The restaurant is a cleverly designed space, open and transparent but still retaining a rustic element. Expect a lot of the food to turn up on wooden platters or iron pans. They have kept things simple. The menu splits into Boards, a selection of mix and match starter sized dishes served, you guessed it, on a board, and a choice of six main courses with optional sides.

Be ready to dash to Tuttons if the All Blacks win the quarter final on Saturday, 9th October – and later if they make it through to the semis and final. The first 50 diners will qualify for a free glass of Waipara West Wine on days the New Zealand All Blacks win a match. It’s worth changing allegiance for, as Joanna Biddolph discovered.

Unpretentious, not chasing trends, no obvious tattoos on the staff and food cooked classically well, Arbutus is the kind of old-skool that can teach the new kids a lesson.

Despite it’s low-rent, quasi-shabbiness, Ducksoup is not exactly cheap and I left hungry, so will it survive? I suspect it will ride a wave for a while, supported on the spume and foam of novelty and social media, but it will need to try harder to get a regular customer base when the surfers have moved on to the next breaker.

I’d forgotten how tasty hake can be when cooked correctly, this was firm and swimming in a charming pink, porky oil offset by a paste of serious-minded olive. The best were the salt baked potatoes – three little saggy bags of potato fluff in those jackets you only got at Guy Fawkes parties when you were a kid – the sorts of potatoes that you dug out from under the bonfire with crackly skins

Harry Farmer visits the Soho branch of Hummus Brothers and ponders the student obsession with the chickpea based deity.

So, what can I tell you about So? It’s a Japanese fusion restaurant hidden in the snaking back alleys near Piccadilly Circus, almost entirely frequented by Japanese people the night we visited and pretty impressive.

In a bid to avoid cliché, and a calorie induced coma, Harry Farmer only eats of some of the pies.

A lot of critics seem obliged to say that Brasserie Joel is a great restaurant in the wrong location. It’s the usual snobbery towards hotels in genera,l and south of the river in particular. I disagree. It’s a great restaurant that happens to be in a hotel. Full stop.

For people who eat out at a high level regularly, it’s the small touches that make the difference between one fine-dining restaurant and another. Joanna Biddolph finds many exquisite touches, in the décor and on her plate, at 10 times Michelin-starred Tamarind.