Restaurants

With its hardwood flooring, block-colour design scheme and spiralling metal staircase (linking the ground and first-floor dining rooms), Chapter Two can feel slightly like the restaurant of a 1980s cruise ship, but Londoners have been swearing by the place since it opened in 1998 as a sister to Kentish gastro-goldmine Chapter One. Their affection hangs partly on the attentive service and fair prices, yet the biggest draw is in gazing at, then gobbling-up, head chef Trevor Torbin’s inimitable ‘food-as-art’. His starter of skate and brown shrimp raviolo came veiled in an airy ginger velouté that casual observers might mistake for a bowl of cappuccino froth. Main courses exhibited similar creative prowess. Pork belly arrived as a round tower surrounded by a smoky moat of lentils and cider jus; one touch with a fork and 24 hours of slow roasting caused it to collapse in a pile of sublimely tender meat. Certain dishes seemed overly conceptual. A ball of shoulder lamb in cabbage leaves on a bed of white bean purée looked rather like a floating green brain – but such gripes are merely aesthetic, and the results are seldom less than delicious.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008