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With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
Babbo
Film
This is a film with beautiful performances and a visual style that urges you towards reflection
Bright Star
Theatre
Although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off
Seize The Day
I loved this film from start to finish. Take the girlfriend, tell your mum - I'd see it again tomorrow and will buy the dvd.
I saw this last night and can't remember the last time I was so moved in the theatre.
I have been to many of London's so-called best Japanese restaurants and none have been as good as the food that I've had at Aqua Kyoto
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: A "bare" and "no-nonsense" Clerkenwell yearling, where the staff are "amiable", and the food is usually "varied" and "imaginative".
Food: 
Service: 
Ambience: 
Phone: 020 7837 0009
Website: http://www.theambassadorcafe.co.uk
Open: Open Monday-Saturday noon-3.30pm and 6.30-10.30pm. Sunday 11am-5pm
Dress code: None
Good for: Good food, Ambience.
Payment options: All major cards accepted
The Ambassador's interior has shades of Edward Hopper
What little I know personally of Janet Street-Porter, I like. Encountering her at a dinner party recently, she said that she goes about once a week to The Ambassador in Exmouth Market.
Along with her perfectly pitched, off-handed handling of Gordon Ramsay on The F Word, it confirmed what I suspected - that she is sound on the subject of food.
I went for dinner at The Ambassador, with its Edward Hopper-inspired interior, soon after Clive Greenhalgh opened it in April this year.
The return match was for lunch, when there is a very reasonable set-price menu at £12.50/£16 for two/three courses plus an a la carte somewhat simpler and cheaper than the evening list.
This review is not intended as a roster of people I know who have appeared on television, but my lunch companion, Ruth Watson, has struck fear and planted hope in the hearts of Britain's hoteliers and landladies as The Hotel Inspector on Channel 5.
When I arrived at 12.45pm she had already moved into top gear in that singular manner given to people in the catering trade - the Watsons own the Crown and Castle restaurant and rooms in Orford, Suffolk. Waters still and sparkling had been mustered, she had tried - and rejected - an aperitif of Floc de Gascogne, and was sipping an Ambassador Kir, a surprisingly alluring mixture of creme de mure and Gamay.
Questions had been asked about the provenance of the asparagus - "in Suffolk we stopped cutting weeks ago" - and why ham hock was so often on the menu.
We shared three "bar plates" for the first course: chicken rillettes, cured duck breast with endive and asparagus omelette. Rillettes must be made with intrinsically fatty meat like goose or pork so chicken doesn't really work, although the result was a pleasant enough pot of pate flavoured with tarragon.
The finely sliced duck breast, perhaps cured in-house by Swedish chef Tobias Jilsmark, was delicious. I am always so pleased to find omelettes on a menu. This one was emollient with (unannounced) melted cheese rather than runny egg inside but, with the asparagus spears meticulously peeled, it was a perfect lunch dish.
Ruth said that her ham hock risotto (a special of the day) took her back to the days of eating chicken a la king at The Stockpot on King's Road. It was meant as a nostalgia-infused compliment. My onglet - aka skirt or hanger steak - was brilliant; rosy rare, open textured and full of flavour.
Runner beans served whole, not stringed and undercooked, was lack of prissiness taken too far. But gooseberries, another highlight of the season, poached and served with bay leaf ice cream and shortbread were wonderful. A beautiful waitress and Clive Greenhalgh provided seamless service.
Clive is the one to consult about wine from the list he has personally and astutely compiled, many of them provided by glass or carafe. The Ambassador is from a country where eating and drinking is all of a piece with unforced enjoyment.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
