The Fish Place, Battersea

Seared Devon scallops with pumpkin puree

The Fish Place opened about a month before I visited and there was only 1 other table occupied during our prime time Saturday night visit. Clearly the local Battersea residents have not yet caught on that there is extraordinary cooking going on in their own backyard.

The head chef previously worked at Michelin starred Roussillon. In every single plate, we found his food not only expertly cooked, but an absolute joy to eat. The freshness of the fish and quality of the ingredients were abundantly apparent from the outset - all seafood is sourced from British waters (there's Dorset crab and Cornish lobster) and is flown in fresh from local fishermen to the kitchen.

To start, an amuse bouche of prawn with potato in a lovely rich chicken stock. It sets the scene nicely for my Devon scallops, nicely seared and cooked to just right all the way through. They are nestled into a lovely, sweet pumpkin puree with deep fried sage and a subtle lemon beurre blanc. It's not a pairing I would normally rush towards, but the pumpkin adds a nice autumnal depth to the dish, which works nicely during this bitterly cold London week.

Dorset crab ravioli

TPG's Dorset crab ravioli are plump parcels of sweet crab pocketted in perfectly cooked pasta atop buttered Savoy cabbage with a shellfish and tarragon sauce. It's rich and rustic, and a dish that has you closing your eyes and dreaming that you're right by the coastline.

Wild sea bass

My wild sea bass is moist and juicy and again - by now it's no surprise - there's perfect execution in the pan frying of the fish. It comes with sauteed potatoes which are just right in firmness, baby spinach, black prawns and a creamy fish sauce. It battles with the crab ravioli as dish of the night.

Boullabaisse

TPG might disagree - he's a major fan of his excellent classic Marsellaise Boullabaisse, with steamed new potato and braised baby leeks. There's at least 3 large pieces of fish in there and to say it's a hearty feast is an understatement. The flavours are bold, fresh and satisfying.

After quite an intoxicating gin and tonic sorbet as a palate cleanser, I move on to the fabulous hot apple and cinnamon souffle. It's a billowing treasure of light, fluffy goodness. The cinnamon is slightly too powerful for me, but TPG loves it. As good as it is, I think I prefer TPG's caramelised pear cheesecake. The caramelised pear is a wonderful match for the creamy, biscuity cheesecake.

Apple & cinnamon souffle

Caramelised pear cheesecake

There are non-fish items on the menu, like Welsh lamb and Kent venison, but this is a place to eat good fish and lots of it.

The wine list deserves a mention - it's very reasonably priced, and there are around 20 wines by the glass for between £3.50-£7.50. When the Stonier Chardonnay (listed for £33) is not available, the sommelier does a great job of guiding us through some matching wines for each of our courses by the glass. We can both be control freaks with our wine, but thoroughly enjoy each of his choices.

There are some downsides - although none of them apply to the food. First, the location - it's a cold night so the streets are quite deserted around this part of Butler's Wharf next to the London Helipad, between a new hotel and residential complex. It's a deserted position and I'm not sure what the potential is for passing pedestrian traffic along the Thames.

Secondly, the ambience. The restaurant is still new and the restaurant was close to empty - which is a travesty for food and wine of this quality. Also, I'm not sold on the stark decor - lime green and cold, granite fittings. A few crisp, white tablecloths would go a long way to making things more comforting.

The set lunch menu is £15, while dinner menus are set at 2 courses for £37.50, 3 courses for £45 and 6 courses for £55. These are steep prices for a restaurant with limited custom, but the cooking is so accomplished (and it's so rare to find fresh fish and execution done so expertly in London) that we both agree it's well worth the price tag assuming you enjoy each other's company enough to get past the ambience void.

If enough of you take me up on my recommendation to go and eat there, you might even find yourself creating the atmosphere that this place deserves. I look forward to returning with a bunch of friends, who I know will appreciate the quality food and wine list, and will create the noise required to lift the roof as the kitchen deserves.

The Fish Place,Vicentia Court, Butler's Wharf, Bridges Court Road, Battersea, SW11 3GY (Tel: 020 7095 0410)

Greedy Diva was a guest of The Fish Place.

Wright Brothers Soho

The new Wright Brothers Soho is certainly a fun place to gather the troops, or dine solo, for seafood binges large and small.

Our Sunday night party of 6 gathered in the downstairs bar to share some champagne and oysters. I love the fit out of the bar area - high table seating, white tiles and exposed brickwork, industrial fittings, high ceilings and an open kitchen set the scene for a potentially buzzing area once the crowds start flocking in. It would also be the perfect place to eat alone at the bar while watching your oysters being shucked.

Most of the searfood is sourced from Small Cornish day boats and is fresh and from sustainable stocks. The shellfish hails from Wright Brothers' own Duchy Oyster Farm on the Helford River in Cornwall, or other parts of Britain and France.

