Manuka Kitchen, Fulham Road, London.

As foodies and health neurotics will tell you, manuka is a kind of super-honey, honey with magical healing properties. There was a buzz of excitement about it four years ago, when it was claimed that its antiviral and antibacterial wonderfulness meant it can heal flesh wounds: when you've finished spreading it on your toast you can smear it on your hurt finger. It comes from a single source – the bees that pollinate manuka trees in New Zealand's East Cape region – and costs a bloody fortune.

At Manuka Kitchen, I expected to see the stuff all over the menu. But apart from a single appearance on the crème brûlée, manuka honey doesn't feature at all. The owners seem to have chosen the name simply to suggest a) Kiwi influences in the kitchen, b) some healing effects and c) a hefty outlay of money. The chef, Tyler Martin, is indeed a Kiwi, from New Plymouth on the north island, and the restaurant that he and his Lebanese business partner, Joseph Antippa, have just opened does bring balm to the soul – but without it costing the earth.

It's situated in Fulham, close to Stamford Bridge FC: excellent, of course, for the passing trade on Saturday afternoons when Chelsea are playing at home, although Tyler's rabbit-and-venison-sausage rigatoni is unlikely to attract rank-and-file football fans. Maybe just as well since they have only 22 covers. The décor is minimal: tiny wood tables, terracotta tiles, plain white walls with dangling green lamps. You can see into the kitchen, which is the same size as the dining area and isn't a pretty sight: dirty white tiles, messy sink, too much greasy realism. But Tyler and Joseph are on a tight budget. They've opened their restaurant with their own funds and without bank or City loans, so the 'minimalism' and grubbiness aren't style choices but the product of financial necessity.

Read more at http://www.independent.co.uk