More Westerners looking eastwards

Here are some more restaurants with an Asian feel...

BAM-BOU, 1 Percy Street, W1 (020 7323 9130) £36. When Danish Mogens Tholstrup sold his fashionable restaurant group to the owners of Belgo and Pizza Express, this evocative, romantically decorated Indo-Chinese restaurant was part of the package. Theming is paramount - Graham Greene's The Quiet American could have been filmed here - which is never so beneficial when applied to cooking.

ITSU, 118 Draycott Avenue, SW3 (020 7584 5522) £30. Out of Pret A Manger sprang Itsu - sushi for people who think raw fish is a bit icky. The dishes that chug around the conveyor belt are geared to a Western (and South Ken) sensibility but, even so, many are delectable. Dinky salads with strident flavours are just what is wanted in the area. Sashimi and hand-rolls can be created to order.

KEN LO'S MEMORIES OF CHINA, 67-69 Ebury Street, SW1 (020 7730 7734) £50. The late Ken Lo was conscious of needing to please Western palates. Current owner, A-Z Restaurants, carries on the style with a recent revamp of the premises to encourage its buoyant trade. When someone says this is the best Chinese food in London, you suspect that he or she knows little about the cuisine.

JIM THOMPSON'S, 617 King's Road, SW6 (020 7731 0999) £30. Named after the American who opened up the Thai silk industry to the wider world - and then mysteriously disappeared - the look of this first in a chain spreading through London's 'burbs is suitably beguiling. Should you be doing-up your home, note that most of the artefacts are for sale. Food is trashily likeable Thai.

RIVER WALK RESTAURANT, second floor, Oxo Tower, Barge House Street SE1 (020 7928 2884) £40. A menu relaunch at this newish venture with value-added river view takes it pan-Asian.

It is presumably hoped that the universal popularity of salt-and-pepper squid, vegetable laksa, crispy duck breast, steamed sea bass with ginger and lacquered baby back ribs will crowd it like the adjoining Bar & Grill.

All prices estimate the cost of a meal with wine for one.