Mason & Taylor, Shoreditch

Mason & Taylor might be mostly about the beer, but you have to also love it for the entertainment factor in watching all the people outside trying to find the front door. I tried pushing in the window and did at least 2 laps before I worked it out. Try walking in with dignity after you've head butted the window.

Fortunately, it's worth the humiliation. Mason & Taylor is a craft beer and real ale bar, which opened in December 2010. All beers come from independent brewers, there are 12 draught beers and ales on tap a "seasonal" list of 40 bottled beers which changes every 2 months. You can now even work through tasting flights of three or six 1/3 pint glasses.

However the Sunday lunch is also a winner.

At Ms L's birthday lunch recently, the 3 boys shared a gargantuan shoulder of roast Herwick lamb which came out in proportions that really could have fed all 5 of us (it's recommended for 2 or 3 at £65 total). Just the sight of it was the cause of much excitement, but it was also gorgeously tender, pink and delicious.

My roast chicken was equally fab and juicy (£12.50). Both came with hefty servings of crisp and fluffy duck fat roast taties, parsnip, carrots and sprout tops (and mine with bread sauce). Ms L seemed just as enamoured with her roasted artichoke veggie roast.

TPG - always a dessert traditionalist - felt the Eton Mess should not have been messed with, being made with cranberry rather than strawberries, and so he opted for the terrific chocolate pud - insanely rich, but nothing a good slosh of cream couldn't help with (£4.50-£5).

Aside from the Sunday roast, M&T's food is generally served on smaller sharing plates. We grazed a couple of months ago over some beer and wine in the evening - while there's nothing overly remarkable, the combinations are simple and tasty - like scotch quails eggs with sauce gribiche, caramelised pear, walnut and Cropwell Bishop salad, wild boar sausage and beetroot mash and ginger beer battered squid with cucumber dipping sauce. The grazing plates (all priced around £3-£6.50) are good, although the Sunday roast tops them for me, and the evenings are mostly about something decent to nibble while you focus on the beer.

Mason and Taylor is light and airy, with wooden tables and chairs and big floor to ceiling windows right round - a seat by the corner window had us basking in the glow of Sunday afternoon sun, watching Shoreditchians dancing in the streets to the jazz down the road. The staff are equally sunny, and prices are very reasonable - we paid about £30 per head for a whole afternoon of feasting and drinking.

If I lived in Shoreditch, this would be a regular Sunday afternoon haunt.

Mason & Taylor, 51-55 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London, E1 6LA (Tel: 020 7749 9670)

Spuntino, Soho

I've been waiting patiently for Spuntino to open in Soho for months. I watched the blue Indian restaurant move on, I watched the boards go up, and I watched the workmen move in. Then I leave London for 2 and a bit weeks, and it opens.

The bloggers have been at it already, so you don't need all the details. But just in case you haven't heard, Spuntino is the 3rd restaurant in the line of gems brought to us by Russell Norman, the man behind Polpo and Polpetto.

They all have a related look and feel - brickwork, exposed lighting, industrial type fittings. But Spuntino is more rock n roll. It has a totally cool view over the neon signs and street scenes of Soho's red light district, features a New Yorkish/American inspired menu and is now the closest one to my front door which means its become my new stop out for a negroni before beef sliders and shoe string fries.

Sliders and beet salad

It's tiny, with seats largely limited to those around the bar meaning its best to go in 2's or 3's only (although there is a table in a small enclave at the back of the room for a larger group). We arrived at 7pm to find the seats already full, but half way through the first negroni we were seated (perhaps be optimistic if they tell you there's a one hour wait) and were ordering up from a wide selection of reasonably priced small plates.

Oooh baby - the mac 'n cheese

DO NOT miss the beef and marrow sliders, juicy and rich little balls of fun presented like tiny hamburgers. Fabulous. The lamb and pickle cucumber sliders are also good, as is a decent sized (even if a tad too salty) beet and ricotta salad. The mac and cheese is a cheesy powerhouse, and while it might clog up your arteries, if you're up for some serious comfort food, I've never liked a mac and cheese more. It's crispy on top and oozing with leeks, mozzarella, fontina and parmesan. Yeehaah.

