Culinary Capital

London has become the culinary capital of Europe, as a visit to this city · or even to an appropriate worldwide website · will quickly reveal.

There is a restaurant boom in London with new ones featuring an ever more eclectic and imaginative range of cuisine, opening weekly. Keeping track of exactly how many there are, is, therefore,
difficult, and the London Tourist Board suggests there are about 6,000 cafes, bars and restaurants · double the amount of 10 years ago · and rising.

Those dining out can enjoy every style of cooking imaginable from the widely known: Italian, Indian, French, Spanish, American and Chinese to the far-less familiar, including Cuban, African, Tibetan,
Filipino, Hungarian and Brazilian. Then there are the ones whose cuisine is harder to pin down, but include those offering "modern British'', "new Mediterranean'' and "fusion'' cooking · taking ideas
and ingredients from across the range.

The rise in eating-out establishments has gone hand in hand with London's increasing reputation as the most fashionable and fashion-conscious place on the planet. Restaurants are not just simply
places where people go to eat. Wearing the latest styles, diners want to go to interesting locations, to see and be seen. Among the very newest to open is The Birdcage, in the restaurant-rich part of
London's West End known as Fitzrovia.

Here, the importance of "design'' can be seen from the fact that the food, described as a blend of Eastern and Western, is receiving favourable comments, not just for its flavours and textures, but
also for its look, for its very stylish and eye-appealing presentation.

Just a few streets away · in a building that was once a garage · is another new opening, called Mash, already extremely trendy setting, where the fashion/food affiliation is particularly evident from
the fact that the staff wear shirts designed in Savile Row (famous for its men's tailoring) and loafer shoes that have been especially made for them by the Hush Puppies company.

The restaurant's name has absolutely nothing to do with its menu (any mashed potatoes served here would be the opposite of mundane). Some of the items of choice, such as roasted leg of lamb, and fire-
grilled chicken, that have been listed since its opening, have been cooked in Mash's two wood-fired ovens which are, it seems, a must at present in chic London restaurant kitchens.

Art plays a key role at Pharmacy at Notting Hill, which is not a chemist's shop, but a new restaurant co-owned by Damien Hirst, possibly one of Britain's most controversial artists.

Diners could perhaps be forgiven for thinking they had entered a place where they could buy pills and potions: the walls are covered with medicinal graphics, all kinds of appliances and instruments
are used as room decorations, and the serving staff are dressed to look as if about to perform surgery.

If the surroundings are somewhat surreal, the food is the opposite: reviewers write of comforting dishes such as roast suckling pig with caramelised apple, fisherman's pie, cinnamon ice-cream and
apple crumble.

In the highly hip Momo restaurant, in Heddon Street (near Piccadilly), where the clientele is as fashionable as they come, the walls upstairs are covered with mud and the antique Eastern lamps that
hang from the ceiling give subdued lighting. Downstairs, the bar-nightclub is furnished with low tables, cushioned banquettes and North African and Moroccan ornaments.

It is dishes from that area of the world that are offered on shell-

backed menus in the restaurant upstairs. This is a style of cooking that has become popular with the capital's cuisine cognoscenti relatively recently. Several restaurants offering it have appeared
in recent years. At Momo, tagines of vegetables, of 

chicken, or fish, cooked in traditional clay pots are very popular.

Architecture and interior design have taken on a very much higher profile in the creation of new restaurants. Buildings that previously would not have been given a thought as possible new businesses
of this type are being given careful makeovers and becoming interestingly different from existing ones.

A prime example of this is the Bluebird Cafe, one of the many eating establishments opened by British design guru Sir Terence Conran in the last few years. A former Chelsea garage, built in 1923, it
offered space enough to create a brasserie-style restaurant, cafe-bar, foodmarket, flower shop, outdoor fresh fruit and vegetable market and shop.

A former car park has been converted to Teatro, a bar, restaurant and private club, owned by British actress Leslie Ash and her husband, former professional soccer player Lee Chapman. The interior
was the work of United Designers, an award-winning London-based company that was also responsible for the cool, elegant decor at Nobu, a restaurant owned by Singaporeans Mr and Mrs Ong and which is
said to be the talk of the town. It is attached to the Metropolitan Hotel, London's newest designer hotel, and offers mainly Japanese-style food.