I recently returned from a trip to England, and while normally my time is spent in London, this time I got out a little bit, to the Isle of Wight and to Kent. Brief thoughts:

First, an overview: English food, in the restaurants I've been to, is generally very good. English food proper seems to have a real focus on ingredients and subtlety. There's a lot of farm to table sort of stuff, and even the tasting menus don't have a ton of frill to them. Compare Indian places (or probably it'd be safer to call them indian-english), where there's a lot less subtlety, except still no spice.

Isle of Wight - went to Thompson's and had a tasting, all of which was excellent although there was a "chicken carbonara" that had some sort of noodle that was, I think, chicken stock gelatinised and then cut into noodles that was more interesting than outstanding, though still good. Real emphasis on local seafood and lamb. Oddly, the only real dud was a 'focaccia' roll (my quotes not theirs) that wasn't focaccia, when it ought to be a challenge to mess up a roll. Second restaurant was a seafood-centric place that was again very very good, though nothing at all outlandish except the starter was a mushroom veloute with black truffle on top.

There was a dinner at The Small Holding, which I'm pretty sure is gunning for Michelin stars, and it was again wonderful. Stand-out dishes included razor clams, scallop, and a cauliflower soup.

And all the sudden there is good wine (particularly sparkling) being grown in the English countryside.

Finally, a big disappointment: Ottolenghi. It has reached the point where it is so popular it doesn't need to care about the guests so much. The food was . . . fine? The service was . . . also fine? The prices were real high, and the tables so crowded together you couldn't hear your dinner companions.