Mmm... oysters - the ultimate creamy, salty taste of luxury. We ordered 2 dozen - a mixture of everything including the special Japanese Kumamotos, Carlingfords, Duchy Natives, Colchesters, Speciales de Claire and Maldons. All were good, but I particularly liked the buttery Carlingfords and the small, briny Kumamotos.

Deep-fried whitebait with tartare sauce were slightly overseasoned but the delicate, crisp batter gave way to fresh, steamy moist flesh. Tiny Falmouth Bay prawns in garlic and butter are sweetly addictive and a large slab of toast lathered in a generous serving of fresh crab was also lovely and big in flavour.

Service was friendly but a little slow - I had the feeling they didn't want to disturb our conversation which meant we found it difficult to get the food coming. But, it's still early days.

Prices range from around £6-7 pounds for 3 oysters and the small tasting plates are generally around £4-9 each. Larger dishes like fish pie (£14.50) and ox cheek, ale and oyster pie (£18.50) are there for more substantive bites. I say it's very reasonably priced.

The dessert menu is also appealing (including lemon sorbet from Gelupo, chocolate pot and hazlenuts or Neals Yard cheese). However, we outstayed the bar's shorter opening hours on Sunday (I think it closed at about 11pm), so we hit Bar Italia (it's been years, YEARS!) for panettone and fab hot chocolates.

The upstairs restaurant at Wright Brothers Soho is also gorgeous - a slightly more romantic setting with candlelight and large windows overlooking Kingly Street. I already liked the original Borough branch, and now the Soho venue is a place to which I'll definitely be returning on a regular basis - for a more substantial meal next time, and then again when the need for reasonably priced oysters and bubbly after a hard days shopping takes hold.

Wright Brothers Soho, 13 Kingley Street, Soho, London W1B 5PW

Sardinia - Gluttonous Travels: Seafood, pasta, wine, beaches...

"With bread, you will never die".

So goes the ancient Sardinian proverb.

And so we decided to spend our the first of the May bank holiday weekends hopping between the beaches, restaurants, agriturismos, food markets and wineries of Sardinia - where the bread basket is never empty.

(Local Monday morning village market)

Sardinia is known for its fresh seafood, sheep's milk cheese (pecorino and tuscanella - a salty ricotta), big flat crispy carta da musica ("music paper") breads from the North of the island (taking their name from its thin nature and creamy colour - called pane carasau (to inlanders) or pane fresa (to coastal dwellers) - delicious with rosemary and olive oil, and a staple before every meal), Mirto liquor (a sweet digestive liqueur made from purple Myrtle berries), and Pardulas - a pastry filled with sweetened ricotta cheese. Seafood of all types is the main event in the coastal areas, while much of the farmland, woodlands and mountains of the inland region lends itself to spit roasted meats (lamb and pig), wild mushrooms and game. Sardinia's most well known wines are Vermentino (a crisp white) and Cannonau (a strong red), although a wide range of grapes are available across the island.

So, there's plenty to keep the roaming gourmande occupied.

(Tastings at the Vigne Sarrua winery)

Agriturismo Ca' La Somara

We stayed for 3 nights at the Agriturismo Ca La Somara, about half an hours drive from Olbia airport near the Costa Smeralda - although a world away from the touristy glitz and spray on tans of the latter.

Once a stable, and still (a little scarily) drawing on the donkey theme in terms of much of the artwork, it was rustic (no TVs, no Wifi, no phones, plenty of mosquitos) and secluded among some gorgeous scenery over looking fields of donkeys, chickens and a mountainous backdrop. Hammocks and poolside banana lounges provide instant relaxation on first sight. If that's not enough, they also provide massages (I had one locked in before I'd unpacked my bag) - as well as a wool bath (a bed frame full of wool ... ??) and an energy pyramid if you're so inclined.

We decided to eat in one night for the true Sardinian farm house experience.

Despite numerous friendly enquiries, (somewhat suspiciously) our hostess would not reveal the night's menu - "it is a surprise". "Ah, ha ha", we chuckled, "Lovely - a surprise". Fabulous.

So, it was that the evil truth was only exposed after course 3. Our wily hostess was a vegetarian. Surprise!!

And to think that we held ourselves back to only 2 helpings of the fried soybean balls with cous cous on the basis that it was sure to be a vegetarian main acting as a mere prelude to the real main.

This would go down in the book of holiday deceptions right up there with the fact the beautiful outdoor pool had been drained. Not joking. If hostess had pulled off a stretchy face mark and wig and revealed herself to be Heather Mills in Italian farmer disguise, I would not, at this point, have been surprised. And so it was that I came to be lying in bed on a meat free stomach, wide awake at 3am at night next to a drained pool, with a puffed mozzie bitten eyelid, dreaming about breakfast.

