Self-sufficiency can lead to many wonderful things, such as improving your health, saving the environment, and putting yourself in a position to where Felicity Kendal might handle your Perky Pinky. For a restaurant living the self-sufficient Good Life, try Platform, open today.

Started by two old cider-brewing buddies scribbling down plans on backs of tobacco packs, Platform sources many meats & veggies from a farm run by splendidly named co-owner Barnaby Butterfield, greatly assisting a mission to get food quickly from "gate to plate"; bedecked with wood floors, exposed brick walls, and huge windows, the two-floor affair's set under a London Bridge railway arch in a former strip club (they've kept the mirrorball), and everything's reclaimed, from the wooden furniture to a sound system and cctv once doomed to entertain the scrapyard. Food changes daily (sometimes throughout) in keeping with whatever comes off the farm, and what's left of it, as whole beasts are used, tail to snout; the opening menu has starters including pressed Dorset lamb w/ green lentils, beetroot-cured salmon w/ chive crème fraiche, and a risotto of broad bean & soft pea (if this condition persists, please consult your GP). Amongst the launch-day mains is a "Glouster Old Spot" pork/apple pie, stone bass fricassee, w/ braised baby gem and jus gras, and coq au vin w/ parsley mash & brussel tops, cooked a la "Mother Hubbard" -- also what Samuel L Jackson shouts in daytime broadcasts of Pulp Fiction.

Downstairs has a fully stocked bar (including the venue-inspiring cider) licensed till 3am, with house-made syrups/bitters/infused booze fueling old-school cocktails such as the circa-1786 "Black Chandelier" (grapefruit zest, sweet vermouth, Damson gin, picon), and the gin/ applejack/ lemon/ grenadine/ egg-white "Secret Cocktail", which dates back to pre-Prohibition -- the very era when last Richard Briers' Pinky was Perky.

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