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.

Islington lucks out with Oldroyd

We got two important things right on our first visit to Oldroyd. We went before most of the reviews came out and there were four of us which gave us an excuse to try practically everything on the menu.

I don’t know why, in this age of small plates, one doesn’t always do that. Probably because it’s difficult to find three similarly food-obsessed dining companions who are free on the same night but it’s one of the advantages of being around in high summer when there’s not much else on.

Oldroyd, in case you haven’t been feverishly scanning the food press, is the eagerly awaited solo venture from chef Tom Oldroyd who used to head up the kitchens at Polpo. It’s hard on the face of it to see why he would want to abandon the comforts of executive chefdom with someone else worrying about the money and most evenings off for a tiny 28 seater in Islington where he’ll have to be there all the time but I guess he has more freedom to cook the sort of food he wants. Which is basically Polpo plus. Big flavours, delivered with real flair.

Everything we ate - and as I pointed out we ate practically EVERYTHING bar the Cornish seaweed and cider salami and peach and cow curd panzanella which didn't sound entirely convincing - was good, the sort of dishes that make you feel you immediately need to go back to eat them again or recreate them at home. (Inspired by the paella which came topped with chargrilled squid, rabbit confit and a generous dollop of aioli I have a pile of Spanish cookbooks next to me as I write.)

There were some great meatballs - unusually lamb rather than pork or veal made with almonds and served with a creamy, gently spiced romesco, a steaming pot of clams with chilli chorizo and thyme (and butter I would guess from the richness of the sauce), a cured rather than raw veal tonnato which added a deliciously smoky dimension to this Italian classic, a special of red prawns and a gorgeous plate of spicy crab tagliarini ‘provençal’ (not sure why?) in a pool of brown crab rouille that makes you wonder why restaurants don't serve pasta with a sauce on the side more often. The most expensive of those dishes - the paella - was only £11 and definitely a racion rather than a tapa size portion

Oh, and we kicked off with a few summery radishes, imaginately served with smoked cods roe (aka tarama) and some perfectly fried smoked pork belly and pea croquetas with truffle mayonnaise (Oldroyd clearly loves mayo in all its forms). Unsurprisingly we were defeated by the time we got to pud but there was chocolate mousse with salted pistachio praline and raspberries and stone fruit and brioche pain perdu on offer in case you’re wondering.

The only slight disappointment was the very short wine list but I guess there’s no room in this shoebox-sized restaurant for wine. That said, both the bottles we chose - a Chateau d’Astros rosé and a Bodegas Ponce Bobal were fine though on a warm evening the Bobal could have done with being chilled. And decanted. (Which to do first? We went for decanting then shamelessly ordered ice-cubes to drop in the wine*. Our very sweet waiter didn’t turn a hair.) Cocktails - including an on-trend Oldroyd vermouth - look rather more interesting.

The quality of ingredients and cooking were so good and our bill at £40 a head (including service) so reasonable that it’s hard to see how Oldroyd is going to make enough money out of his venture. Maybe it’s a prototype for a bigger restaurant to come. Let’s hope so. Get your booking in quick, anyway. With three friends, of course ...

Oldroyd is at 344 Upper Street, Islington London N1 0PD. Tel: 020 8617 9010 (Nearest tube, Angel)

*Quick way to cool wine if you've already decanted it. Drop in 2-3 ice cubes into your glass, stir then remove them.

Duck + Rice: posh Chinese in a Soho pub

It wasn’t easy getting to Duck + Rice. The first time I tried their kitchens were out of action because the extraction system was down ….

Then the bookings system showed there wasn’t a table available at the time I wanted to go. Then I RANG UP - you know, got on a phone like you did in the old days - and of course they had a table after all

Why did I make so much effort? Well the place is owned by restaurateur Alan Yau the creator of the then groundbreaking Hakkasan which has now cloned itself across the planet from Abu Dhabi to Las Vegas. Duck + Rice is his first project for a while, still offering the modern Chinese he’s famed for but (oddly) in a pubby setting.

You reach the dining room via a spiral staircase that you feel could be a bit lethal if you teeter down in your Alexander Wangs or overdo the cocktails but we made it without incident.

Daunted by the unusually large menu I phoned a friend who’d been recently but by the time she replied we’d already embarked on the prawn toasts which I’d remembered reading were particularly fine and a crispy duck salad which proved more interesting than it at first looked with generous nuggets of duck nestling (actually, they did nestle) under the leaves. The prawn toasts were sublime - shaped like a prawn, stuffed with fat juicy prawn meat, definitely an alpha plus prawn toast.

Bizarrely after that we switched back to dim sum. Very good prawn chueng fun with more fat chunks of prawn, good pork and prawn shu mai (that were a great match with the 1998 Savennières that was suggested by the glass) and rather dull vegetable spring rolls though why I expected them to be interesting I don’t know. They never are but at least they were well fried.

The drinks list is particularly interesting. I didn’t plan to drink so was urged to have the house special of chrysanthemum tea with honey which wasn't as exciting as it looks or sounded. But they have an amazing list of beers and an even better one of wines which are available in 70ml tasting measures so you can try different things. I ended up, urged by the sommelier Angelo, picking the Savennières and a really good Vespaiolo. Afterwards Angelo proudly showed me his Provintech dispensing system, a state-of-the-art wine-on-tap machine which is apparently the only one in London. Boys’ toys, eh?

