Maltings Café

Maltings is the humble, hideaway café off Tower Bridge Road where Sam Harris worked before opening upmarket sibling Zucca - one of the best new restaurants to open this year - just around the corner.

Maltings still runs five days a week (though not for dinner), serving a small menu of Mediterranean-style pasta dishes, grilled meat and fish and various vegetarian salads, tarts and plenty of own-made cakes.

Nothing costs over £8, with a main of succulent grilled rump steak coming in at £7.95 and a massive plateful of squid ink risotto topped with grilled squid a laughable £7.75. A generous helping of creamy polenta with tomato and mushrooms is £2.50 and the excellent al dente mafaldine pasta with roasted broccoli (£5.50) exceeded expectations with incredible flavours springing from just a handful of ingredients.

It's not as smart as Zucca, but it does offer excellent value. The room is small but cosy, with Italian food products dotted about and the kind of staff who ask how your meal was, and seem to genuinely care about the answer.