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With wine, the average meal for two now costs around £55; at Michelin level, triple that. But need genuinely good food always cost a lot? Tell us about your cut-price gastro thrills
Blimey. How much!? Last week, the latest Menurama survey from Horizons revealed that the prices on pub and restaurant menus have gone up 6% in the last six months. The average price of the average starter (£5.59), average main course (£10.62) and average dessert (£4.20), now mean that a meal for two including a (fairly) average bottle of wine (say, £15) will cost, on average, £55.82.
Yes, £56 for what, by definition - did I mention this? - will often be fairly average food. Tip and you're looking at over £60. Tie one on and you're talking at least £80. If you want to eat at (copyright, Marina O'Loughlin) fayn dayning level, you'll be lucky to see any change from £150. How many of us can afford that with any regularity? Not many. Which set me thinking: where could we eat instead? Where could we eat not just cheaply (there are pubs on every high street offering two steaks for a fiver), but well, at bargain prices? Where could you treat yourself to a genuinely great three courses, of the sort that would make even the biggest Word of Mouth snob murmur appreciatively, without breaking the bank?
It helps if you're flexible: if you can eat at lunch, early evening or on a Sunday afternoon, if you're happy to forgo meat, or BYO. However, if you hunt, you can find credible restaurants where, even at dinner, you'll pay a fraction of the usual cost for food of that quality. Even in Westminster. The Vincent Rooms, training restaurant for Westminster Kingsway College (whose alumni include Jamie Oliver and, erm, Antony Worrall Thompson), is something of an open secret among London foodists. In truth, while highly competitive for the capital (mains £9-£12), the brasserie isn't that cheap. However, the seven-course, £25 tasting menu in the Escoffier room sounds remarkable. Guinea fowl with wild mushroom, Jerusalem artichoke and a tarragon veloute, anyone?
Likewise, if you can forgive a few fumbles from the waiting staff, Chimes in Portsmouth (three-course lunch, £10.95) or Birmingham's Atrium (various three-course lunch and dinner menus from £8.50 to £24; for what, at the top end, sounds like some very sophisticated cooking; pdf) are both well-liked, locally. Sadly, London's Cordon Bleu school no longer tests its students by serving an extravagant £15 per person afternoon tea at the Mandeville Hotel. But, surely, somewhere someone is offering similar cut-price luxury?
If anything over a tenner is a stretch, can I direct you to Books for Cooks, in boho-swanky Notting Hill? It's the last place you'd think to look for a bargain, perhaps, but, pound-for-pound, BFC is arguably best place I have eaten at, for my Guardian 'budget eats' series (now knocking on for 700 entries). It is still an unbelievable £7 for three courses at lunch, and a glass of wine is just £3 (at that price, you had best write off the rest of the day). Turn up early, though, if you want to bag a seat. All the tables are invariably full a few minutes after midday.
Of the BYO crowd, Jo Jo's in Whitstable (£3 corkage, £6 if it's from Tesco), Essex's Company Shed (where you don't just have to take your own wine, but bread too) and, of course, the mighty Tayyabs (yes, more expensive that it was, but still a qualitative bargain) are three strong choices. Talking of curry, there is probably a whole other blog in the superb £5 to £8-a-head buffets available at the likes of Chennai Dosa in Trafford, Manchester, or Bobby's and Shivalli in Leicester.
I could go on … about West Yorkshire's El Gato Negro– highly serious, Barca-quality modern tapas, six plus a bottle of wine for two at £35 – Nottingham's similarly sharp Iberico (£11.95 express lunch), or about the gutsy three-course French lunch menu at Bradley's in Huddersfield (£9.50), but what of the "bargains" I only know by reputation? Does Arbutus maintain its Michelin-star standards on its £19.95 working lunch menu (pdf)? Is the £24.50 three-course, limited a la carte at the similarly starred Alimentum in Cambridge, available until 7pm, the relative bargain it sounds?
Where would you recommend for the best-value meal in Britain?