Pizzetta

The zucchini pizzetta is simple but pretty much perfect - thin and crispy with chili, mint and a lovely mild cheese.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dessert is also fun - a lovely jam is sandwiched between 2 wedges of peanut butter ice-cream, sprinkled with crushed sugary peanuts. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it grew on me.

We paid £65 for 2 including service, martinis (don't be fooled by the size people - they're potent), negronis and a glass of delicious Nero D'Avola (yes, they do the wine in tumbers thing which some of you don't like, but I think it works here).

Spuntino is not gourmet and it's not perfect. But both food and atmosphere are bloody good fun - I love Spuntino already.


Spuntino, 61 Rupert St, Soho, W1D 7PN (No reservations)

You can see my earlier reviews of Polpo and Polpetto here - both made my Top 10 London Restaurants 2010 list for Toptable.

PS. If you ever read this Spuntino, can we please have hooks for handbags under the bar? Ta.

Paramount, Soho - Modern food with panoramic views of London

There's always that fear that the better the view, the worse the food. Would the fear be founded at Paramount?

Paramount has 360 degree views of London, from the 32nd floor of the Centre Point tower. You can see the bridges line up along the Thames, past the London Eye, the Gherkin and unwary Londoners sunbaking on their rooftops. It's fair to say it has a good view.

The food itself has to be put in context. Paramount was a private members club, which has recently been opened to the public. The dining room is slick and modern, designed by Tom Dixon (I don't know much - ok, anything - about him, but judging from his website, he seems to like these suction cap style things on the ceiling):

There's a sleek bar area, where you can just go for a drink, which leads on to the restaurant - both are frequented mostly by 30-something men in suits drinking from big wine glasses and 30-something women dressed up in the latest Karen Millen gear, preferably with a bit of sparkle. It still feels like it's mostly filled with its members at the moment. It's smart, even if it does feel just a teensy bit soulless. This feels more like a place run by a faceless "management" than somewhere the heart and soul of its creators is in every corner and on every plate - but the crowd are not here nuzzling up to their cocktails for that. They're here for the view and the scene, with a bit of fancy pants food on the side.

I joined my dining companions in the private Red Room, and watched the sky line change as the sun set and the city lights took over for the night shift. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Head chef Colin Layfield has created a menu which reads like one temptation after another. It's seriously hard to choose based on the print alone. But then everything is executed with ultra modern presentation, which is either your thing or it's an irritation - black slates, rectangular plates, cylindrical shaped food etc. The style certainly matches the architecture.

After a gorgeous amuse bouche (cappuccino of asparagus veloute), my double baked Roquefort souffle (£9.50) had a rich and lovely flavour, if ever so slightly too dry.

My wild sea bass with potato gnocchi, samphire and caviar cream (£23.50) was a luxurious combination which I mostly loved - the fish and firm little gnocchi were cooked perfectly but the fish was overseasoned, particularly given not much was needed in combination with the salty caviar.

For dessert, my walnut tart (£9.50) was "quite nice" and came with a lovely Pink Lady apple strudel, sweet ginger custard and a really powerful cider sorbet (which I didn't like).

It's fussily presented, ambitious food and it's generally pretty good, but doesn't always hit the mark. However, you won't be able to complain that you make one just like it at home.

Service was lovely and unpretentious (although I was attending an event for my meal and found the front of house area near the bar slightly more cool and aloof when I visited anonymously with friends the following week).

Paramount is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner - or just for drinks at the bar to lap up the spectacular view. There's a decent looking bar food menu, and wine by the glass starts at £6.25 while cocktails are a whopping £11. There's also a narrow bar (more like a carpeted corridor really) wrapped around edges of the 33rd floor which will be an oyster and champagne bar ... again with the view.

Although Paramount is apparently open to the public, when I rang to put my name on the list for our drinks in the bar this week, the phone was answered by a rather toffy, unwelcoming man who, when he could not find my name in their system (I don't always get around as "Greedy Diva"), explained that only those who have been before with a member or have some kind of link in can get in for drinks. What the..? Just call first and maybe you'll work it out.

Paramount, Centre Point, 103 New Oxford St, Soho, WC1A 1DD (Tel: 020 7420 2900)

I dined in the Red Room as a guest of Paramount with other food bloggers. 

For other places to eat with a great bird's eye view over London, see my earlier review of Galvin at Windows here.