The downside is that it’s a touch expensive. As Jay Rayner pointed out in his review - you can eat the same dishes much more cheaply elsewhere in Chinatown but you have to know the ropes and the service isn’t a fraction as friendly or obliging. Here they do that seemingly obligatory squatting thing by the table so they’re at the same level as you rather than towering over you. Never seems entirely genuine but who can object when they smile so sweetly?

To return to the cost we didn’t eat or drink that much but effortlessly ratcheted up a bill of £60.30. You could easily find yourself with a much bigger one. I’d advise either going in for a single dish - of chow mein, say - if you're snatching a quick lunch or go in in a group of at least four so you can try lots of different dishes. Make sure you have at least one prawn toast to yourself though.

As we left the restaurant I realised I didn’t really get to grips with either of the signature duck dishes (the house duck on the next table* looked particularly good) Or the rice come to that. Or the beer snacks. Or the beer. I definitely need to go back.

Duck + Rice is at 90 Berwick Street, London W1F OQB. Tel: +44 203 327 7888

*The weirdest thing was that the friend I’d tried to go to Duck + Rice with in the first place turned out to be sitting - I kid you not - on the next door table, it being her first visit since our abortive attempt. Spooky or what? Anyway she’s also a food blogger so you’ll be able to read her review soon too

Taberna do Mercado, Spitalfields, London

The hype that accompanies almost every new restaurant launch these days is crazy. We all swarm in, pronounce it the best opening this year then swarm off to the next hotspot.

No restaurant is perfect in the first few days, even one run by that luminous talent Nuno Mendes formerly of Viajante, now of Taberna do Mercado in Spitalfields which he’s combining with his day job as executive chef of the fashionable Chiltern Firehouse, a fact that’s bound to stretch his team in the first few weeks especially when a large party descends from a neighbouring wine fair.

Nuno is proudly Portuguese and this gives him a chance to explore some of his country’s great rustic food traditions but also - being Nuno - to innovate To say that his food occasionally oversteps the mark is like complaining that Delia Smith’s recipes are too reliable. Of course it does

What have I got in mind? Well the abade de Priscos a silky - no, go on, I’ll say it - slimey egg pudding made with pork fat and served with a port sauce is actually rather horrid. Turns out it’s a traditional dish from Braga and one of the 21 wonders of Portuguese gastronomy but to be honest I’d rather have a custard tart. And I’m not wild about the Tigelada, a slightly leaden milk pudding either. Clearly Portuguese desserts don’t do it for me.

I also wasn’t convinced about the chicory and pear and almond salad that arrived with a spicy chilli sauce (masa di pimentao) that overwhelmed the other ingredients or an over-crunchy carrot escabeche.

But the highlights were dazzling. The widely instagrammed (including by me) cuttlefish and pigs trotters coentrada is just insanely good, an umami bomb of a surf and turf dish that I could easily have made a meal of. (I might have to order two next time.) Runner bean fritters (below), a pretty tempura-like tangle of crisp vegetables makes the perfect snack while you’re debating what else to eat and the prawn rissois (or croquetas as they’d be called in Spain) are the biz.

I also loved the idea of the ‘tinned fish’ which are apparently cooked sous vide but cutely arrive in tins with an accompanying sauce, some very good toasted bread and pickled radishes. We had the daily special, some outrageously fat mussels with a wild garlic sauce which were fantastic.

Wild garlic also appeared in a dish of migas (breadcrumbs) with asparagus and fennel so there’s more than a nod to seasonal ingredients - appropriate to the restaurant’s market location. I thought it tasted nicer when it was lukewarm than hot - as is the way with these small plates restaurants, dishes all arrive at once. (Tip: don’t order more than two or three at a time if you don’t want to be in and out within the hour.)

We spotted some other dishes arriving at neighbouring tables. The sandwiches (beef prego with prawn paste and wild garlic, pork bifana, yeast mayo and fennel) sounded and looked particularly tempting and judging by the silky coils of ham that were sailing past, the cured meat section is also worth exploring. As is the all-Portuguese wine list, much of which is available by the glass. I loved both my sparkling Campolargo Bairrada rosé (great with the trotter dish) and intensely flavoured Antonio Lopes Air Vinho Verde - still remarkably fresh for a 2011 vintage. The charming staff are well-informed about both the menu and the list.

So I’ll definitely be back and you should definitely go, though maybe in few weeks once it's had a chance to get into its stride. And once the fuss has died down though given it’s Nuno and one of the city’s only Portuguese restaurants I’m not hopeful that will happen any time soon.

Taberna do Mercado is at 107b Commercial Street which is just inside the entrance to Old Spitalfields market. It’s open every day but only takes bookings at lunchtime (and is relatively small so you may face a wait to get in) and serves a restricted menu in the afternoon. Go early (like 6pm) as we did. Our bill came to £86.29 including 4 glasses of wine which is way more than you need to pay if you’re not as curious or greedy as we were