As the chatter quietens down and lights dim inside the Guildhall ready for the countdown of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, a flurry of activity restarts.

The results had been leaked. ‘It’s all over the internet,’ screams Twitter.

How silly are we to be sitting down, waiting eagerly to see if Noma had been toppled?

‘Can everyone switch off their phone please?’ came the announcement. I guess the organisers knew too.

Awkward.

But still, there’s a slim chance that the results were fake. As the countdown begins, it was obvious — we’re all trapped here for the next hour listening to what we already knew. The Spanish have taken the crown: El Celler de Can Roca is number one.

Christ, this is tedious. Especially as the champagne had been ditched at the reception; the thirst is coming on strong.

Even more annoying, perhaps, was the prospect of having to file a story overnight because, apparently, only three media outlets in the world have been given access to the results before the event. So much for embargoes, eh?

But then it struck me. Something that was even more annoying than losing sleep. Knowing the results doesn’t mean that the event was any less of a celebration — of achievements, creativity, hospitality, innovation, etc. The list goes on.

Because if you, like me and like them, have worked inside a kitchen, you know hard work doesn’t even begin to describe it. Sure, if the results were just posted on Twitter each year, we probably wouldn’t have to needlessly sit there while Mark Durden-Smith whittled down the numbers until we get to number one but actually, for everyone on the list, this was their 15 minutes.

So shush, Twitter, let them have their moment of glory and savour their spot in restaurant history.

(First seen on Spear’s WMS)

Allumettes de fromage – Cheese straws

Vedett extra blond 5% lager

Thon mi-cuit au poivre, salade de gingembre, piment rouge et soya – Seared pepper tuna with ginger, chilli and soy dressing

Liefmans cuvee brut 6% cherry beer

Vedett white 4.7% wheat beer

Cotelette de porc et sa joue braise au “Duvel” – Rack of pork and cheek braised in Duvel beer

Duvel 8.5% bottle conditioned ale

Gateau de “Guinness”, café et glace au chocolat et malt – Guinness cake with coffee cream and chocolate and malt ice cream

Liefmans fruitesse 4.2% fruit beer

Café et petits fours

Mad Hatter’s Tea, served in the courtyard of Sanderson Hotel, is a collaboration between the five star establishment and Luna & Curious, a curiosity boutique based in Shoreditch.

The setting, the crockery and the food will all convince you that you’re in Wonderland.

Rolled sandwiches, sweet and savoury scones and marshmallow mushrooms are just a few of the things on the menu hidden inside a vintage book. And then there are the napkins wrapped with riddles, bespoke tea blends and the jelly trolley to explore. The tea experience, available between 11am and 5.30pm every day, even includes a resident Mad Hatter as your host and guide.

Here, for a while at least, you can forget the White Rabbit and his lack of time.

The impressive façade of the Malmaison Hotel holds court in its own secluded square; serenely picturesque in the centre of the City, around the corner from the hustle and bustle of Smithfield meat market. The alluring scents of Sunday roast or freshly baked bread will occasionally drift up from the basement brasserie, enticing passers-by into the informal but lavish space. A selection of self-styled Mal lollipops – bitesize skewers of chicken satay, prawn tempura crab spring roll, Thai pork and fish cake – are a fun opening to a meal, each morsel elaborately presented and particularly well flavoured. Meat is big on the agenda, and it doesn’t get much bigger than the Mal Burger Stack: 250g of beef is topped with bacon and crowned with a succulent seared foie gras slider and onion rings, and served with ultra-thin crisp fries on the side. It’s entirely excessive but all the more enjoyable for it. This is not a place to come for moderation.

Just a stone’s throw from the Royal Academy is Aurelia London, a Mediterranean restaurant nestled in the heart of Mayfair.

The restaurant is named after Via Aurelia, the historic route which spanned across the Mediterranean, from Rome down to Santiago de Compostela. The food pays homage to the same landmass, where rabbit and swordfish appear alongside plenty of olives, garlic and anchovies.

