Merricote

In a skinny shop on a buzzy northside strip, chef Rob Kabboord and his sommelier wife, Bronwyn, have arrived at the formula for a model neighbourhood bistro, combining well-trodden Persian carpets, farm animal prints and a hefty gilt-framed mirror with good-humoured service, adroit cooking and a seductive drinks list. On the modern European menu, 'selection of snacks and charcuterie' might involve a timber board, rounds of fat-speckled salami and venison calabrese, pickled carrots and cornichons, and wondrously crisp triangles of lamb bisteeya. Among the modestly proportioned mains might be buttery blue cod fillet on mauve congo potato mash with crunchy-salty sea blight (a coastal semi-succulent) or a rosy piece of eye fillet with a mustard reduction. 'Dutch mess', a play on Eton mess, combines a nest of orange Persian floss with an orb of orange sorbet, orange goat's-milk icecream and segments. Like Merricote, it's the perfect combination of cleverness and charm.