Ours - South Kensington, London

At first read, it scans as a collision of two alien worlds. Tom Sellers made his mark on the London dining scene at the tender age of 26 when he opened Restaurant Story and earned a star just months after, creating quirky, playful dishes that sat somewhere in the middle of Oli Dabbous and Heston Blumenthal. With the opening of Restaurant Ours (where he serves as culinary advisor and restaurant director), you bring Chelsea into the mix - specifically the building that formerly housed The Collection, 90s hotspot and one of our former go-to spots in the neighbourhood. 

Whilst the results have split the opinions of critics, there's no denying that they've created the hottest place to be in Brompton Cross, with a much further appeal than the Made in Chelsea set. 

The dining room is truly a work of brilliance. They've retained the underlit, frosted glass catwalk with whitewashed Mediterranean-style stucco, which makes you feel as if you're entering a decompression chamber. After checking in and checking your coat, you can either wind your way upstairs to the mezzanine cocktail bar level which looks like it was poached from Narnia, with a big brass chamber at the end that looks like a DJ booth but serves as a private dining room, or you can continue forward into the main room. Here you'll find trees worthy of Kew, a chic bi-level dining area, and an open plan kitchen. The loos deserve a shout-out, but we don't want to spoil all of the surprises…

The menu has been calibrated to appeal to the whippet-thin waistlines of any given Chelsea-goer, with a laundry list of healthy items running the gamut from a dry-ice misting, mossy display of crudités to a beautiful spiralling take on ratatouille to red mullet escabeche. We were especially smitten with a single scallop served in the shell, beautifully roasted and immersed in a subtle gremolata. A tomato salad served with croutons and lightly pickled onions was immersed in a vanilla saffron consommé that really hit it out of the park. For anyone with a soft spot for heirloom maters, these babies are a must. 

However, there are plenty of other options that are a little less belly-friendly. Case in point was a side of fat, fluffy chips given the Pygmalion treatment with pecorino and foie gras (phwoah gras?). This bedded down beautifully with a beefy fillet steak and a vat of béarnaise, and just a little less well with an artfully dressed plate of lamb, leek, goat's curd and mustard seed. To top it off, we finished with a wee bag of doughnut holes fattened up with salted caramel centres. Though Ours had a rough time in the press, we didn't find the criticisms reflected in our visit. Perhaps they tightened up their game, but Ours felt very solid to us - and certainly packs in a scene to be seen.