Everything is light, delicate and calling for glorious sunshine and ice cold rosé.

You can go as formal or informal as you like and sharing is definitely encouraged – this is no stuffy Mayfair restaurant.

A selection of breads and the house olive oil begins our lunch at Aurelia London. The peppery notes in the oil did well to indicate that it was an extra-virgin olive oil of sound quality – a good start.

Crisp, thin slices of octopus rostie, sprinkled with a light dusting of chives, soon arrived atop boiled new potatoes, skins still on. The hint of heat in the mild Galician flavours were offset by the cool tuna carpaccio which served as the other starter.

The carpaccio, doused in a slightly sweet sauce, rested on top of a finely shredded bed of salad was topped with yet more chives.

The food at Aurelia London was rustic but good; rather like the restaurant’s interiors which were lined with little portraits and vintage photographs, all reminiscent of little bistros in the Côte d’Azur. It has just the right amount of kitsch to put you right at ease.

For mains, monkfish a la Provençal offered an interesting contrast against the pappardelle with rabbit ragu. Tomatoes, olives and plenty of parsley made a delicious sauce, well matched to the relative firmness of the monkfish. The rabbit ragu, with a shaving of creamy cheese, was more reserved in flavour but well placed for the wintry London weather.

After two well-portioned but light courses, there was still plenty of room for dessert. Carefully arranged red wine poached pear with ice cream and warm chocolate fondant with orange compote provided the answer.

The menu at Aurelia London, filled with Mediterranean flavours, managed to be both wintry and light. All was washed down with fresh mint tea and all just over an hour.

It’s not committed to a single cuisine but with so many restaurants specialising in smaller and smaller niches, Aurelia London is probably one of the few places that’s still focusing on a wide region and doing it well.

It’s obvious really; if they’re packed on a Monday lunchtime, they must be doing something right.

(First seen on Bon Vivant)

Underneath the towering shadow of The Shard is an unlikely restaurant – the Rooftop Café at The Exchange. Part of an office building, the Rooftop Café is not easy to find but that’s one of the reasons why it’s such a great hideaway.

Open since January this year and despite being right next to The Shard, the Rooftop Café at The Exchange has somehow managed to maintain its views. Inside, the open kitchen is the first thing to greet you as you enter. The stripped-back dining room is spread over three little pockets of space, divided by banquettes and chairs. Comfortable, but not too cosy.

The food is simple but the menu changes daily with four options per course. For a menu so small, it also offers a surprising number of dishes suitable for vegetarians.

The starters were charmingly simple. We had pancetta with poacher (cheese), pear and walnut and goats curd with green beans, shallot and capers. Warm, light and a very ingredient led introduction to the food at the Rooftop Café at The Exchange.

For mains, there was the truffled mushroom ravioli with parmesan and the special – a chorizo stew. The pungent truffled filling of the ravioli was cased in delicate fresh pasta that broke all too easily.

The chorizo stew, laden with chick peas and lightly spiced, was topped with dressed salad and bread. Both dishes were well-portioned and balanced. Other dishes available included the scallops with black pudding and seared apple.

The wine list, mostly European, is also compact, varied and interesting. Their focus is on sustainability and small producers and it really shows. The wine we had, a red made from a blend of three grape varieties indigenous to Italy, was sealed with a beer cap top and a basic label. Impressive is the fact that only 200 bottles of it were produced and while difficult to get into, it proved a good match for the food.

A banana cake with salted caramel ice cream and orange cake with crème fraiche were ordered for dessert. The soft citrus of the orange cake worked well with the zest blended into the crème fraiche while the banana cake with the ice cream was another classic flavour combination.

The food at the Rooftop Café at the Exchange is simple but delicious and the service is helpful and attentive. It’s a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere to catch up with friends or go on a date where there’s no pressure of challenging food or the cold silence of fine dining.

Like the food, it’s the perfect antidote to the wintry weather but it also bears delightful possibilities for the summer with the rooftop terrace.

