Restaurants owned by those on the dining floor often feel more hospitable, driven by guest experience rather than making food the hero. That makes sense in a place modelled on the Athenian taverna: explicitly a forum for sharing wine and humble nourishment.

You might build a meal around vegetables. Beetroot is cooked to soft sweetness, tumbled with its stalks, piled on soft white cheese and scattered with toasted walnuts. Potato wedges fried in herb oil are pure happiness. But also, Cretan-style smoked pork loin is sliced extra thinly and scattered with pickled fennel, while lamb shoulder is roasted to collapse for abandoned destruction with forks.

Everything is threaded with salt and olive oil, bringing individual dishes to life and also knitting them together. Built on lovely old ideas and honest hard work, Taverna is a pacey, informal and precious paean to gathering with feeling.

Best for: A rollicking Athenian party.

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