About Thyme, 82 Wilton Road, Victoria

Restaurants on Wilton Road in Victoria are like busses: you wait forever to go to one, and then you go to two in a week. Ok, so they’re not exactly like busses.

About Thyme is surely one of the worst-named restaurants in the country. Indeed, I’m struggling to think even of fictional eateries with worse names: Catherine of Tarragon perhaps, or Sage Advice. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with a pun. Pitta the Great was a decent kebab shop; Sam & Ella’s does a fine fried breakfast. It’s more that when a restaurant is aiming for real quality in its food, the pun makes it seem worse, especially when it’s as bad a pun as About Thyme.

Anyway, I digress. About Thyme, despite its name, is a delight. From the moment you enter this odd, purple-fronted world, you could be in Spain. Or at least, you could be in not-England. Victoria fades from memory; Iberia floods into view. This is what’s known as a good thing.

The menu (which varies depending on what is available from the market) is a parade of Mediterranean classics, from lambs’ kidneys cooked in sherry, to carpaccio, via lots and lots of black pudding and garlic. The night we visited, there were a couple of rather interesting specials as well (though not so special that they won’t be on the menu at some point in the future). I had them both.

For starters, little elvers, served in a hot clay pot filled with oil and garlic. To my shame, this was the first time I’ve eaten the tiny wrigglers. They were fantastic, combining the textural hit of an extremely delicate linguine with a juicy kick that recalled good squid. And if the flavour was slightly overpowered by the sweet garlic, well, that’s not the end of the world. At £9.50, I’d certainly have it again.

We were a group of four, but only two people had starters – a disgrace, I know. Sautéed tiger prawns with Piri Piri sauce were nicely cooked and as they should be (i.e. garlicky and hot), while a decent bottle of Chenin Blanc did its job for 24 pounds.

For mains, two out of four went for Dover Sole. It was impeccably cooked, beautifully served on the bone, and bluntly accompanied by a burnt butter sauce with capers and lemon. In short, it was exactly what you want in a Dover Sole, and at £24.50, no more expensive than you’d get it in most places in London, though it was still the priciest item on the menu.

But the real star of the show was the suckling pig. It’s one of those dishes that I always order when I see it, partly because you never know when you’ll see it again, but mainly because I’m very, very greedy. The other member of our group took the same view (yes, I know, it’s not good form for a group of four to only eat two different mains). The pig was sweet (that word again), its flesh gooey and its skin that special kind of crispy/chewy that you only really get from suckling pig. From a food miles-perspective, it was naughty - the little piggies are flown over from Spain. That aside, it was pretty much ideal, offset with black pudding, crispy roast potatoes, spinach and piquillo peppers. A robust Malbec did it no harm either.

Alas, I had no room for dessert. A shame. But the coffee was cracking.

Price-wise, About Thyme is at the top end of the middle – £45 pounds or so per head for two courses and half a bottle of wine. It’s worth it, and if you’re feeling wallet-light, you could do it for about ten pounds less at a stretch. But why would you want to do that when you can have elvers followed by suckling pig?

Phil Letts' take: 7/10

Rodizio Preto, 72 Wilton Road, Victoria

It’s the cry of the frustrated chaetophobe: you can’t get a good Brazilian in London. More justifiably (and truthfully), it's also a lament of food writers.

Where I live in North West London, that’s not quite fair. There are plenty of decent Brazilian butchers in Kensal Rise, Harlesden and Willesden, and even the odd nice cafe.

That said, there’s certainly a gap in the market. And it’s meat-shaped. So it was with some interest that I went to Rodizio Preto in Pimlico. Ten hungry men is likely to be a challenge for any restaurant, but especially one that bills itself as an ‘all-you-can-eat’ churrascaria.

Things began ominously. There’s a knack to all-you-can-eat: don’t waste your time on too much of the peripheral stuff. Avoiding carbohydrates early on is a must, and here, was something of a challenge. The salad bar was laden with tasty potato salads and rice dishes, on top of indulgent deep fried plantain and cheesy, melty, breadcrumbed samosas. Hot Feijoada-type stew meant that many of us had eaten a fairly substantial meal before the meat proper even started, though, it must be said, with mixed reports from the table on quality. Nevermind – the house red was cheap and very cheerful, and there was a humdinger of a chilli sauce.

So, to the meat. For those who like pointless games with their food or enjoy macho tests of eating stamina, the little green and red disk is a godsend. If the green side faces up, it means you’d like more meat. If though, you turn it over to the red side, that means you’re taking a break. Or you’ve quit. Loser.

First up was rump steak, nicely rare, very well-seasoned and really pretty good. This is the restaurant’s go-to dish. It reappeared three or four times during the meal, and was always welcome, sliced from its lovely skewer, kebab-stylee.

Chicken wrapped in bacon came next. It was ok, but a little dry and very salty. Salty sausages and salty ham followed, then brisket (I think) and chicken thighs. The brisket was good and fat flavoured. The thighs had a great barbecue tang. The ham was, you know, ham. At this point, I was filling up nicely, but it would be a stretch to say I’d eaten all I could.

While everything was decent enough, little stood out. But then the chicken hearts, and then the sirloin. These were the best dishes of the day. The hearts had a wonderful, popping texture and a sharp marinade that nicely offset the richness of the meat. The sirloin was very rare indeed, with a fatty rim that was slightly crunchy on the outside and very beefy in the middle - super. Again, we were treated to several repeat performances.

By this stage, the wine had been flowing like water for a couple of hours, slightly impairing the judgment of all concerned. So when I say it felt like the meat slowed down, that all-you-can-eat didn’t really mean all-you-can-eat, I may very well be wrong. Even if there was an attempt to rein in our consumption, it’s fair to say that the restaurant gave us excellent value for money.

The meat and salad came to £20.95 per head, and even with an all-you-can-drink approach to the wine, the total bill was £35 each including service. Rodizio Preto is not subtle or sophisticated, but it is fun. You can certainly get better meat in London, but you’d be pushed to find it in these quantities for an equivalent price.

Phil Letts’ take: 6/10