Arbutus

Relaxed but elegant Michelin-starred Arbutus is one of London’s best-loved restaurants. There’s an unpretentious approach in Anthony Demetre’s kitchen, an emphasis, as the restaurant’s website puts it, on “turn[ing] seasonal, inexpensive food items into affordable and interesting dishes” such as Scottish wood pigeon, heritage carrots, freekeh wheat, pomegranate, and mole sauce, or saddle of rabbit, charred calcot onion, pied de moutons, and slow-cooked shoulder “cottage pie.”

The wine list has a similarly accessible and democratic approach. As the judges at The World’s Best Wine Lists said, it’s an “excellent list” that ranges widely and changes regularly, but what’s really “amazing is that it’s all available by the glass or carafe, not just the bottle.”

At around 50 bins, every selection counts, and the list covers the world with plenty of funky and intriguing choices, many of them biodynamic or organic (their status indicated on the wine list). This is intelligent eclecticism that includes, at the time of judging, a new-wave Catalan white (Mas Candi Xarel-lo Desig, Penedes) a luscious California Viognier (Noble Vineyard Lyra, Sonoma Valley), and a delicious modern Hungarian red (Bolyki Egri Bikavér, Eger).

Addres: 63-64 Frith Street, London W1D 3JW