Simplicity, Tunnel Rd, Rotherhithe

A much-anticipated return visit and I'm going to keep belthering about this place in the hope that the people who read this site (yes, there are regulars, apparently) will go. Better yet, I'm actually going to put my money where my mouth is and try to go at least once a week for breakfast (most likely) or supper (less often).

The perfect refuge on a rain-soaked Monday evening and the chef-patron is chatty, knowledgeable - very - and devises the menus according to what he has bought and likes the look of. Cares about wine.

Starters: Cajun chicken with a mixed leaf and pepper salad; warmed goat cheese on mixed leaves with a pesto dressing. Wonderful charring and crusting on the chicken, which was firm and flavoursome. The salad was colourful and lemony, zesty but not in an overpowering way. The goat cheese and pesto were a revelation with tastes and textures coming in waves, unwrapping themselves. Excellent.

Mains: 80z Brazilian steak, rare, with sauteed potatoes, green beans, carrot batons and Bearnaise sauce; pesto-stuffed chicken breast roasted in ham and served with the beans and on a potato and carrot hash brown sort of thing. None of this could be faulted. The centre of the steak was melting, juicy, a good bite.

Dessert: lemon tart. Very short pastry and the filling was certainly lemony, though with more of a cheesecakey-type texture. A welcome departure from the lemon curd-like efforts which pass themselves off as lemon tart elsewhere. No hint of the dish being overloaded with sugar, the cause of that rush and burn in the back of the throat. My bet would be that this was made on the premises rather than being a "bought-in" pud. Berry coulis on the plate and a dusting of icing sugar were nice touches. Maybe a sprig of mint would help?

Wine: Malbec-Cabernet served in lovely big glasses - just a splash in the bottom so that it could start giving up its little treasures. Taste goes from sweet fruits to tartier berries and then a hint of pepper when the finish arrives.

£52 with coffees thrown in.

Cappuccino count: 9/10. Simple but importantly good food and Simplicity will succeed if enough people hear about it and go. They need bums on seats. There is branch in Manchester but I gather it is being sold on so that all effort can be put into this one.

Castello, Jamaica Rd, Bermondsey

Main-street Italian eaterie where booking is the thing to do since it is very popular. Uniformed waiters and a charming and energetic maitre - elderly, dapper - who works the floor really hard. Kitchen visible over a counter top.

The order: mozzarella salad and melanzane parmagiana plus bread to start; pizza with artichoke, ham, olive, linguine punte di manzo and lasagne with a shared side salad as mains; strawberry melba and vanilla ice cream with chocolate.

I suspect everything is assembled and cooked to order as there was a suitably long wait for the courses to arrive. This is not at all tiresome as there is plenty to look at and listen too...conversations and lively behaviour from the other diners that would make one's hair curl (if one had any). Lovely presentation, particularly of seafood dishes, such as the mussels in spaghetti which were conveyed to many other tables.

Linguine was fresh and strips of beef just flashed in a pan for a few seconds to ensure tenderness inside. This dish came with a cream and wine sauce with mushroom which gave way to pepper. Egg plants in the melanzane had been very thinly sliced and charred before assembly: nicely done and something I shall try the next time I make it at home.

The bill for three, including water, coffee and four spritzers, was £63, so this really is value eating on the doorstep. The floor is tiled and there are no soft surfaces to deaden sound, so when the place is packed - it always is - the noise might be annoying.

Cappuccino count: 8/10. Very good for geezers, south London dames and learning how to say "forty fousand fevvers on a frush's froat".

Other reviews here.

Tapas Brindisa, 18-20 Southwark St, Southwark

And so from the ridiculous to the sublime. It is fatuous to claim to have a "favourite" place to eat in London, there being so much choice of both cuisine and venue, but if I had to name a current favourite, this would be it. Tapas Brindisa is found in a converted potato warehouse on the edge of Borough Market, across which there is a store selling most of the ingredients that feature on the menu. Getting a table is a matter of luck since bookings are not taken. One other point: there doesn't seem to be a high turnover a staff
- indicative, perhaps, that they enjoy the work and believe they are doing something worthwhile and doing it well. It is best to order a bit at a time rather than everything at once.

First order: two glasses of manzanillo fino - pale, cold, woody but not sour, very dry, lovely finish; a slice of potato torilla - tepid, sweet, soft to bite but firm and substantial on the plate, a light crust of egg and annoyingly impossible to reproduce at home; warm spinach salad with sultanas and pine nuts; five huge prawns served in hot oil that had been flavoured with sliced garlic and little red-hot chillis - a lovely bite sensation, fleshy, warm, white and firm. The tortilla and salad had a light dusting of rock salt which brought out all the other flavours.

Second order: bottle of rose rioja (garnacha and tempranillo blended with viura) - beautifully cold and pink with fruit flavours but not an overpowering smell, very good; charcuterie of Teruel Serrano ham, finely sliced pork loin, paper-thin chorizo and salchichon, also served with bread and a little bowl of peppery oil.

Third order: anchovy salad - a few fillets, not too salty, in fact not at all salty, with sliced sweet pepper, red onion, rocket, walnut fragments, garnish of mint and parsley; five slices of pork loin - browned on savoury on the outside, pink and melts-in-the-mouth soft in the centre and served with a large slice of Piquillo pepper, very sweet.

Still with me? I am getting rather ashamed now at the size of this meal.

Fourth order: chocolate mousse - beautifully piped out in a glass, chocolatey, not sugary; egg custard flavoured with cardamom and with a thin but crunchy brown sugar crust, almost like a sheet of glass (blowtorch?); two glasses of espresso with rum - a sudden and shocking boost of alcohol with caused instant flushing and beads of sweat on the forehead.

An hour or so at the table and the bill was £90, the most I have ever spent here. Never had a bad meal, only ever had good ones - breakfasts and lunches as well as afternoon snacks and quick coffees. Drop everything and go now.

Cappuccio count: 11/10. Transformed by gluttony into a barrel of sac and rolled home to bed.

Simplicity, Tunnel Rd, Rotherhithe

Good for breakfast and, earlier this week, supper, the subject of this post. They are getting there and should be okay if they a) reglaze the front window, which still has a hairline crack in it, and b) advertise a bit more.

Started with olives and peppers in a light though sweet oil dressing with thinly sliced ciabatta that had been lightly toasted. Moved on to herrings, three of them and with their heads and tails on, seared on the grill and served over par-boiled and then roasted potatoes, steamed French beans and carrots and some spring salad leaves with an unctuous balsamic dressing. The kitchen can be seen across the counter where the food is plated up. Quite theatrical but fun to watch, and the chef, who comes out to chat from time to time, takes great care over it. My companion went for chicken breast stuffed with cottage cheese, apricot and spinach and heaped up on mash. Plate decorated with carrots, beans and other greens. We skipped pud, though a neighbour was at a nearby table and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying some chocolate torte.

Simplicity is a cafe by day and a bistro by night offering a limited range of very well prepared and assembled dishes. Starters are £4, mains £10. Our bill, with coffees (getting better) beer and water, was £28.

Cappuccino count 7/10. Quite a little asset to have on the doorstep. Fingers crossed that they can make a go of it.