It's always the same story: So many restaurants, so much great food, so little time. The Food File never has enough columns in a year to feature all of the excellent places we've enjoyed over the past 12 months. So, quickly, before we get sidetracked on pouring the mulled wine and carving the turkey, here are just some of the many dinners that we couldn't fit into previous columns. And, as always, our warmest compliments of the holiday season to one and all. Good health and good eating in the year to come.

With all due respect to the superb new restaurants by Alain Ducasse (Beige and Benoit) and Gordon Ramsay (eponymous at the Conrad Tokyo), the highlight of the year has to be Pierre Gagnaire's arrival in Omotesando. Occupying the upper floor of the striking, new Minami-Aoyama Square Building, right opposite Prada, Pierre Gagnaire a Tokyo is intimate in scale, luxurious in feel and suitably weighty on the pocketbook. Open barely three weeks now, reservations are still at a premium, so we've not yet tasted for ourselves whether it is every bit as brilliant as Gagnaire's Michelin-three-starred restaurant in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. That pleasurable assignment awaits -- in fact it's top of our list of New Year resolutions.

Pierre Gagnaire a Tokyo, Minami-Aoyama Square Bldg. 4F, 5-3-2 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku; tel: (03) 5466-6800; www.pierre-gagnaire.jp; nearest station: Omotesando.