Stars of the East

A few years ago the Michelin guide at last saw fit to sprinkle a couple of their stars among Indian restaurants. Suitably encouraged, the chefs of both the places thus honoured went on to open their own establishments.

RASOI VINEET BHATIA is the independent venture of Vineet Bhatia, formerly at Zaika. It is as expensive as French haute cuisine because the ingredients used, the skills applied and the vision required are the same. A jewel of a place.

Equally ambitious is Namita and Camellia Panjabi's AMAYA in Knightsbridge, which has glamorously re-defined Indian food as suited to the svelte and sassy without losing sight of its deep roots.

DEYA saw the return of Sir Michael Caine as a partner in a restaurant but no one could quite see why. The skills, imagination and experience of chef Sanjay Dwivedi, who has worked at Le Caprice, The Ivy and Tabla in New York, as well as catering the Rolling Stones' Bridges of Babylon world tour, don't seem suitably flattered by the surroundings, premises attached to a rather drab hotel. Maybe Dwivedi will be the next to go it alone.

Canny restaurateurs see Wapping as an area filling up with potential customers. RIVER SPICE, too far from the Thames to justify the name, is an Indian restaurant which announces its difference from run-of-the-mill with vivid decor and also a menu with several original ideas. Locals must be pleased.

The roll-out of BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB from Wandsworth to Hampstead has furnished those folk who live on the hill with an attractive option for a spicy meal. The quality of food seems not diluted, in fact superior to the original.

Alan Yau, owner of the Michelinstarred Chinese restaurant Hakkasan, is a shy man but the sort of shy that is not averse to interviews. I've recently read a lot about various exciting ventures in the offing. His achievement this year was YAUATCHA where the dim sum, along with Hakkasan's, are, in my view, the best in London. Yauatcha's edge is dim sum served until 11.30pm, far beyond the traditional cut-off point.

The difficulty of getting a table at Zuma was eased this summer with the opening of a sibling, ROKA, in Charlotte Street. Not only because it is walking distance from where I live, I prefer this simpler, calmer establishment where the clientele looks to exhibit a reasonably high IQ. Don't miss the pot of soupy rice with crabmeat and wasabi tobiko. Beneath Roka is a seductive bar called SHOCHU where the eponymous spirit, akin to vodka, is claimed to be beneficial. As my companion remarked: "That is too good to be true".

Not far away is the glitzy, glassy Thai restaurant CRAZY BEAR, an import from an Oxfordshire gastropub, which has a more talented kitchen than is probably strictly necessary.

The long dark site that once was L'Odeon opened this month as COCOON with a pan-Asian menu and a raid on restaurants such as Hakkasan and Miyama for dim sum and sushi chefs. The look of the long, curved first-floor restaurant plays hubristically on the life cycle of the butterfly.