Hot Tables: Weekend Edition

The Ledbury
127 Ledbury Road, W11 2AQ
0207 792 9090 

One for the diary: book a table. Victim of the riots where reportedly the customers got mugged and the staff fought off looters with machetes. Now Brett Graham’s cooking is picking up the best-in-town plaudits and like others in the group – The Square, Chez Bruce – has been free to develop his own Aussie rhythm. Very modern, very on the button, very, very good wine list.

Mishkin's
25 Catherine Street, WC2B 5JS
0207 240 2078

After Polpo, after Spuntino – this is in fact Russell Norman’s fifth venture in barely a couple of years – we have Jewish deli dishes and cocktails. If you know the other venues, you know what you will get, but with meatballs and a sour cherry. Reuben and salt beef. You can book here, which you cannot at the other venues.

Abbeville Kitchen
47 Abbeville Road, SW5 9QN
0208 772 1110 

The Swaledale lamb is slow roasted for seven hours and the Christmas menu features pheasant pie. If that sounds familiar, Kevin McFadden was at the Anchor and Hope, in Cut before here, and flies the flag for some serious cooking and commitment, which means deep-fried pig’s head among other offal.

Bread Street Kitchen
10 Bread Street, EC4M 9AB
0203 030 4050

Gordon Ramsay opens what might be termed his first original restaurant – i.e. it is not French. It is loud but with three sections – charcuterie, wood-fired oven, shellfish. Everyone seems a bit stunned as to how good it is. John Lanchester in the Guardian said it was between “very good and excellent.”