The Glasshouse

No, this is not some fly-by-night pop-up affair that has set up shop in a Victorian greenhouse in Kew Gardens: this perennially popular neighbourhood restaurant's name comes from the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows that make it stand out in the parade of shops leading away from Kew Gardens tube station, and make for a light-flooded and unbuttoned setting. With Bruce Poole and Nigel Platts-Martin (the team behind the equally in-vogue Chez Bruce in Wandsworth and La Trompette in Chiswick - see entries) at the helm, The Glasshouse seems to have found the Holy Grail that keeps the well-heeled denizens of Kew coming back again and again. Seasonally-driven modern European cooking that doesn't try any fancy smoke-and-mirrors trickery is what this place is all about: it trades in exactly the kind of food that modern gastronomes want to eat, built upon the solid foundations of classical French cuisine bourgeoise (rather than the stifling pretensions of the haute variety), and jazzed up with a switched-on lexicon of Mediterranean and Asian flavours. Typical of the style is a starter of rabbit tortellini with Serrano ham, rabbit consommé, carrots and baby artichokes, or there might be a globe-trotting array of guacamole, shiso and radish salad and yuzu dressing to partner deep-fried soft-shell crab. Of course, it takes formidable technical skills to make compositions such as these seem effortless, and you can expect main courses to bring a similarly accomplished layering of flavours and textures: grilled sea bass, perhaps, supported by basil and shrimp ravioli, samphire, slow-cooked leeks, and shellfish espuma, while meatier ideas could bring the full-on pigginess of pork fillet and braised cheeks with boudin blanc, fennel choucroute, creamed potato, and mustard jus. Desserts such as Valrhona chocolate marquise with chicory mousse, nougatine and crème fraîche ice cream show a kitchen that has a firm grasp of how flavours work together. Conscientious and clued-up staff are the icing on the cake.