Story, London SE1, restaurant review Story 201 Tooley Street, London SE1 2UE Contact: 020 7183 2117 www.restaurantstory.co.uk Price: Six courses: £45 Ten courses: £65 Story is a cross between wide-windowed, futuristic apartment and timeless Swiss chalet near Tower Bridge; Tom Sellers is its headline young chef. The buzz is enough to make you go for all 10 courses (£65), which we did, even if you hate tasting menus, which I do. We did not regret it. There were amuse-bouches first, an army of them: cod skin with dots of cod roe (it looked just like a Tod's driving shoe, made of food; tasted wonderful); a nasturtium stuffed with oyster mayonnaise that was a miracle; a radish with kelp butter; 'and this is our famous rabbit sandwich,' said our waitress. Holy mother of not-swearing, it was amazing - the size of a cocktail sausage, shredded rabbit in the middle, a maizey carapace, scented with tarragon and with three particoloured slices of carrot, pickled in bergamot, across the top. The first course - poppy-seed sourdough with dripping - arrived as a leather envelope of bread, with a lit candle made of dripping and rapeseed oil (yes, really), gathering in the candle-holder as a dip. To the side were tiny cubes of pickled celery and braised veal tongue. My jury is out on the dripping, which I could practically live on in solid form, but, literally dripping, was too pungent. I felt as if I were licking a cow's artery. The cubes were dazzling, however. Next came burnt onion; I've sat through maybe a score of chefs trying to turn onion into an art form; this was something else. Burnt onion with the aroma of burnt butter (one of the most delicious things on earth) made the centrepiece, underneath which sat some caramelised onion. In a layer of onion, used like a bowl, were some teeny-weeny onions, pickled in beer, and somewhere in the mêlée was the sharp, insistent personality of a near-raw onion. A gin and apple consommé ran round the edge, underscoring the ageless inventiveness. It reminded me of that John Lewis advert with the whole life-cycle of a woman, except it was an onion. I thought I might start crying (and not because of all the onion). Scallops with cucumber, rolled in dill ash, was an eye-opener - not for the ash, though that gave a marvellous smoked flavour - but the slithery, raw scallop, which had all the flavour of a regular one but none of the heaviness. Mackerel with green strawberry came with chocolate mint - literally, a leaf that tastes of both chocolate and mint. 'I'm not sure if I like it,' said B, 'but I'm glad I discovered it.' The fish was astonishing - the waiter said they'd soused it themselves, in what I don't know - but it seemed to have had its unctuousness stripped out of it, leaving only a rich, deep flavour. Heritage potato was spiked with barley grass and asparagus, surrounded by coal oil. We spent ages working out whether that was 'kohl' or 'coal'. 'It's definitely coal,' B decided. What this place is lacking is some kind of implement for clearing your plate of sauce. Every dish, now, I've been forced into the indignity of wiping my finger across the plate.' Beetroot, raspberry and horseradish was like a deconstructed chrain, with the beets in dainty rounds, the horseradish as a snow, and raspberries complicating that age-old marriage like a revivifying threesome. I'm running out of space - we'll have to skip a couple. The lemon pudding - a creamy curd, a snow, some milk ice-cream - was zingy and smooth. The prunes came with a milk skin that I deplore. Otherwise, it is beyond faultless, in a territory of inventiveness that, like a dream, I wouldn't want to fault. Full of suits, mind. Tuddenham Mill High Street, Tuddenham, Suffolk (01638 713552) The £65 eight-course tasting menu served at this 18th-century mill, where the preserved water wheel juts majestically into the beamed dining-room, commences with 'pig and mix' (puffed pork scratchings and croquettes with chorizo jam). Asparagus gazpacho and Aylesbury snails follow. Fischer's Baslow Hall Calver Road, Baslow, Derbyshire (01246 583259) The kitchen garden of this elegant manor house provides all the baby radishes, turnips and onions that star in Rupert Rowley's nine-course Taste of Britain menu (£72). The finale is a fantastical chocolate tree-trunk. The Peat Inn St Andrews, Fife (01334 840206) This former coaching inn, with its three small and cosy dining-rooms, offers an exquisite six-course line-up (£65). First, an oyster panna cotta with cauliflower purée, then John Dory and clams. Finally, expect tangy grapefruit with white chocolate.