Core by Clare Smyth

Core by Clare Smyth sits on Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill, a quieter, more residential setting than most three Michelin starred restaurants choose, and that mismatch is deliberate. Smyth is the only woman in Britain to hold three stars at a restaurant of her own, and the cooking here is built on precise, ingredient-led modern British food rather than any imported style.

The dish everyone talks about is the potato and roe, a single baked potato dressed with a dulse beurre blanc and topped with trout roe and herring, which sounds modest on paper and turns out to be the most memorable thing on the tasting menu. It sums up the approach: humble ingredients treated with the technique of a restaurant that has nothing left to prove. The rest of the menu changes with the seasons but keeps the same restraint, favouring British produce over flourish.

The dining room is calm and understated rather than showy, with soft lighting and unfussy service that pays close attention without hovering. It suits a serious food occasion, an anniversary or a booking made well in advance rather than a spontaneous night out, and the tasting menu format means setting aside a proper stretch of the evening.

Core earns its stars honestly. There is no theatre for its own sake here, just extremely careful cooking built around a single, brilliant potato and the produce around it. It is expensive and it should be booked months ahead, but it is one of the few London restaurants where the reputation and the reality genuinely line up.