A titanic restaurant in a former Art Deco ballroom off Piccadilly Circus, this 160-seat locale draws a trendy crowd to London's heart. The restaurant is cosmopolitan, and it's one of the best choices for the after-theater crowd because it closes at 3am most nights. It doesn't attract celebrities as it did back in 1994, but it's still going strong. Chef Steve Carter is doing much to recapture the restaurant's mid-1990s chic. He turns out a new menu every 2 months, with emphasis on organic and homegrown produce, seafood, and meats. Many dishes are quite complicated and taste as good as they sound: swordfish dumplings with a salsa of plum tomatoes, fresh cilantro, sautéed shiitake, soy-infused ginger, and fresh wilted spinach.

For a starter, we recommend the smoked-chicken Caesar club salad. Also memorable is the loin of yellowfin tuna served with a wild parsley-and-eggplant relish and a roasted red-bell-pepper pesto. The desserts are purposefully unsophisticated: Rice pudding or poached pears are standards. If you're rushed, you can drop into Dick's Bar for a quick bite. The offerings at Dick's include everything from lamb burgers sparked with yogurt and fresh mint to Cashel blue cheese and pumpkin seeds on ciabatta bread. Most dishes are at the low end of the price scale.