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Maze

10-13 Grosvenor Square, London, 020-7107-0000. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $250.

The Engineer

65 Gloucester Ave., London, 020-7722-0950. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $130.

I have boycotted London for 25 years, wishing to avoid its horrendous food and hostile service. But when Gourmet magazine labelled London "the best city in the world to eat right now" in a cover story last March, I had to go back.

From the food halls of Harrods, where they sell black chickens from France and impeccably fresh wild-caught fish -- sea bass and plaice, scallops with roe in their shells, wild Scottish lobster -- to clever new restaurants and gastropubs, London has been reborn as a food-lover's mecca.

This is thanks to two factors. First: cheap foreign travel. Brits came home from the continent and became refuseniks, no longer content with bangers and mash. Second: When the British economy boomed in the 1980s, foreigners began to flock in, some with money to invest, some seeking work. Among them were chefs and restaurateurs who knew good food.

At the high end, London's favourite chef is former pro footballer Gordon Ramsay, who now owns nine restaurants here. In 1981, Ramsay went from the Glasgow Rangers to chef school. Today, his restaurants boast seven Michelin stars among them. His latest, Maze, was called London's best new restaurant of 2005 by Time Out magazine, Tatler and Harper's Bazaar.

Where is London's (previously) infamous bad service? Although we are clearly hopelessly unchic colonials, the staff at Maze treat us like Royals (who, by the way do not dine in public restaurants, for fear someone might see them eating, a terribly common habit).

The food is as flawless as the service. The clever tapas-style menu affords the choice of small or large plates. The kitchen majors in fish and fowl, infusing the modern French classics with occasional Asian flair and a very delicate touch throughout. As in Jerusalem artichoke velouté with duck ragout, parsnip and cepes brioche, in which the waiter pours Jerusalem artichoke foam (a breathtaking knife edge of taste with the heft of a snowflake) onto melt-in-the-mouth duck ragout with fresh cepes (porcini mushrooms from France) and caramelized sweet parsnip purée. On the side is a tiny, fragile brioche with a disc of earthy cepe butter. Are we surprised that Maze chef Jason Atherton is a former protégé of Ferran Adria of Spain's legendary El Bulli Restaurant, the father of foam cuisine?

Wild Scottish salmon sits on delicate choucroute with juicy pork belly and smoked raisin reduction -- a clever update of choucroute garni. Wood-roasted wild partridge comes with intense silken parsnip purée and shallots roasted with a hint of vanilla. Orkney sea scallops are dusted with curry spices perfectly roasted, and served with dark spiced apple and high-flavoured celeriac purée. An ultratender lamb chop sits beside perfect lamb stew seasoned with Moroccan spices, with a pint-sized packet of romaine lettuce wrapped around braised lamb neck. This symphony of lamb is garnished with smoky bacon, onions and the best mashed potatoes I have ever inhaled.

Britannia rules. The scallops, the lamb, the salmon, the curry, the wild bird and the root veg are all thoroughly British. Maze's magic is to morph them in the hands of an artist with an approach that is thoroughly à la française.

In search of something more Britannic, we turn to pubs, which have traditionally served some of the most heinous food in the Western world: crisps and peanuts, pickled eggs, desiccated pork pies and that horror of horrors, the Ploughman's Lunch -- industrial cheese with doughy bread, bottled chutney, old lettuce and pedestrian pickles. All this has changed thanks to the advent of the gastropub, England's answer to the bistro of her cultural arch enemy, France.

Indeed, the venerable restaurant critic Egon Ronay (Egon Ronay's 2006 Guide to the Best Restaurants) recently opined that gastropubs are outclassing classic French bistros in terms of both cuisine and service.

Historically, pubs were of two kinds: A pub was either a freehouse (independently owned by an individual landlord and able to sell whatever beers it chose) or tied to one brewer. Often the freehouses were owned by the pub landlord, who maintained a relationship with his local brewer.

The economic crash of 1973 put many local brewers out of business. Mass brewers gained control of breweries and pubs, which were in a sorry state. Because mass brewers sold only their own industrial beer in their pubs, local brewers needed outlets. They bought out pubs and turned them into wine bars. The 1980s saw the advent of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), a consumer group that lobbies for greater competition and choice in beers, and the protection of local beers and traditional pubs (http://www.camra.org.uk).

The new wine bars competed with pubs, vastly outdoing them in the gastronomic department. Thanks in part to that competition, and to small brewers and freehouse pubs fighting back with CAMRA's support, food got on the pub agenda. Delia Smith helped. Her recipe books have sold 16 million copies in the United Kingdom, and in 1973 she began teaching Britons to cook on the BBC. If anyone took the middle-class Briton from a diet of grey Brussels sprouts and gristly beefsteak, it was Smith.

By the 1990s, so many people had been influenced be her take on cooking that they were a ready market for an explosion of good food in pubs that had been rescued from the jaws of industrial brewers by freeholders intent on excellence both liquid and solid.

Hence the explosion of gastropubs all over London. We fell in love with the Engineer in Primrose Hill (the local of Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law). It's a funky collection of small cozy rooms. No white tablecloths here. But the fealty to excellent ingredients treated with care is astonishing. They do marvellous daily soups (roast fennel, apple and mustard being a fab flavour marriage) and an incredibly flaky tart topped with crispy onion, paper-thin browned potato slices, sweet moist prosciutto, shaved Reggiano, and raw arugula for bite. The béarnaise sauce with the steak is impeccable, as are the fat frites.

But their traditional Anglo food is the most exciting: Kedgeree, the horrific food of British civil servants back from India, is here wrought splendidly with elegantly curried smoked haddock atop rice (which needs more cooking), poached egg and cream. Gammon (roast ham) is perfectly sweet and tender, in harmony with peas pudding (puréed yellow peas) in vegetable broth with honey undertones. Wash it down with Hook Norton, Bombardier or a dozen other artisanal ales.

The Engineer has even rescued bakewell tart from culinary ignominy, building layers of fresh almond paste, jam and crème fraîche on fragile sugar crust, in a pool of velvety crème anglaise. They didn't name it English cream for nothing! The French should definitely be worrying about the supremacy of their bistros.

jkates@globeandmail.ca