It’s not cheap, considering the target market and how fast the experience is over, but London is like Pavlov’s dog when someone mentions lobster right now – the drool is like a tsunami. Certainly Fraq has done its homework and designed decor and menu to hit the spot for a cool crowd.

Emma gets swept away by the Gallic charm of Le Garrick in Covent Garden

The Friday we visited, the room was cosy and candlelit, decorated with white drapes from the ceiling and wall projections of ariel worldscapes: deserts, mountain ranges, industrial urbanesques. Fittingly, the music was world/ambient with some cute Mississippi jazz thrown in.

The restaurant at the front of the hotel is full of smart people, New New Labour at lunch one could say. And as if that wasn’t enough trendy dining for one place, upstairs at the back of the building is The Corner Room.

The ramen was right on the button and it was a well priced lunchtime feed that had me energised and ready to face Oxford Street again. For shoppers who want to slurp and go, Tonkotsu has just what’s needed.

Some restaurants take the philosophy of becoming synonymous with a dish, a style, a cuisine, a theme or an ethos to an extreme – serving only a single dish. It’s a brave decision; anyone who nails their their colours to a particular mask had better know what they’re doing. Thankfully, La Tagliata – a small Italian restaurant that calls the rabbit warrens between Liverpool Street and Spitalfields Market home – does, at least where their main course is concerned.

Stuck in a hotel an evening before flying, Nadia Alkahzrajie finds that the Sofitel Gatwick is a restaurant that has wings.

The branch of Roxie in Clapham is a small blink and you’ll miss it sort of a place, with a clean, red-boothed interior and a friendly attentive staff. The menu is small too, the focus clear – meat, and plenty of it.

Slap bang in the middle of that A4 sheet is a half kilo of flesh with accompanying sides: The Beast. For £15 that’s a meat-feast rivalling Bodeans for value. The steak sits quietly to one side of the menu, perhaps overshadowed by its bigger redder meat platter brothers. Look closer though and you’re in for a surprise. Do your eyes deceive you? 7oz fillet steak for £13.95?! That’s either insanity or a misprint – thankfully it’s the former.

Nozomi is a Japanese restaurant, serving up (in their words)’contemporary Japanese cuisine’ and’eclectic cocktails’. While I don’t know nearly enough about Japanese food to give credence to the first statement – they served sushi, sashimi and tempura, what more do you want? – I can safely say the cocktails were eclectic.

Every spirit under the sun is on offer here, mixed with every fruit money can buy. Although we tried a few, including the watermelon bumbum and a fruit cocktail that floated in a small bowl of ice, my favourite was possibly the simplest – the Japanese Old Fashioned. That said, as well as whisky and sake, they had flavoured this with hints of caramel and a stick of ginger, so not that simple after all. A nice strong drink, that takes a good while to sip, the caramel gave a sweeter than usual taste, while the ginger left a medicinal aura. Mmm…medicinal.

Amy finds pub grub has grown up when she visits the new version near Moorgate