You can find Theo Randall on the ground floor of the posh Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane. The restaurant itself is elegant, but not pretentious. On Friday evening there is live music. We were seated at the other end of the spacious dining room, which meant being able to enjoy both the music and having a chat.

Besides their à la carte menu, they also have a monthly "regional tasting menu" consisting of five courses, where three of them are paired with wine. We opted for this tasting menu, which in October was from Umbria.

We started our "journey" with an Umbria cocktail, which was fruity with a slice of dried strawberry as a decoration. With this, we were enjoying some focaccia and a bruschetta, which was topped with a flavourful roasted tomato salsa.

Our first course, the Antipasto, consisted of beef carpaccio with marinated artichokes and pecorino cheese. Strangozzi (think square cut wheat spaghetti), serviced with Italian sausage and a white wine and black truffle creamed was the Primo course. The pasta had a good bite to it, and the sausage was nicely cubed. The sauce bound everything together.

Our Secondo, or "meat" course, was roasted guinea fowl breasts with pancetta and a sweet wine. It was served with squash purée under the crisp skin, and laid on a bed of lentils and some braised greens. The guinea fowl was still moist, and the skin crisp. The textures worked very well together.

We finished the evening with Dolce, a chocolate and hazelnut cake with a Vin Santo gelato. The cake was rich and on the denser side, but the ice cream offset that. We were a bit cheeky, and enjoyed a glass of dessert wine as well with this final course.

I believe the menu was good value, as the food was very tasty. The matching wines accompanied the dishes well. The dishes themselves were well presented, well cooked, and the whole meal was just the right amount. Perhaps not a restaurant to go to on a weekly basis, but if you have something to celebrate, or perhaps a fancier date night, it's a great spot, close to the centre of London.

27 Old Compton Street is a restaurant close to Shaftesbury Avenue. It sits among the busy streets of SOHO, it is hip, and it focusses on pasta.

I had the Pumpkin Ravioli, and my husband the Cacio e Pepe Bucatini. We thought the dishes to be lovely, but in our opinion the pasta was a little too al dente for us — another 30 seconds in the pan, and it would have been perfect.

We followed with a portion to share of their only dessert, a pistachio sweet gnocchi — these were little gnocchi sized doughnuts with a liquid pistachio filling with a scoop of ice-cream and some crushed and chopped pistachios (mind the inevitable squirt when you cut in).

Next time I'd have the courgette fries too which the table next to us had and looked great.

We were in and out in about 45 minutes.