hake kokotxas (aka hake throats) just don't do it for me. The grilled squid stuffed with prawns and chorizo with squid ink sauce is another matter. I could happily repeat that on any future visit as I could the scoop of walnut ice cream - all I could squeeze in after such a blowout.

Other plusses: the mainly Spanish winelist is particularly strong and I loved the theatre of our server pouring the crisp Basque wine Txacoli at table from a considerable height. And there’s a lovely room upstairs that would be great for a celebration dinner party.

So will you like Lurra? Depends. If you’re a fussy eater - or like your food prettified - my guess is not. There’s a challenging element to the food you wouldn’t find at say, Barrafina or José Pizarro, two of London’s other top Spanish restaurants. Basque food is rustic and this is authentic Basque.

But if your habitual haunt is Hackney I reckon you will. You may wince at the prices but you don’t have to go for the big set-piece dishes. In theory. I suspect few of you will be able to resist 'that' steak though for me it's squid'n'chips that'll be the lure. I'll be back.

Lurra is at 9, Seymour Place, London W1H 5BA. Tel: 0207 724 4545.