If you have no time to buy the sesame oil, or indeed the flour, Gallery Rendezvous in Beak Street, one of the very few northern Chinese restaurants in London, serves a correctly prepared Peking duck which needs no advance ordering.

It also offers the commonplace crispy deep-fried duck but those scratchings pale in significance beside slices of juicy duck meat edged by golden, lacquered skin. Half a Peking duck - plenty for two people - is �15. The pancakes served seemed like all other Chinese restaurant pancakes. You could always astonish the management by bringing your own.

Other Northern Chinese items to try are the grilled pork dumplings, smoked fish (a cold first course), onion pancakes and a soft noodle assembly such as noodles with shredded pork and celery. With the duck as centrepiece nothing else except perhaps some Chinese greens is needed. Gallery Rendezvous, established in 1968, with its old-fashioned decor featuring framed calligraphy, has a pleasing air of gravitas. Staff are helpful and dignified.

I remember the restaurant with particular affection for the following surreal exchange conducted many years ago. Me: "Is the Gewurztraminer chilled?" Waiter: "Yes, but we don't have any".

(Evening Standard)