Carvery on the common

At the Tio Pepe ITV London Restaurant Awards the judges met to, as it were, chew the fat at one of the featured establishments.

The Academy Award Of Excellence, which went to Bruce Poole this year, is an accolade from the restaurant industry, since the Academy is composed of previous winners. What we ate from a lunch menu with three choices in each course was total validation of the decision.

It was hard to decide between potage garbure and cream of fennel with scallops, cockles and chives for the first course and I wish I'd had both.

Navarin of lamb seemed the obvious main-course choice, until I heard Matthew Norman extolling the virtues of the rump and boudin of veal with risotto alla Milanese. But navarin is associated with spring vegetables and, as such, was the perfect dish to be eating when primroses are peeping out on Wandsworth Common.