The Bingham Restaurant (Restaurant, Hotel)

Top 10 things you need to know about The Bingham restaurant:

1) It may be news to you but Richmond is one of London’s under appreciated gems. Away from the provincial town high street, beauty abounds. And The Bingham’s Georgian boutique hotel is your next romantic getaway waiting to happen.

2) Even if you’re not stopping over, The Bingham still provides one of the most romantic restaurants in London.

3) Book in advance - al fresco balcony table during clement weather, window table when not - and set the mood with a stroll along the Thames before your startlingly delectable meal.

4) As decor goes, the restaurant is breaking new records for neutrality; parquet floors, earthy walls, beige to the extreme. Suppress that yawn, though, and see the light as it cascades through the bay windows, off the mirrors, refracts through a chandelier, and settles as a sparkle in your lover’s eye.

5) Romance is buoyed by intrigue, so you could take the cheap route and order from the ‘£15 for 3 courses’ market menu, or try to impress your date via a la carte, but come on sunshine, pull your finger out! Reach for the unknown. You’ve come this far, why stop now? Go blindly into the ‘mystery menu’, a £50 per person experience that only requires one question: Do you have any allergies?

6) I could tell you how the chilled gazpacho with radish and toasted pine nuts was essentially a refreshing Virgin Mary; how the grass-fed beef was tender when paired with the 2006 Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon (serious food, serious wine); how the quail with Chilean Pinot Noir was a salty bird meat for pork scratching fans (like me); how the poached cherries with the double chocolate were the apposite accompaniments to gazing out the window, across the lawn, the rippling water, the gorgeous riverside properties, and into heavens where Heathrow flights disappeared into the sun; I could, but this is a mystery menu...

7) ...meaning your experience will be entirely different.

8) Put faith in the chef and trust the sommelier to deliver liquid sunshine. Plus, play a delightful game by trying to guess the next ingredient.

9) The mystery menu adventure is modern take on the classic tasting menu, minus the knowing bit. After all, everybody loves surprises.

10) The Bingham is a convincing argument for marriage; that view, that food, that lawn, that space, those rooms; it’s all so wedding!...read more