These restaurants represent my 3 favourite cuisines:

• Italian (it's in my genes!)
• Thai (because some like it hot)
• Indian (as well spicy and intense)

Pizza Express I found by accident, when I came to Notting Hill for the second time. The Churchill Arms Pub and the Dubar Tandoori Restaurant are recommendation I tested. And they were good.

Apart from the Indian restaurant, there might be better restaurants regarding quality, but going to my favourites in Notting Hill is more a ritual and a statement, how much I love this area where I live than anything else.

The Churchill Arms Pub is not just a great Thai restaurant to me. It's a ritual! The ritual of coming home. The first place I go to when I come back to London is the Churchill Arms Pub to have lunch. This is not just a great Thai restaurant with great food, great drinks, and a great atmosphere. This is the place, I know I'm back in Notting Hill - the home of my soul.

The Thai restaurant at Churchill Arms Pub dares to cook and serve their food really hot, if the recipe traditionally says so. You get all the awesome, authentic flavours of the famous Thai cuisine and a small wine menu with matching wines as well. Some of these wines are even marked vegan. The vegan sommelier inside of me jumps for joy! And of course, you can order your chosen dish as a vegan version.

This might be the way of time, but when I started eating at this Thai restaurant, the main dishes were priced slightly under a fiver. Today in 2022, prices have more than doubled, but the great quality remained the same.

One massive reason must be the COVID pandemic, which forced the owner to close the pub. When I came here last before the pandemic, prices were still slightly under GBP 10. Anyway, It's all well worth the money.

The wine selection and the menu was shortened a bit either.

When I started eating there, a main course was available for about a fiver. Now the prices have doubled, but it's still more than worth the money.

Here is the menu to download. Ask for a vegan version of any dish, and you'll get it. Vegan wines are marked on the menu, too.

This place is officially called one of the best Indian restaurants in the UK. There seems nothing like it, when it come to money for value eating Indian cuisine in London.

Back in the days I came here first, Indian beer was rarely available in Germany. I'm lucky to live in Düsseldorf, where an entire Indian family runs a couple of really great Indian restaurants in the inner city. There I had my first Kingfisher beer. Kobra beer was new to me at that time. I had my first Kobra beer here at the Durbar in the early 2000's, and I loved it straight away! I asked back in Düsseldorf, if they could import it to Germany, too. But this took them a couple of years.

From the early beginning of my visits, I had contact with Mr Sayed, the owner of the Dubar restaurant. In my early day he was working in the restaurant more frequently than today. He quickly realized, that I came there on regular basis - even if it was only once a year or less. So the custom evolved, he came out to greet me personally, when I came in for a visit. Such a lovely gesture!

Daniela was an old colleague and now an old friend of mine. We first met in Autumn 2000. We have worked in the same hotel and same office for a couple of years before she decided to work in London. Now, Daniela has a British Citizenship, and she is so proud of it.

Since she is living in London, we meet every time for dinner. Quickly we decided to make the Durbar Dinner a ritual for us, because Daniela loves Indian food, too.

Below you find a menu of the Durbar Tandoori Restaurant for download. Maybe this inspires you to come there, when you are in London next time. It's quite a delicious experience!

Pizza Express is a British restaurant chain offering all kinds of Italian food at a good value for money sceme. If you look out for Italian restaurants in London, it cam become expensive quickly. Italian fast food shops are mostly not bad to great. Pizza Express meets them all on the halfway with reliable, good standards. The atmosphere is nice, and the service is quick and friendly.

Something about 10 years ago, Pizza Express had a weak phase in their company history, when there was a visible lack of skills with some employees, cleanliness and management for awhile. But these days are gone.

Yeah, Pizza Express has jumped on the vegan train: Only a very few years have passed since Pizza Express decided to launch a completely vegan menu, that is offered with the regular menu for each guest. An entire website for their vegan line was set up, and Pizza Express offers some of their products in UK supermarkets, too.

The pizzas of Pizza Express are always a feast for the eyes, too. This is such a huge advantage for a restaurant chain. I always loved them. To be honest: about all that great pizza, I have rarely ordered a pasta dish in all these years I have been frequenting Pizza Express. This does not mean, the pasta at Pizza Express is not good. It's definately good, but I go there to have awesome pizza, not pasta of a salad. One favourite I almost always order, is the Pinot Grigio Blush, a blanc de noir from Pinot Grigio. Pink fits almost everywhere here.

If you are in London next time, you may give my recommendations a try? If not, Notting Hill is so packed of interesting and good quality restaurants, you will surely find your place to stay and become happy and well fed. Cheers!