Pascal Proyart is a Breton chef who, in my view, has never really got the recognition he deserves. This is partly because his restaurant lies within a rather anonymous and low key hotel on Knightsbridge, sure One O One has it own entrance on William Street, but until recently going to the gents meant taking a packed lunch and sherpas for the long journey that included the hotel reception. This summer Proyart’s restaurant was completely refurbished to emerge with a new look and new, and accessible, toilets.

The menus were also given the once over and now work on a grazing principle, I still have reservations over these multi-course, quasi-tasting-menu conceits and particularly over the florid overblown language used to describe sections of the menu. “Low tide and wonderful discovery”; “Delicacies from the shore and beyond”; “High tide with its exceptional sea fishing” (well there wouldn’t be much point in fishing when the tide was out would there?); and finally “The goodness of the sea and earth”. This kind of whimsy seems to be a very French affair you also get hints of it at Club Gascon. Anyhow, cutting through to the food, it is recommended that four little dishes are combined to make a meal for one person. Pascal’s oyster creations (molluscs from Cancale in Brittany, natch) are well done – chilled with shallot vinegar; chilled with a yuzu sorbet; and in tempura batter but impaled (à la Blumenthal?) with a pipette of soya that is injected into the oyster by the Maitre d’…. Then there’s pan fried Norwegian scallop with onsen quail eggs, truffle potato mouselline and pork belly – a good combo working well together. Or a stellar dish of pan-seared langoustine and duck foie gras with Pekin duck consommé. Or pan roast Norwegian halibut and langoustine dumpling with a coco bean and truffle cassoulet. Or red king crab with roast Anjou squab pigeon and shallot confit.

The cooking is very precise, but this incarnation of One O One might as well have “Your table is ready Mr Michelin Inspector” on a banner over the portal, as dishes are very elaborate indeed. In some ways the presentation is a tad over complicated, but so saying, the flavour combinations work together very well and the fishy elements are always perfectly cooked – something deceptively hard to achieve.

Charles Campion

One O One, 101 Knightsbridge, SW1 (020 7290 7101)

At the top of Oxo Tower Wharf is the Oxo Tower Restaurant, a large busy bustling place with a cracking view and a tumultuous bar. It's been a success since it opened. Drift down a few floors and there is a restaurant site that has always underperformed, it's got a decent view and has much the same catchment area and accessibility as the bear-pit upstairs but no-one has ever made it fly. This place has been home to a "big name" chef - Richard Neat, and a number of other concepts but each venture has ended up leaving with its tail between the legs. The latest attempt to overturn the Second Floor jinx is masterminded by Dominic Ford (who, in a past life, used to run the Harvey Nichols restaurant operations and so has a proven track record on the Wharf).

The latest big idea for the challenging restaurant space on the second floor is robotaki, and there is something very agreeable about the relays of little skewers - it certainly works for Zuma, Roka and Jin Kichi in Hampstead. It is also completely in-tune with the current obsession with grazing menus, degustations, tapas and meze - it almost makes you pine for a three course dinner with the largest course mid-meal. Bincho occupies a long room and the décor features plenty of dark wood, on the one side there are the windows and the Thames, while on the other chefs are ministering to six of those elegant little grills the size and shape of a window box. So far so good.

The menu straggles as only a mix-and-match menu can. There is a certain British reserve that makes us feel uneasy of dragging the waiter or waitress back time after time to add to the order. It feels inconsiderate, but such scruples should be banished. To eat well here you should go with the flow - order three different skewers, see if you like them, then order a fistful of your favourites. Yakitori usually refers to chicken and Kushiyaki refers to other meats. There are salads and some rice dishes - indeed the yasai yaki meshi (fried rice with Japanese vegetables) was very good indeed. Choice of skewers will depend upon your personal preferences but the tebaski - chicken wing - was good and meaty; the leba - chicken liver - pretty small, you'd need a quiverful to dent the appetite; the kawa - chicken skin - on the greasy side, it's crisper and therefore nicer at Jin Kichi; the sori - chicken oysters - tremendous; the unagi - eel - double tremendous; the buta - pork belly - sweet, rich and melting; the  hotate - scallops - disappointing, might as well have been steamed; the hitsuji - lamb - rather greasy; the honetsuki gyu - beef rib on the bone - was good and chewy, intense flavour. As you can infer it is quite easy to let this sort of dining run away with itself, each skewer may be small and have a reasonable price tag £1.20 to £2.50 but you can eat a surprising number of them.

Bincho is cleverly pitched, both the concept and the food are accessible and it has middle-of-the-range values and middle-of-the-range prices (providing you don't stuff yourself too enthusiastically). A good option for a few skewers, a cold beer and a view of the river.

