The best chic restaurants

The Ivy is the London restaurant of the turn of the century, playing a pivotal role in the way society is shaped and divided today. Call me an old contrapuntist, but I still prefer Le Caprice to The Ivy, nevertheless current orthodoxy decrees that I am in the minority. If you do not know about The Ivy, you have plainly been in a coma for a very, very long time. It is a smart West End restaurant where it is incredibly hard to book a table and where celebs of all persuasions eat: it is where politicians and pop stars, footballers and film stars make merry and get photographed by the paparazzi who usually happen to be waiting outside. The menu, superintended by Mark Hix, tends towards the simple and tasty with such classics as the fishcake that I adore at sister restaurant Le Caprice appearing here as well. Potted shrimps are tasty too.

1 West Street, WC2 (020 7836 4751)
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Nobu

About the only place capable of giving The Ivy a run for its celeb status is Nobu. I once managed to get a table here and was forced to give it up - I know, I know, I cannot imagine what I was thinking of - and upon resigning my reservation I was told that I was to have been seated at a table between Madonna and Kylie. If anything, its reputation has become more solid over the years. It is perhaps because of Nobu's unique culinary lexicon that it is such a triumph: its fusion food is entirely sui generis; there is nowhere else like it that offers such exquisite flavours - the black cod is one of the all-time great London dishes of the last ten years. Evenings are packed. Lunch is more accessible and also more relaxed. Chef Mark Edwards is a jovial cove who has just been asked to help set up the Milan branch. Now with Nobus around the world - the Far East, Beverly Hills, New York and the better class of BA cabins - it is my ambition to fly round the globe, BA first-class of course, eating in every one.

Metropolitan Hotel, 19 Old Park Lane, W1 (020 7447 4747)
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Harry's Bar

After Riva this exquisite Mayfair members' club is probably my favourite Italian restaurant. But to judge Harry's Bar as an Italian restaurant is to judge the Mona Lisa as a picture of a woman - there are prettier birds than Leo's Mona, but that is not the point. Only Mark Birley could create something as perfect and as effortlessly, plutocratically stylish as Harry's Bar. Moreover, his chef Alberico Penati runs a world-class kitchen. It is at least two years since I came here and ate a risotto of pesto and scarmoza, yet I still daydream about that wonderful dish. But it is equally possible just to eat simple grilled fish. However, nothing at Harry's Bar is cheap. This is perhaps also why a lunch date here is unrefusable - provided someone else is paying.

26 South Audley Street, W1 (020 7408 0844)
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Isola

Another Oliver Peytonerie, this Knightsbridge restaurant is a bold experiment in design, the place where Kylie Minogue, the Corrs and Sadie Coles have all seen fit to host parties. Downstairs, polished marble and cream leather give a grown-up, modernist interpretation of the lounge ethic. Food under Bruno Loubet - of beetroot ravioli fame - is accomplished Italian. It would be dishonest to say that the place is rammed every night, but even with 100 covers this vast space still seems sparsely populated. It is nevertheless the most fashionable thing to happen in Knightsbridge since... well, let's just say a very long time.

145 Knightsbridge, SW1 (020 7838 1044)
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Le Pont de la Tour

Conran is the father of the modern restaurant boom. Not all his places are to my taste (I still wake up shaking in the middle of the night as a result of my visit to the Sodom and Gomorrah of Terminus at the Great Eastern Hotel) but he knows what he is doing. Pont is probably not my favourite of his places, but when it is on form, it presents a good triple: a smart, metropolitan dining experience in a pleasant environment with a great view. However, for Conran fine wining, dining and cigar-smoking at its best, follow the advice of my gourmand friend, the cosmetics' mogul, and become a regular at the Orrery, one of the most underrated restaurants in town.

Butler's Wharf, 36D Shad Thames, SE1 (020 7403 8403)
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