Welcome to August’s Observer Food Monthly – our restaurants special

Welcome to the restaurants issue, where we talk to the remarkable Selby brothers, the chefs at Evelyn’s Table, a 12-seat counter in the cellar of the famous Soho watering hole The Blue Posts. Now that word of their cooking has spread, booking a seat means you must be quick on the draw but you will be rewarded with not only extraordinary and original food but the chance to watch Luke, Nat and Theo in action.

One learns which influencers and restaurant critics to trust and which to ignore, but it is also good to have a recommendation from someone who spends time behind the stoves themselves. With this in mind we ask top chefs to tell us where they’ve been eating recently and, more specifically, places that are new on the map. Their suggestions run from oysters with buttermilk and elderberry in a bothy overlooking Loch Nell to red cabbage gazpacho above a jeweller’s shop in Lichfield.

Few cookbooks have been longer in the works than that of the much-loved chef Jeremy Lee. He has been teasing us with the idea that he was putting his recipes on the page for years, but good things are worth waiting for and OFM has a sneak peek of his new book, Cooking – Simply And Well, For One or Many. We have his recipe for hake with parsley and dill sauce, his signature anchovy toasts and a perfect puff pastry apple tart for you. As if that wasn’t enough, there is an interview with Sam and Sam Clark and recipes from their first new book in almost a decade, Moro Easy.

This month’s Life on a Plate is with broadcaster and author Anita Rani, and Jay Rayner makes a plea to restaurateurs everywhere to remember to feed the piano player.