Five to try: New gastropubs

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Sloane home: The Botanist in Chelsea

Room with a view: Duke of Wellington

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• Five to try: Groovy Japanese
• Five to try: Terraces

THE BULL & LAST
168 Highgate Road, NW5
(020 7267 3641) £34
Freddie Fleming and chef Ollie Pudney, fresh from gastropub success at The Prince of Wales in Putney, have opened up in Gospel Oak. Pudney seizes the bull by the horns (or the pig by the tail) and makes good use of all parts, such as calves' tongue rémoulade or slow-cooked pig's head with sauerkraut. But there's rump steak, Cornish hake and fish and chips as well. An upstairs dining room opens this Friday.

THE BOTANIST
7 Sloane Square, SW1
(020 7730 0077) £40
This is the first time that Tom and Ed Martin, who opened The Gun, E14, The Empress of India, E9, and The Prince Arthur, E8, have gone west. The Botanist is awash with braying Sloanes keen to prove that breakfast, lunch and dinner are all the human frame requires. Well, that and cocktails. The cooking is sometimes over-elaborate, but the location is a winner.

THE PRINCESS VICTORIA
217 Uxbridge Road, W12
(020 8749 5886) £35
Matt Wilkin, co-owner of this handsome pub, came up to us and said, “I served you at The Capital, you sat in the corner, you drank such-and-such.” He is a deeply passionate sommelier and remembered every detail from a meal years ago. The same emotion is in place here and well matched by cooking from James McLean. It all comes together in a lovely space.

THE SANDS END
135-137 Stephendale Road, SW6
(020 7731 7823) £36
One of the business partners was formerly an equerry to the Prince of Wales so the claim that the young Princes are customers probably has substance. News about an enterprising chef cuts more mustard for me and Liam Kirwan lets his Irish soul sing out. Irish black pudding with mushy peas and grilled trotters with Ballymaloe relish are two options but he is not partisan. Welsh rarebit soldiers also feature.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
94a Crawford Street, W1
(020 7723 2790) £38
When it opened late last year, this positive addition to eating out in Marylebone sparked more than the usual outrage about the desecration of a scuzzy local. This Duke's antecedents include The Brown Dog in Barnes and The Pig's Ear in Chelsea, a 2005 finalist in our very own Pub of the Year. I like the intimate upstairs dining room here with its view of St Mary's Church.
Prices estimate a meal with wine
for one.

 

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