Three course set-price lunches chosen from two options per course cost pounds 15
Three course set-price lunches (chosen from two options per course) cost pounds 15.50 and dinners (from seven options per course) pounds 23.50 Open lunch Mon-Fri, dinner Mon-Sat. Major credit cards.BRISTOLDo not drive to Markwicks, 43 Corn Street, BS1 1HT (0117-926 2658). It has a wonderful wine list, particularly good for Rhones, and the local traffic wardens are doggedly efficient collectors of parking fines But go. The dining room - set in the cellars of the old town's Commercial Rooms - is lovely, all burnished wood, marble floors and ornate plasterwork The cooking lives up to the setting. Braised squid in red wine sauce is lifted by a punchy gremolata. Breads, olives, and kitchen-made ice-creams are all excellent.
Set-price two-course lunch pounds 13.50, three courses pounds 16; three-course dinner pounds 21.50 Major cards, except Diner's. Open lunch Mon-Fri, dinner Mon-Sat.EDINBURGHThe auld alliance between France and Scotland has left the most agreeable legacy: The Vintners Rooms, The Vaults, 87 Giles Street EH6 6BZ (0131- 554 6767), set in an old claret warehouse on Leith Waters. Meals are served in both bar and restaurant, both handsome, candlelit rooms. The menu caters for traditional appetites with seasoning and skill, so one might find roast birds served with crisp rashers of smoked bacon, rich fish stews, kitchen-made terrines, farmhouse cheeses served with salted water and (at this time of year) bowls of cherries Naturally, the wine list is heroic. Two-course set lunch pounds 9, three courses pounds 12; pounds 20-pounds 30 a la carte Lunch and dinner Mon-Sat. Major cards, except Diner's.LONDONEver since Alastair Little made his name by writing wildly experimental menus for lunch and dinner every day, young chefs have been imitating him.
Alas, most are no Alastair Littles, and the upshot has been serious damage to the quaint notion of consistency. Safe havens from wanton originality are the two more accessible restaurants run by the famous grump of haute cuisine, Nico Ladenis: Simply Nico (48a Rochester Row, SW1 0171-630 8061) and Nico Central (35 Great Portland Street, W1 0171-436 8846). The cooking is skilled, producing confit of duck, braised oxtail, perfect liver and bacon, cool rare beef with potato salad, red onions and basil. Of wines, Guigal's delicious 1991 Rhone is pounds 17.50 a bottle; Baron Rothschild Reserve Medoc '92 pounds 3.50 a glass.