• Neil Sowerby
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I grow my own, brave the kitchen heat and know my woozy way around a wine list. Welcome to my post-lockdown world…

You may call it a blog if you must. It’s certainly a change of direction I’ve been putting off through years of journalistic hyper-activity. The lockdowns have made me reassess the food and drink I really care about. I feel refreshed and free of restraint. Even so. Please excuse the solipsistic sounding neilsowerby.co.uk. It’s not just about me. More the discoveries I want to share. Read more…

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Mountain bread that rules two nations – House of Habesha’s Injera levels are high

Giles Coren famously wrote that he’d walk to Manchester barefoot in the rain for one more mouthful of Simon Rogan’s chopped raw rib-eye in coal oil at The French. That was amazingly a decade ago and, to put it kindly, his return visits…

Polyspore: I came on a mushroom quest and stumbled upon the beetles as new number one act

It was the start of a voyage of discovery that took in cultivating my own King Blue mushrooms and encountering bizarrely beautiful beetles in a former iron foundry, the complexities of the World Wood Web and the future of insects as our planet’s…
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Hail Caesar’s salad days in downtown Tijuana… but don’t spare the Roquefort and Parmegiano

Beware sweeping put-downs. “All border towns bring out the worst in people.” The words of Mexican detective Vargas, hero of Orson Welles’ classic film noir, A Touch of Evil, which is set (though not filmed there) in a widescreen approximation…

Wild about wasp yeast after a honeyed epiphany at Indy Man Beer Con

Ensō is an old Zen word meaning "a circle that is hand-drawn in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes to express a moment when the mind is free to let the body create".  That’s how I almost felt tasting beer with that name at the recent…
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What an Exhibition! Basque, Brazilian and Scandi fodder plus a beer offering to raise the dead

While we await the eventual unveiling of a Manchester Town Hall fit for 21st century purpose we can welcome Exhibition bar/food hall, a more modest repurposing of a nearby building on Museum Street that is part of the rich heritage of the city…
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Up close to the culinary alchemy of Eddie Shepherd, Chef of the Year

Is it fanciful to judge chefs from the books on their restaurant shelves? Obviously there to make a statement. True, what they put on the plate is paramount, but any committed artist is in part the sum of their influences. Take the wondrous…
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