"You Choose" — Tattu

Venue: Tattu, 18 Barwick Street, B3 2NT; website
Choice: Tuna yuzu ceviche (£11) Chooser: Waitress, Hannah

When new menus get launched, they can be difficult to distinguish from previous versions — with a single-ingredient change or a tweak in presentation being held out as a new dish. We don't waste your valuable reading time with these non-events. But to tell you about Tattu's Autumn menu just makes good plain sense. Of our four visits to the subterranean spot, this was our most ooh and aah worthy, with fun snacks like lotus chip mess (£7), a kimchi, edamame, bacon and sriracha topped take on nachos, making us beam, and a plethora of new tastes for the trying. Wok Fired Angry Bird (£16) was another smiler, with crispy fried chicken made all fine and classy by roasted bell peppers, cashews and just the right amount of herby roughage, presented in that pretty Tattu way. But the dish we learnt the most from was the tuna ceviche. We're confident chop-stickers who refuse cutlery whenever asked. But to try the constituent elements of this dish on their own did it no justice — it was only when we quietly asked for a spoon and got a hit of tuna, avo moosh, tomatoes, chives and citrusy yuzu goodness in one go that this dish elevated itself to the top spot. Continuing with this newfangled spoon-technique we realised how damn good Tattu is at sauces — the XO, green chilli and spring onion goo on which the soft shell crab sat being example number two, with the ginger and miso yum you'll find on the black cod (£31) requiring plate-scrapes. It was a photo finish between style and substance, so good looking is this restaurant but for the first time, substance took gold. Just.