As a foodie I am looking for some smart fashionable, possibly as yet undiscovered reasonable restaurants in central London. Is there such an animal. Please tell me of your
experiences.

Not sure how a restaurant can be smart and fashionable and yet undiscovered. If no one knows about it - well it's not fashionable is it. Unless by fashionable you don;t mean popular - but are talking solely about the decor.

Pretty new at this posting thing. I meant a restaurant that I wouldn't necessarily find in a guide book and if dining I would not find it filled with tourists. I am looking for a smaller venue more frequented by locals.

Thats a pretty vague question...what type of food are you looking for?

Have you seen this thread?


http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...od-st-john.cfm

This is a tough crowd. It almost seems like people are more interested in criticizing my questions than actually helping me out.

Do any of you critics actually have any knowledge about London or any real suggestions.

merl: "<i>Do any of you critics actually have any knowledge about London or any real suggestions.</i>"

Did you click on the link ekscrunchy gave you? there are a million suggestions on that thread (well a <i>slight</i> exaggeration)

You didn't give us any idea of your budget or the type of food you like/don't like. "Reasonable" means different things to different people.

I can't tell you where I dine in London... otherwise those smart & fashionable places will be filled with tourists and no longer be "undiscovered".

Luigi's of Covent Garden...very nice Italian restaurant.

Thank you for the recommendation of Luigi's. We do love Italian food. Has anyone eaten at Theo Randall. Reviews would be appreciated.

There are LOADs of good places in London that are relatively undiscovered by the tourist hordes, although very few of them are found in the areas that tourists tend to frequent (a catch-22, really).
In central London, we like Piazza on Villiers St (a very touristy area, yet the food at Piazza is actually pretty good) for Italian, Belgos near Covent Gardens for Belgian, Cafe des Amis which is even closer to Covent Gardens for French (we spend quite a lot of time in the wine bar downstairs), Goucho's for steak (I think I've spelled that wrong), Roast at Borough Market for a bit of a posh dinner...

A bit on the cheaper side, there's all sorts of chain places on the south side of the river between London Bridge and Tower Bridge (Strada, Pizza Express etc), a really good wine bar on Tooley St (I forget what it's called, just behind the Pret on Tooley St, across from Skinkers)...

As janisj asked, do you have a budget or type of place you're looking for?

Merl, I wasnt being a critic, and I think if you click my name you will find I am very helpful to people visiting London (where I have lived for the past two years so have a bit of knowledge). I was only trying to narrow down the options, as you can imagine there are hundreds of places in London.

You are likely to get more and better answers if you are more specific about prices and types of food (not to mention not being snarky).

Italian: Piazza is great on Villiers st as menioned by my hubby above

Indian: our favorite curry place is at Clapham South called Haweli

We also liked Joe Allen by the Strand http://www.joeallenrestaurant.com/London_home.html

Joel Robuchon in West End also does a good theatre menu
http://www.joel-robuchon.com/

Hope this helps, enjoy your trip.