What's on the menu? A round-up of the latest restaurant reviews

Bloomberg, 19 December
Richard Vines reviews London’s best eateries of 2008

A pizzeria in a south London market was one of my favorite new eateries in a year that ends with party cancellations and empty tables for many restaurateurs. Franco Manca, in Brixton, serves Milanese pizzas that are so authentic, Italians cross London to enjoy them. Prices start at below £5 ($7.54) and delicious Dolcetto wine is £6.80 a bottle. Just don’t expect to linger. There’s often a queue for the few seats, and the cooking time is precisely 40 seconds.

2008 reviews in full>>

Metro, 22 December
Metro visits Flash at The Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W2

How much you care about pop-up, or guerrilla, restaurants probably depends on how shallow you are. Or should that be fashionable? Those of us with the foresight to book a December table in June can smugly congratulate ourselves for occupying the hottest seat in universe, if only for the evening. Flash's orchestrators – fashion mavens and Bistrotheque owners Pablo Flack and David Waddington, with chef Tom Collins – are masters of the pop-up.

'http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/food/article.html?More_than_a_Flash_in_the_pan&in_article_id=454609&in_page_id=26" href="http://www.caterersearch.com/'454609&in_page_id=26">'http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/food/article.html?More_than_a_Flash_in_the_pan&in_article_id=454609&in_page_id=26">Flash - review in full>>

Evening Standard, 31 December
David  Sexton visits Lena, 66 Great Eastern Street, London EC2

Now the winnowing starts. This year has ended in an unprecedented flurry of restaurant openings, with at least 40 in the last quarter — without taking into account the effect of Westfield, where nearly 50 more have opened, some of them gargantuan places with more than 200 covers. And the wave hasn’t yet reached the shore. There are still more coming in the new year from such serious backers as Sir Terence Conran (Boundary in Shoreditch), Richard Caring (new dining rooms near the Ivy) and Gordon Ramsay (reclaiming the name of Pétrus, somewhere in Knightsbridge).

Lena - review in full>>

Time Out, 1 January
Michael Hodges visits The Mansion, 225 Gipsy Road, Dulwich, London SE27

I didn’t expect to find myself taking part in a pub quiz, though I should have as the sign outside this gastropub did say ‘quiz’. I just thought the gastro and the pub bits would be a bit more, well, separate. If you are in time to get a table in the side bar, they are, but if not you might find yourself cheek-by-jowl with Guinness-drinking quizzers fielding questions between mouthfuls of quiche.

The Mansion – review in full>>

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