Patchetts Green Restaurant Guide

As per its appearance on Netflix’s ‘Million Dollar Buffet’ with Grace Dent, the dining room of this luxe country estate hotel revolves around a buffet that’s “best for those who want to splurge” (to the tune of a still highly reasonable £65 per person during the week, or £78 per person on weekends). Live-action food stations showcase a “huge choice of different cuisines” – sushi, seafood, stone-baked pizzas, just to stick with the ‘s’ options – that, while not being mega-foodie, are “excellent all-round” and make for a brilliant family outing (not least as kids “love the dessert section”). Top Tip – despite the very posh surroundings, the ambience is “not at all stuffy or pretentious” as one might fear.

Away from the main property, with a terrace facing onto the golf course, this casually luxurious venue is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and would suit a smartly dressed-down weekend family meal. With its brasserie menu incorporating a selection of burgers and chicken and steak grills, fans “prefer it to the generally more highly rated Glasshouse at the same venue” although even some who mark it highly say: “it’s good, but some of the prices are just far too high”.

2022 Review: “Great fish ’n’ chips” are the hallmark of the Andreou family's fixture (also with a Bushey Heath offshoot) which marked its thirtieth birthday with an expansion not too long ago. Nowadays, they do gluten-free Mondays too.

This Wembley fixture (with spinoffs in Hatch End and Kingsbury) is best known for its all-you-can-eat Indian vegetarian buffet with a choice of 45 items, including an Indo-Chinese selection with dishes such as chilli paneer. The family-owned business started out 40 years ago as a market stall.

“Prime manages to feel special and cosy all at once” – a family-friendly steak specialist where the main event is dry-aged on the bone and “not cheap but well worth it” for a “special occasion choice”. This branch recently added a new canopied gin garden with heating in winter, and you can also check out a trio of siblings in St Albans, Beaconsfield and Berkhamsted.

The “skillfully cooked Italian-style food is always good” at this village pub from well-known local chef James Harkin, whose parents ran the Alpine restaurant in Bushey for 48 years. Magda, his partner, is “exceptional as front of house”. Top Menu Tip – “great Sunday lunch”.

The “fabulous sushi” “never fails to impress, whether eat-in or take away” at this small group that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, from brothers Jason & Adam Balsam. Their ambition to bring good-quality traditional Japanese cuisine to the North London ’burbs now finds expression in five branches across the region.

A former lockdown project that graduated via pop-ups to a permanent site in 2023, with an enthusiastic social media following: it features New Haven-style pizzas, cooked at low temperatures for a light crust and with a concise choice of toppings. In her March 2024 reivew, the Sunday Times’s Charlotte Ivers declared herself a fan: It’s only pizza, but this one will remind you the magic is still there.

Billed on their website as the result – four decades later – of an Anglo-Argentine love affair, this upmarket venture is “great for a steak”, whether you find yourself at the Northwood original or newer Gerrard’s Cross sibling. The “very good” victuals are based around beef sourced from Aberdeen Angus cows reared on the Argentine Pampas, and then seared on master griller Daniel Veron’s ‘V-Bar’ grill; there’s also a decent range of (ceviche-centric) small plates, plus beef burgers, steak salads and “good alcohol-free beer”.