If you only knew what this means to me. No longer do I open my email inbox in fear it will contain yet another request from a foreigner seeking can’t-miss recommendations for fish and chips in Central London. At last I have appealing options, in the heart of areas they are likely to visit to boot.

I can easily defend my slotting in Poppies as fourth on my list of Top 10 Fish and Chips in London. But I do dread getting an email from you asking me to defend its qualification for national honours encompassing regions of the United Kingdom fabled for their fish and chips. I can’t:  Despite chips wanting both in colour and potato flavour and an unwavering commitment to serving fish in less time than it takes to cook Poppies was named a finalist for Independent Fish and Chip Restaurant of the Year at the 2013 National Fish & Chip Awards.

Poppies does not fry its fish to order as a matter of policy. That’s okay, many of the UK’s best chippies don’t either. But at off-peak periods Poppies may let its fillets sit under the heat lamps beyond five minutes. That’s a no-no for a shop that bids to be the best.

Stepping up to the takeaway counter at Poppies in Camden I paused to admire the hat of the Popette serving me and then told her I’d like my cod fried to order. She gestured to the fillets already in the display cabinet and said they’d only just been transferred there from the fryer. By accepting one I wouldn’t have to wait and I wouldn’t be disappointed. She was very nice about it. I thanked her but said I was in no rush.

I’d rather wait for my fish than have my fish wait for me.

When I picked up my fried-to-order takeaway some seven minutes later I noticed that two fillets from before were still doing time under the heat lamps. As I admired the delicately crisp golden batter cocooning my cod I couldn’t help but think of the unlucky souls who’d be served those end-of-batch fillets. I hoped it wouldn’t be the Brazilian couple who’d just walked in. As I pierced the batter and dug into steaming-hot flakes of pearly-white cod glistening in the Camden sunlight, blowing a fresh sea breeze across Regent’s Canal, my rapture was diminished by sympathy for the young lovers from Rio whose first fish ever from a British chippy would not be as hot and moist as mine.

I wanted to call out to them then as I am to you now:

Tell ’em you want your fish fried to order and don’t back down, no matter what the Poppette says. Tell them you’d rather wait your for fish than have your fish wait for you.

Poppies Spitalfields, 6-8 Hanbury Street, London E1 6QR (map)

Poppies Camden Town, 30 Hawley Crescent, London NW1 8NP (map)

A burger ordered rare at John Torode's The Luxe

JUDGING THE JUDGE: Food enthusiasts attending the burgermonday meatup at The Luxe got the opportunity to taste and critique the burger of chef-patron – and MasterChef judge – John Torode. To see the video, click here.

The only bummer was the bun.There were unsightly cracks on the surface of the top half, while the lower half was soaked and squished to the point where the bottom side of the burger patty was left virtually bare. My burgermonday group wouldn’t like that. I approached Torode at the kitchen pass and gave the MasterChef judge my critique:

“Eating it”, I told him without intent of sexual innuendo, “felt like holding a hot, greasy piece of meat in your hands”.

“Hmmm”, smirked Torode without missing a beat. “That’s one I haven’t heard before”. First I had egg on my hands. Now I had egg on my face.

Torode agreed the bun for a burger as explosive as his needed to perform better. He pledged to have new ones in place for the bloody burgermonday meatup at The LUXE in Spitalfields on the 26th of July.
Click here to book your place.

It got worse. They didn’t only bring memories of Italy with them; they carried spoils, too: Bottarga di tonno rosso from Marzamemi, Gerardo di Nola long spaghetti from Gragnano, Poggio di Bortolone extra virgin olive oil from the Chiramonte Gulfi winery of the same name.  The first thing one of our house guests did after setting down his bags was commandeer our kitchen and toss together a large bowl of spaghetti alla bottarga con limone e prezzemolo.

As I ate his maddeningly impeccable pasta I chewed over my London EATinerary:

St. John Bread and Wine
Present (coffee from World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies)
Monmouth Coffee (Borough Market)
Kappacasein (toasted cheese sandwich)
Tayyabs
De Gustibus Borough Market (salt beef)
Dock Kitchen
Petersham Nurseries

Each outing began with a steep climb from our temporary home in Crouch End to the Highgate tube station. Charming as this leafy stretch may be in its autumnal splendor, the 20-minute hike was no stroll through the Piedmontese vineyards. If my friends wanted to burn their quadriceps and destroy their knees I’m sure they would have chosen to do so while in the bucolic hills of Langhe and Monferrato. The white truffles of Alba do wonders for ruptured tendons. Moreover, it was difficult for them to enjoy their walks in this deceptively calm area of North London given the clear and present danger of being run off the pavement at any moment by a Bugaboo buggy or a Micro kick scooter.

They made it safely to the first 4 stops on my food tour without incident. Their luck changed at Tayyabs, where the queue inside the dining room moved at the pace of a glacier – that is to say, a glacier prior to the era of global warming. A more benevolent Tayyabs would hand out naan noshes and toothpick-skewered sheekh kebabs to ease the long wait. Instead they torture you for 90 minutes by parading sizzling platters of succulent kebabs and lamb chops within inches of your nostrils at 10-second intervals. The dizzying aroma from the Punjabi spice mix is so potent it could be used in place of smelling salts to revive any Tayyabs waiters knocked unconscious by the fists of the victims left to starve on the endless queue.

The Friday night journey to Dock Kitchen, beside the Grand Union Canal in Ladbroke Grove, took 1 hour 50 minutes – over 30 minutes longer than the London Journey Planner estimate. Suffice to say that if you are going to travel nearly two hours to a Grand Canal you want it to be the one in Venice. That schlep, however, was no more bothersome than a November breeze when compared to our Saturday expedition to Richmond’s Petersham Nurseries. We left the house at 11am for a 12:30 lunch booking and arrived at 1:40pm. Royal Mail would have delivered us to our destination more quickly than the District line.

Steven Biondolillo is a respected marketing consultant who should be famous for his radius restaurant-rating system. Instead of using stars or point scales to evaluate restaurants he scores them according to the distance you would be willing to travel to dine there. Under his radius system, elBulli might rate a 5,000 to indicate a radius of 5,000 miles within which the restaurant would be worth a detour. A sympathetic critic might award Subway sandwich shop a score of 0.00000013.

For London purposes the Biondolillo radius system needs to be revised. The journey from front door to first course must be measured in minutes, not miles. And so, if Petersham Farms, described by these two ultimately delighted Californians as “Chez Panisse in the English countryside”, merits a journey of 160 minutes, then award it a rating of 160.

Judged solely by my friends’ comments I have critiqued the London food tour as follows:

St. John Bread and Wine – 90 minutes
Present – 30 minutes
Monmouth – 30 minutes
Kappacasein – 40 minutes
Tayyabs – 60 minutes
De Gustibus – 20 minutes
Dock Kitchen – 30 minutes
Petersham Nurseries – 160 minutes

Of course it’s possible we appreciate things more when we experience great difficulties beforehand. The French have an expression for it: après l’effort le réconfort – “after effort comes comfort.” Sounds to me like a great poster slogan for Transport for London.

E133, a synthetic blue coal tar dye, is certified as a safe food additive by the EU and the US FDA. But ExploreENumbers still lists E133 as one of top 10 E numbers to avoid. It was concerns about allergic reactions and harmful effects linked with Brilliant Blue, especially when consumed in combination with other additives, that led Nestlé Rowntree to halt production of blue Smarties until a natural colour could be found. The reintroduced blue Smarties get their blue from Spirulina, a type of blue-green algae rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, and carotenoids.

So is the world ready for Spirulina gelato? Though it’s hard to say, you must admit it does sound Italian.