That Ms Garnsworthy offers seven starters seven main courses a nd seven puddings every evening - and Sunday lunch too

That Ms Garnsworthy offers seven starters, seven main courses a nd seven puddings every evening - and Sunday lunch too - and that she changes her menu daily underscores the fact that, although self taught, she is far from an amateur chef. There were nine of us at table and this made the dinner party illusion seem even more real. You rea lly do feel as if (as so many restaurants promise but so rarely deliver) you are a guest at a dinner party in someone's home. The walls are painted terracotta, the tables covered with blue linen, the ceiling partially beamed. Plenty was consumed and the absence of a crippling 'house wine' hangover the next morning proved their value Moonacre is small and unremarkable on the outside. You enter via a tiny bar-lounge area into an L shaped dining room that can seat just 36 people.

"We like to keep things fairly simple," says Ms Garnsworthy, who does all the cooking, most of the time unaccompanied to an incredibly high standard. When asked to recommend some wine, Mr Bourke, a successful solicitor in real life, who manages the fron t of the house with poised and efficient help from several local yhoung ladies, immediately suggested the house white and red. At only pounds 7.50 a bottle, the attractions of the Chilean Chardonnay and Spanish Valdepenas survived even the bill. The dream of quitting the urban rat race and opening tour own cottage restaurant can too often turn into a Fawlty Towers-style nightmare. But Moonacre, in a placid corner of Hampshire, just 30 minutes drive south of Salisbury, makes this fantasy come true The very name suggests a fairy tale. In fact, the owners, Barbara Garnsworthy and Edward Bourke, inherited the name four years ago when they bought this small cottage that was a tea room located at a leafy crossroads in the village of Alderholt.

Fainthearts beware and leave your cardies at home, the two dining areas ( one bookable, the other not) are barely air conditioned , noisy and fur nished high tech style. Great bowls of mussels, excellent chips and Belgian beer are the order of the day, or there are wild boar sausages with stoemp (belgian for bubble and squeak) and wild rabbit braised in cherry beer for the more adventurous.Basi cs are well done for the price - around pounds 15-20 for two with couple of beers, or go for one of the pounds 5 or pounds 10 bargain meal deals Open daily 12-11.30pm, lunch 12-3pm, dinner 5-11.30pm. Around pounds 35 for three courses with half a bottle of wine.Three-course lunch and pre-theatre meal (until 6.30pm) pounds 13.50 Open daily 12-11.30pm lunch 12-3pm, dinner 5.30-11.30pm. Belgo Centraal 50 Earlham Street SW2 (0171 813 2233) is an immense cellar turned into Belgian eating halls. Seats 350 but still you have to book well in advance to join the flashy throng. Top of the summer puds is white chocolate and raspberry torte. A 15 per cent service charge is automatically added to the bill.

Everyone makes an entrance down a stately staircase into a dining room that stretches into the distance with the crustacea bar atthe far end like an altar. The menu ranges over a restaurantified world of peasant cooking, and the standard is more than competent; grilled vegetables with polenta; cod and chips; confit of duck with rocket All cheaper than the fruits de mer at pounds 45 for two. Dim sum served lunch daily 11am-6pm, dinner served until 11.45pm. Sir Terence Conran's Quaglino's 16,Bury Street, SW1 (0171 930 6767) represents eating out as theatre on a grand scale.

In the evening there's a large a la carte me nu of Cantonese dishes. If the anonimity of the metropolis is more your style than country cottage intimacy, New World ,1 Gerrard Place,London W1 (0171 734 0396) can accomodate 700 people for dim sum, but on three floors so the scale doesn't entirely overwhelm. It's n ot restful but the cheap stodge - three or four portions of flurry steamed dumplings, starchy turnip cake and so on for well under pounds 10 washed down with green tea - will slow you down for the afternoon. A good risotto should be one of lava-like consistency; oozing, and should take a good few seconds before it finally settles on the plate.