(First seen on Bon Vivant)

Emulsione fredda di manzo e olio con dragoncello e maionese di lamponi (Cold beef emulsion with oil and tarragon with raspberry mayonnaise)

Gel di Vitello, porcini secchi, mandorle e tartufo nero (Veal gel, dried porcini, almonds and black truffle)

Baccalà, patate, olive nere e basilica (Salt cod, potatoes, black olives and basil)

Assoluto di cipolle, parmigiano e zafferano tostato (Onion consommé, parmesan cheese ravioli and toasted saffron)

Spaghetti alla Amatriana (Spaghetti Amatriana)

Agnello, aglio e pompelmo rosa (Lamb, garlic and grapefruit)

Meringa, lampone e mou (Meringue, raspberry and caramel)

Piccola Pasticceria (Small pastry)

Cantina Tollo Trebbiano d’Abruzzo DOC 2008

Casal Thaulero Orsetto Oro Pecorino Terre di Chieti IGT 2012

Feudo Antico Rosato di Chieti IGT 2011

Nicodemi Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2011

Contesa Amir Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva 2007

Vini Nestore Bosco Pan Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC 2008

Ratafiá Praesidium liqueur

Pallotte cace e ove (Cheese and eggs balls)

Ravioli di burrata allo Zafferano de L’Aquila (Burrata cheese Ravioli with L’Aquila saffron)

Pettole al ragù di Ventricina (Pettole with Ventricina sausage sauce)

Battuta d’agnello croccante al timo su fonduta di pecorino (Crispy Lamb sausage with thyme on cheese fondue)

Pollo nostrano al vino cotto (Chicken cooked in wine)

Semifreddo al parrozzo (Parozzo semifreddo)

Cantina Zaccagnini San Clemente Montepulciano d’Abruzzo2009

Podere Castorani Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Majolica 2009

Di Sipio Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2007

Cordoni di Ancarano Pregio Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOCG 2006

Contesa Shirin Passito Rosso

Arancini di Riso e Ventricina (Ventricina sausage arancini)

Triglia in scapece espresso (Express scapece red mullet)

Gnocchi Lattuga di Mare, Calamari e Gamberi (Seaweed gnocchi with calamari and prawns)

Brodetto alla moda di San Salvo (San Salvo style fish soup)

Pizza Dolce Abruzzese (Abruzzo style sweet pizza)

Talamonti Trabocchetto IGT Pecorino 2012

Cantina Tollo IGT Pecorino 2012

Podere Castorani Amorino Abruzzo DOC Pecorino 2012

Ciavolich Aries IGT Pecorino 2012

Tenuta Feudo Antico Tullum DOP Bianco 2011

Tenuta i Fauri Ottobre Rosso Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC 2011

I Ceci di Navelli con quenelle di Baccala mantecato (Chickpeas of Navelli soup with quenelle of creamy codfish)

Scaglie di Baccalà con Olive Intosso e olio extravergine di Loreto Aprutino (Codfish shavings with Intosso Olives and Loreto Aprutino (PE) Extra-Virgin Oil)

Linguine (Pastificio Verrigni prodotta con grano Valentini) con scaglie di baccalà, Pomodorini e Capperi di Salina (Linguine pasta (Verrigni’s Pasta factory – Valentini’s wheat) with codfish shavings, cherry tomatoes and Salina capers)

Baccalà gratinato al forno con peperoni gialli e rossi arrostiti (Baked codfish gratin with roasted red and yellow peppers)

Pecorino di Vicoli con pane casereccio, olio e fave (Vicoli Pecorino cheese with homemade bread, oil and broad beans)

Il Parrozzo tipico pescarese adagiato su crema all Aurum (Traditional Parrozzo of Pescara served on Aurum cream)

Marramiero Anima Trebbiano d’Abruzzo DOC 2012

Angelucci Vini Travertine Moscatello Secco Colline Pescaresi IGT 2012

Casal Thaulero Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC “Thale” 2005

Nicodemi Neromoro Riserva Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOCG 2008

Angelucci Vini Moscatello di Castiglione Pescaresi IGT 2010