Light my fire
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Your support makes all the difference.Toast your toes and warm your cockles while you eat at places with a roaring fire - and not necessarily the country pubs you'd expect.
Toast your toes and warm your cockles while you eat at places with a roaring fire - and not necessarily the country pubs you'd expect.
Anglesea Arms, 35 Wingate Road, London W6 (020-8749 1291). Food daily, lunch and dinner. A popular spot of rus in urbe in a Hammersmith backwater. Eat in the dining room beside the open kitchen at the back, or find a coveted place on a chesterfield in front of the log fire. Endlessly inventive and hearteningly rustic food at pub prices - starters £4-£7, mains £7-£10 - and no bookings mean getting a seat can be a challenge. There are well-chosen wines, and ales.
Bell's Diner, 1 York Road, Bristol (0117 924 0357). Mon dinner, Tue-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat dinner. The fireplace is the first thing you see when you enter this popular restaurant in a Victorian former grocer's. Few people realise it's actually gas-fired, so convincing and welcoming is the glow. You can come back to have coffee by the fire after eating in the adjoining dining rooms. Cooking is gratifying and confident modern British - £20 for three courses without drink.
Feng Sushi, 13 Stoney Street, London SE1 (020-7407 8744). Mon-Fri 12-10pm, Sat 12-4pm. Feng shui can't be all phooey if it includes a cracking log fire to send out the right signals, in of all places, a sushi bar. This good-looking little Japanese-style diner right by Borough Market has the benefit of two fireplaces and stacks of wood to feed them. Sushi selections from £6.50 to £15 for the giant 22-piece box; noodle dishes from £5 to £10. There are high bench tables and stools to eat by the fire, and a brisk takeaway trade.
Mangal II, 4 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 (020-7254 7888). Daily 12-1am. A shining example of the Turkish ocakbasi restaurants common to north-east London. Skewers of meat are expertly and aromatically tended over a coal barbecue. For a close-up of the cooking there are hot seats for eight people at the counter across the glowing grill from the chef. Start with meze, move on to the succulent grills and finish with sticky cakes and creamy puddings, all for around £15.
The Metropolitan, 2 Lapwing Lane, West Didsbury, Greater Manchester (0161 374 9559). Food daily 12-9.30pm. Baronial Victorian pub, stripped down to bare boards and furnished with rugs, mismatched tables and chairs and cases of books; to wit, a civilised, spacious place. Eat anywhere in three large rooms each with a working fireplace or in the restaurant, warmed by a cast-iron stove. Food costs from £4.95 for a Cajun chicken sandwich to £12.95 for fillet steak. Good beers as well as wines.
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