From Miro to Miznon, here are the best things the CODE team ate this week

Scott’s Mayfair 

It’s long been a favourite Mayfair spot of mine and it was good to be back at this Mount Street classic on Tuesday night for a Krug dinner to celebrate their single ingredient, which this year is rice. Chef Tim Hughes served up a menu of risotto, turbot with rice and lobster and rice pudding. And to drink, Krug and plenty of it with a 168th and 170th edition, a 2000 grand vintage and a 26th edition rosé. 
Adam Hyman, founder 
CODE was a guest of Scott’s Mayfair

Miznon

It’s usually impossible to judge a restaurant when it’s been open for less than a week, let alone less than an hour, but thanks to an absurdly immediate proximity to CODE HQ, it was impossible to not pay a visit to Miznon at their opening lunch service. The menu? Imagine ‘Whacky Races’ meets pita bread, Tel Aviv meets Soho by way of cauliflower. There are lots and lots of cauliflowers. The bottled lightening that a new restaurant is during service can be highly addictive. A surging, pulsating thing which swirls around food and drinks and music and people. The menu is mad – and no doubt we’ll return to try the ‘tomato ovaries’ the ‘best drugs’ and the ‘sac de coq’ – but for now, the rather plain sounding ratatouille tastes anything but. The deeply roasted aubergine inside a fluffy pita  – saucy in the extreme, deeply filling and overtly messy to eat – was divine. Best consumed shirtless and ideally adjacent to a walk-in shower, this joyful messy hunk of a lunch doesn’t look like much, but was absolutely brilliant.  
Mike Daw, partnerships manager 

The Aubrey 

The Aubrey is an eccentric Japanese izakaya-inspired restaurant in Knightsbridge, which I’ve visited before for a drinks reception, sans food. They’ve just launched a new brunch menu at the weekend with live DJs, a cool crowd, and lots of sashimi. I think £58 per person is reasonable, with small plates such as oysters, edamame, mushroom gyozas, and chicken yakitori. Headlining was their signature chicken katsu sando and salmon robata teriyaki. I knew I ordered well when our table went quiet.  
Henry Southan, social media manager 
CODE was a guest of The Aubrey 
The Aubrey is available on the CODE app 

Townsend 

You could walk by Townsend a hundred times without seeing it, making it the ideal restaurant for the more misanthropic among us. It lives inside Whitechapel Gallery, right next to Aldgate East station; its sunlit, minimalist dining room a small oasis of calm for when schedules are packed and panic feels close. A two-course tasting menu for lunch is accessibly priced, and mine was enjoyable: a beetroot salad with (addictive) pickled cherries to start, followed by a summer tart with courgette and peas, flaky and fresh. It’s simple, unfussy cooking, and soothing when everything else feels tied up in knots. Oh, and a lunch negroni is £8 and served with a slice of orange. Always a good sign.  
Rebekah Lodos, editorial assistant 
CODE was a guest of Townsend  

J Sheekey  

Room 4 at J Sheekey may not be the most obvious place to reside on a sunny summer’s day, but when the mercury passes 30 degrees in the capital, it is. The shaded room with the air conditioning turned up means your chilled white Burgundy stays just that. A miso glazed sea trout with citrus dashi and bok choy makes for an ideal light lunch before heading out into the afternoon heat. 
Adam Hyman, founder 
CODE was a guest of J Sheekey

28-50 Wine Workshop & Kitchen 

It was to 28-50 Wine Workshop & Kitchen for us this Monday for early Bastille Day celebrations. Seated in a sunny spot at the window we enjoyed the gentle breeze while watching the chic Kensington locals pass us by. The French onion soup was replaced by cooling gazpacho given the weather and was an excellent antidote to the humidity. Tender bavette steak with eschalot sauce followed, paired with a bold Loire Valley red. A cheese course rounded the meal off swimmingly.  
Molly Wade, memberships manager 
CODE was a guest of 28-50 Wine Workshop & Kitchen 

Manteca 

I could visit Manteca every week if my wallet allowed. Once I take my seat in the sleek, roaring dining room it is hard to make me leave. The open kitchen conducts the atmosphere, along with the Italian-styled nose-to-tail cooking. Every dish delivers an unrivalled uniqueness among its Italian counterparts across the rest of the capital. House focaccia made with the ever-popular Wild Farmed flour, alongside house salumi, is what you should start with. Manteca house cured meats are something they are rightly proud about. Sweet melon dressed in Parma ham is also a must. Then comes the pasta. The tonnarelli, brown crab cacio e pepe has become one of the most Instagrammed dishes of the year. Plates of fish and meat are also a Manteca speciality. A good relationship with some of the best meat suppliers of the country allow for hits. When I went, Philip Warren in Cornwall had provided a pork chop with the most aged, grassiest flavour I’ve experienced. Divine. Manteca is not to be missed. 
Harry Cromack, account manager 

The Japanese at Annabel’s 

The last time I’d stepped foot inside Annabel’s on Berkeley Square was pre pandemic when times were a little different. Yet returning this week to try their new Japanese restaurant on the first floor of the private members’ club, it’s like nothing has changed for the crowd that hangs out here. Richard Caring’s jewel in his private club crown was popping on a warm Thursday evening. And the Japanese restaurant is by far some of the best food I’ve eaten in Annabel’s. Rock shrimp and black miso cod were worthy of both the nearby ROKA and NOBU. 
Adam Hyman, founder 
CODE was a guest of The Japanese at Annabel’s

Miro 

People have expressed their dismay at the £3,000 dish of caviar and croissants at Miro, the latest hyper glitzy, après ski in Couchevel 1850, international cuisine leaning heavily into Japanese restaurant to open in Mayfair. The interior hasn’t been altered from the site’s Street XO days, but the menu is new and the concept bold and brazen. The food is the work of Toby Burrowes, who has clearly had a lot of fun: yellowtail maki rolls are punctuated by notes of truffle; king crab and prawns are mixed and sit in bulbous, creamy croquettes; hamachi as sashimi swims in umami-laden ponzu; ‘fish and chips’ is reimagined as slivers of Kewpie mayo-topped fatty tuna on deep-fried oblongs of layered potato. A friends and family night is no foundation upon which to offer judgement. I have none anyway: this is a Mayfair hangout for Mayfair people, and I’m sure for them it will dutifully hit the spot. I wonder whether a critic will even bother with an evisceration because it is so very niche. 
Josh Barrie, editor
CODE was a guest of Miro