For all intents and purposes, Gold is your classic people-pleaser. It will be a boujie pub if you want a boujie pub, a stylish modern European restaurant if you want a stylish modern European restaurant, and a classy place to share a bottle of organic primitivo with that somewhat tricky friend who believes grape manipulation is just so 2012. It can morph from lunch with a client and a single glass of orange wine, to a grown-up birthday dinner where walnut-topped salads and lamb gigot stretches into chocolate bitters old fashioneds after 11pm. Making people happy is in its nature. Gold’s attitude to all-round satisfaction begins on Portobello Road. The three-storey frontage has two large looming gold eyes and depending on your life choices, it’ll remind you of the Doctor T.J. Eckleberg billboard in The Great Gatsby or Dominic Cummings’ inherent passion for eye tests. The rest of your experience is a choose your own adventure. Pick between a light and modern conservatory with palm trees and a retractable roof, a sleek spritz-ready bar around the open kitchen, or an artfully rustic first-floor dining room with enough terracotta linen to be classed as a West Elm fever dream. Whichever sophisticated area you end up in, you’ll find the polite clinking of blood orange negronis and the same menu of seasonal tarted-up vegetables, zesty raw fish numbers, and hearty wood-roasted meat and whole fish dishes. Everything at Gold arrives with photo-ready presentation and the glistening sheen of olive oil. There’s roasted pear in the bellinis, Tuscan ham and radicchio on the burrata from the coyly simplified ‘cheese and charcuterie’ section, and enough wild oregano and porcini butter on the menu to give any Waitrose fans the shivers. But repeat after us: the fewer the commas, the better the dish. Like all people-pleasers, Gold sometimes goes a little too hard on the pomegranate jazz hands, but you can’t beat the simplicity of the creamy mushrooms on toast or the al dente bite of tender beef short rib agnolotti. If you’re in need of a spot that has given ‘pleasant pub’ a chic chargrilled squid facelift, then Gold is your guy. It’s open until late every night of the week, has a small suntrap roof terrace for the warmer months, and you can have a meal that feels showy enough for a special occasion for £60 per head. Just be sure to book way in advance for those peak dining hours because it’s permanently popular. What can we say? Everyone wants a people-pleaser in their life.