Restaurants

You have to like the way owner Will Ricker puts a room together. Here is a man fully aware of our base tribal needs. GEDR is relaxed, good-looking and people-friendly, with squishy banquettes, paper-over-cloth tables, rich dark wooden floors and a chandelier conspiring to create a space you camp in as much as eat in. The menu pushes all the right buttons too, with its tour of South-east Asia: from dim sum, maki rolls and tempura, to curries and wok-fries. A starter plate of mixed sashimi and sushi produced flappingly fresh fish, generously cut and attractively arranged. Great Easterns real strength, however, is in its Thai food. An enormous pile of pad thai noodles came generously endowed with chicken and properly garnished with chilli, peanuts, shallots and lime for squeezing. Som tum green papaya salad was authentically raw, wild and fresh tasting. A pepped-up spicy-sweet-sour nam jim sauce boosted a well-cooked crisp-skinned, whole farmed sea bass. This is the most together restaurant in the ever-swelling Ricker stable; we had inferior food at the latest branch, XO in Belsize Park.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008