Charles Campion

Bincho Yakitori, Second Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, SE1 (020 7803 0858)

Oxo Tower Restaurant, Eighth Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, SE1 (020 7803 3888)

Zuma, 5 Raphael Street, SW7 (020 7584 1010)

Roka, 37 Charlotte Street, W1 (020 7580 6464)

Jin Kichi, 73 Heath Street, NW3 (020 7794 6158)

Like so many cooks I have a small portfolio of Indian dishes that I prepare confidently. I learnt most of what I know about cooking Indian food from Madhur Jaffrey whose television programmes in the 1980's were as straightforward as Delia, as precise as Heston and as exotic as a Michael Palin travelogue. Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery - published by the Beeb in 1982 to accompany the series - is still my bible for the basics and dishes like her aloo gosht (lamb and potatoes cooked Delhi style) never fail to please.

So when the media started to crank up the hype for Anjum Anand's television series "Indian Food Made Easy"; and when she was described as a "hot new celebrity chef"; my heart sank. We learnt that Anand was born in Britain, lived in Switzerland and had worked in various classy American Indian restaurants (Café Spice in New York and Tommy Tang in L.A….is this a recommendation?). Plus something even more worrying, Anand "applies the principles of low-fat eating to traditional recipes." So it was well after the series had got into its stride that I finally got around to watching her show. I ended up changing my view. The dishes look good and the recipes are simple and easy to follow. There is a refreshing helping of unstuffy pragmatism to Anjum Anand and I particularly enjoyed the programme that showed her "assisting" a West Midlands couple who had set up the Cornish Curry Company. The fish curry she suggested as a way to reinvigorate their range was well balanced and practical. Fast forward a few decades and this episode may well be cited by sociologists as evidence of Britain's culinary open-mindedness and multiculturalism.

Anand's programmes also put a sensible emphasis on fresh ingredients and showcase the skills of some of our best Indian chefs. It's good to see chefs valued for their skills rather than wanting them to be instant celebrities.

The book of the series is a good one, I particularly like the coconut mackerel curry; and the simple dishes like the stir-fried nigella cabbage or the herby lamb chops. This paperback is well-worth a place on my shelf alongside Madhur's bible.

Charles Campion

Indian Food Made Easy by Anjum Anand is published by Quadrille in paperback £14.99.

Where do you go for a meal like that? There is an undeniable charm to menus that offer an upgrading of old, down-market and familiar items. At the Boxwood Cafe they have turned this kind of double speak into an art form, and I suppose they start at the very top of the menu - this place is hardly a café. Over the last three or four years the Boxwood has carved out its own niche and built up a loyal band of regulars, the ambience is slick and chic, the menu is the ultimate in unthreatening and if you want you can whistle up the wine list from the neighbouring sibling Petrus and spend a King's ransom on a very smart bottle indeed.

There was recently a story in the trade press announcing the closure of the Boxwood due to the redevelopment of the Berkeley Hotel, but I can confirm that if (and it’s a big bureaucratic battling IF) they get the planning consents they are asking for, the work might start next Spring. I am told that if the building work goes ahead the Boxwood will re-locate and if not it will carry on.

The menu here is interesting if only for the jokes - the starter billed as "Smoked salmon and Sevruga caviar croque-monsieur with a walnut salad" turns up as a rather good toastie - the salmon and fish eggs combo works well, and the only criticism you could muster is that as a starter it is a fairly solid creation, filling a gap rather than firing up the appetite. Among the main courses you'll find an über-burger. This is large and juicy and made from veal and foie gras, it comes with good chips, pixie fine onion rings, a small but perfect Caesar salad and an honest bun. If you like a good burger you'll like this. For dessert it is hard to get past the "Strawberry knickerbocker glory with poppy seed wafers" - a proper tall glass and spoon, sharp strawberry jelly, lots of cream and ice cream - this tastes just like the one you remember from a couple of decades ago.

Don't  think that the food here is all gimmick however, a dish of baked queenie scallops with sea urchin butter impressed; as did a ceviche of Irish salmon; a pan fried fillet of black bream; and a roast loin of suckling pig with garlic roast potatoes.  Service is slick. The only note of caution is that the prices are tad Knightsbridge - starters £7 to £14.50; mains £10.50 to £28; puds £6 to £7. So a toastie-burger-sundae three courser ends up costing £46 plus vat. Café prices? Probably not.

Charles Campion

Boxwood Café, The Berkeley, Knightsbridge, SW1 (020 7235 1010)