(Breakfast)

In any event, the rustic vego meal was a success. Against the backdrop of mountains and donkeys munching in the fields, we ate an antipasti course - bowls of roasted, chopped eggplant, peppers and mint, bowls of cauliflower, and smoky sweet roast red peppers  pasted with a thick coat of green pesto. A feature of all our meals would be a huge, perpetually replenished basket of bread, including the big flat crispy bread - carta da musica - with rosemary and olive oil.

Primi consisted of a huge iron pan of pennette pasta (short stubby tubes) with invisible but tasty local pecorino cheese, broad beans, green and black olives and eggplant.

Secondi was the aforementioned cous cous and soya bean balls (which looked like falafel) - not a Sardinian speciality. At this point, the vegetarian factor was revealed and we stopped waiting for the real food. But it was fairly tasty anyway.

For dolce - the traditional pardulas (pastry filled with semi-sweet ricotta) made their debut - lovely, although this version were a little too dry.

Over coffees, a selection of digestives were offered - grappa, limoncello and the local Mirto among them. I sampled a warming shot full of the latter - something I could definitely get used to.

Large 1 Litre flasks of wine were refilled during the course of the meal. The meal was rustic, simple, but nice - not earth shattering, but not much to complain about since all came at only 20 Euros per head.

Agriturismo Ca' La Somara, Localita Sarra Balestra, 07021 Arzachena, Sardinia, Italy

Risorante La Rocca

On our first full day in Sardina, we escaped the moody skies and torrential downpours with a leisurely lunch at Ristorante La Rocca, near Baia Sardinia. Specialising in Sardian seafood and home made fresh pastas, we watched as groups of Italians ordered up big for their 4 course Sunday lunch. The couple at the next table enjoyed a grilled seafood platter for 2, and we licked our lips as the waiter loaded grilled prawns and squid onto their plates before expertly deboning their fish. (It was all too much for me, so I later crossed beaches and mountains to return for this dish.)

We shared an insalata di mare to start - a refreshing, summery mix of octopus, mussels and squid tossed with olive oil and lemon. So simple, so good.

As the rainfall got heavier, we settled in over our large plates of spaghetti - TPG's with clams, mussels, prawns and calamari. My pasta was specified on the menu to be the local pennette but due to an ordering mix up (don't try to blame my Italian - I'm fluent when it come to ordering pasta) I ended up with spaghetti - no devastation here, since it came coated in fish eggs with a whole party of clams. Happy days.

We finished off with espressos, forgoing dolce to hunt down some gelato on the road. All up, 43.50 Euros for 2.

We returned for dinner one night, knowing we were guaranteed good, fresh seafood. We tried some more of the regional pastas - Sardinian malloreddus (small gnocchi shells) with lamb ragu and cunlingiones (pouch shaped ravioli) filled with ricotta and mint with a light tomato sauce. Absolutely delicious.

My mixed seafood grill hit all the right notes - a huge rip curl of tender squid came with a grilled sea bream filleted at the table, grilled scampi and a mouth watering prawn.

TPG had a larger sea bream cooked with potato, cherry tomatoes and white wine. So juicy and tender - just beautifully done. A winner. We shared a simple side of green beans with lemon juice and olive oil.

Too full for dessert, we shared the ricotta with honey on the pane carasau and sought some serious digestive action over a grappa (served chilled here) and the Mirto (poured over a solid block of ice frozen at the bottom of the glass) - all the local men finish off with this and somehow don't end up cross eyed.

La Rocca, Localita Pulicinu, Baja Sardinai, 07021 Arzachena, Italy

Ristorante Lu Stazzo

We trekked up hill another evening for dinner at Lu Stazzo. A massive room overlooking the hills and mountains was completely empty all night - except for us and a roast piglet being grilled over the flame. Not to worry - we started with a delicious bottles of Pedres, Cerasio Cannonau di Sardegna, and knew nothing would go wrong all evening.

This place is tipico. And there's grilled horse on the menu (which brought a tear to TPG's eye).

We shared starters of tuna carpaccio (hmm - so so), as well as pasta with "sheep" ragu (perfecto).

TPG stuck with seafood - the grilled prawns - for his main but having seen the roasting piglet on entry, I couldn't go past it. It was fairly decent too, but very fatty.

For dolce, it had to be the fabulously milky ricotta with honey (again) and a tangy lemon sorbet.

A great place for typical regional food, friendly service and great views - not one for fancy fare. Cheap and cheerful.

Ristorante Lu Stazzu, St. Prov. Le Porto Cervo, Arzachena, 07021, Sardinia

Goodbye sunshine, hello London...

While I did manage to get some impressive t-shirt marks, and spent a few solid hours in the cossie, the best time of the year to visit Sardinia (weather wise) is from June to the end of August. In May and September, the weather is hit and miss - you may have the beaches to yourself and glorious sunshine at times, but you may be dodging torrential downpours at others. However, at any time there's still plenty to keep the Italian food and wine lover occupied. Just about every road side bar will serve you the perfect bowl of pasta, whip up a tasty, fresh salad and grill you a good piece of fish. Buon Appetito.