Latium, Fitzrovia

I’m developing something of a disgruntlement about mid-priced restaurants. Maybe I’m getting old, or tight, but I would far rather go to a seriously fantastic restaurant once or twice a year, spending perhaps £100 a head or more, and eat in Pizza Express the rest of the time, than fork out £40-50 on something that isn’t really that much more special than a good gastropub burger.

Latium’s in the price bracket that I would cheerfully never revisit. The food was tasty, cleverly thought-out, well-presented and constructed using quality ingredients. The buffalo mozzarella was divine – but serving it with oven-roasted tomatoes, a mixed salad and slices of courgette was hardly inspired. My duck was good – but no better than the duck in The Stonemason’s Arms, Hammersmith. I’ll grudgingly admit that my dessert of yoghurt and berries was gorgeous.

I didn’t hate Latium – no one could, it’s not interesting enough to inspire hated – but I’d challenge someone to love it. And at nearly £30 for three courses, plus more for wine, for every 2.5 trips to a Latium-priced eaterie, you can go to Petrus once – surely an exchange no sane person would hesitate to make?

The Devil Wears Prada

There is enormous scope for a film that interrogates the fashion industry from the perspective of youth. Sadly, TDWP is not the new black. Certainly, the dialogue has a few feisty moments but nothing that will make the Ugly Betty writers lose any sleep. It’s impossible to sympathise with the protagonist, whose PA job is not nearly as awful as it is made out to be; so she has to get a steak which her boss then doesn’t eat? Boo hoo. Anne’s drippy chef boyfriend is so pathetic he isn’t trusted to speak more than four words consecutively; instead we are offered laboured visual clues ‘proving’ his worthiness, such as the fact that he makes her grilled cheese sandwiches after work. Blimey, if my boyfriend was a proper chef and then made me that fourth-rate crap, he’d be next on the Breville. As for the moment when Anne tosses her phone into the fountain… If one of my eight year old tutees came up with that scenario I’d scoff and tell her to ditch it immediately. Proof if it were needed that even a great premise and Meryl Streep can't make up for fundamentally lazy writing and unoriginal direction. Disappointing.

Sway, Covent Garden

When I’ve visited Sway’s bar in the past it has always been heaving so I was surprised to find a near-empty restaurant and similarly startled when I saw the menu. For such a central location, the prices were unusually low: around £6 for a burger, Caesar salad or fish and chips. Sure, the choices were uninspiring but with an additional 50% off all food deal, courtesy of toptable.co.uk, it felt a bit like eating in Primark – so cheap, it seemed churlish not to buy one of everything.

In the end, we ordered six tapas for £10 (should’ve been £20). The deep fried element was disappointing; we left most of our tempura ‘king’ prawns which were about as regal as a night out in Basildon, but we loved the humous, and the halloumi and grilled tomato skewers were a definite highlight.

The faintly disturbing WCs are worth a mention – as grotty as they come, finished off with a vase of tall, crumbling flowers that were so dead they’d started to smell. For a bargain bite pre-cinema, Sway was spot on, but if you’re a serious foodie or lean towards OCD when it comes to public facilities, stay away.