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The transfer of the highly acclaimed Thyme restaurant from South London to Covent Garden’s hospital site has transformed this operation into an altogether more sophisticated affair. The restaurant serves beautifully crafted dishes in grown up surroundings and offers excellent service.

A steady favourite since it opened in 1984, the food here is wonderfully fresh, and basically Mediterranean, with roast and baked dishes to the fore. Set menus mean you have to go with the patronne’s taste, but she will take you to places you have not been before. The wine list favours California.

Clarke’s

Indian curries are almost a national dish in Britain, but this is quite different from the norm. The cooking is stunning, and first-timers will need talking through the unusual menu, which includes delicious fish dishes.

Inspired Gallic cooking means you need to make a reservation weeks in advance. The original idea here is that there are no starter or main courses. Dishes are categorised under half a dozen themed headings, and you put together three of four to make a meal. Each one is a rare combination.

This converted Victorian pub on the edge of the City was the first of London’s “gastropubs”. Serving high-quality Mediterranean-style cuisine from an open kitchen, it is informal and always busy. The menu largely comprises substantial mains.

You don’t have to wear Prada or Gucci here, but you will feel more at home if you do. This is the style gurus’ hang-out, where impeccable taste ranges from the oak and maple parquet tables to the fabulous Japanese food. Sushi is served in lacquered bowls, sake is served in bamboo flasks. You don’t need to reserve for the sushi bar.

Sir Terence Conran is London’s most prominent restaurateur. This intimate restaurant is at the peak of perfection and prices. The short menu changes regularly, and is Modern European with a French bias – including the best fish, beef and game.

London’s oldest restaurant (1798), Rules has a wonderful, genuine Belle Epoque atmosphere, and remains a great British institution, not resting on its laurels. It specializes mainly in game – much of it from the northern estates of its owner, John Mayhew.

This basement restaurant is the original of a chain of modern Oriental eating houses, offering fast, efficient service. Inexpensive Japanese dishes are served cafeteria-style, with diners eating side-by-side.

A great restaurant near Smithfield meat market, this is in a converted smokehouse. It serves tasty variations of offal, tripe, tongue, heart and other traditional British dishes which 21st-century Londoners find rather daring. Bar-menu snacks are not expensive.