, ,

Random reads – my recommended books of 2024 (and a reminiscence)

I make no apology for kicking off my books of 2024 round-up with the reissue of a  foodie classic first published in 1950 – a time when we weren’t deluged with cookbooks from every corner of the globe and olive oil and garlic weren’t a staple of our national diet. Alongside it a history of that same English food, whose riches have rarely been given their just recognition…

A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (Grub Street, £14.99 reissue) and The English Table by Jill Norman (Reaktion, £17.95)

For nigh on 30 years my most cherished foodie keepsake was a browning programme from Elizabeth David’s memorial service on September 10, 1992. The great and the good of the food world were in attendance inside St Martin-in-the-Fields. Plus me taking a break from the very different world of Robert Maxwell’s Daily Mirror to honour the great cookery writer, credited with introducing grey Post-War Britain to the sun-dowsed delights of Mediterranean and French cuisine.

Still today a standard-bearer for her values, Jeremy Lee was also in attendance, as a young chef. When he came up to Manchester to guest at Bistrotheque in Ducie Street Warehouse the dinner’s theme? Why, Elizabeth David as Muse! Alas, I took that precious memento to show Jeremy and somewhere on the way home I mislaid it.

A hardback version of her debut, A Book of Mediterranean Food, has not been available for decades (my dog-eared Penguin paperback is from 1975), but facsimile specialists Grub Street have remedied that and, with its original John Minton illustrations, this reissue would make a lovely Christmas present for a new generation.

Just a little taster from it, on Greek meze: “Your feet almost in the Aegean as you drink your ouzou; boys with baskets of little clams or kidonia (sea quince) pass up and down the beach and open them for you at your table; or the waiter will bring you large trays of olives, dishes of atherinous (tiny fried fish like our whitebait), small pieces of grilled octopus…”

Remember this was a pre-package holiday era when such travel was generally the preserve of an elite. She feels the need to explain meze as similar to hors d’oeuvre.

At that distant memorial service, Jill Norman, editor of both Ms David and Jane Grigson, gave an oration. She quoted from the author’s anthology, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine: “Came 1846 the year that Mr Alfred Bird brought forth custard powder, and Mr Bird’s brainchild grew and grew until all the land was covered with custard made with custard powder, and the trifle had become custard’s favourite resting place.”

Jill Norman’s new book
Elizabeth David – legend

It is proof that in her later years Elizabeth David (wryly) researched our own native food culture and Jill Norman has followed in her footsteps with some distinction. The English Table is her own contribution to British food history. It’s a crowded field, mind, going back to the days of Dorothy Hartley and Florence White and, more recently, Pen Vogler and Diane Purkiss… plus Manchester-based Dr Neil Buttery, who conducted a fascinating recent interview with Jill on his British Food History podcast.

Now 84, she has taken on a big task to compress a couple of millennia’s worth of food-related social history into some 250 pages. She is ferociously well-read but recognises that in earlier times printed recipes were rarely representative of what most folk ate. In her final chapter she briefly addresses contemporary issues of ultra-processed foods and the need for biodiversity (insect-based anyone?).

A swell of local pride for me when she promotes Incredible Edible, the hands-on  community growing movement that started in my home town of Todmorden 15 years ago. Back to basics is a good mantra to have.

‘Diana Henry’s debut’ reissued
A vintage taste of the sun

Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry (Octopus, £26) and Dinner by Meera Sodha (Penguin Fig Tree, £27) xx

Another welcome reissue, this time from the 21st century. Diana Henry lacks the high profile of a Nigella or a Jamie but through nine books and a her Daily Telegraph column has been quietly influential. Crazy Water was her 2002 debut, where she acknowledges the influence of Claudia Roden (another Jill Norman signing) in her own incursions into Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavours. She is rightly fascinated by evocative names; ‘crazy water’ is an Italian dish of sea bass poached in  a salty, garlicky broth by the fishermen of the Amalfi coast. Pungent flavours in the recipes are matched by the piquancy of her traveller’s tales. Ms David would surely have approved.

Meera Sodha’s secret malady
And the book that came out of it

Meerha Sodha is familiar from her own weekly column in The Guardian’s Food supplement – the New Vegan. Her first two award-winning books sprang from her family’s diaspora – they fled from Uganda to less exotic Lincolnshire, where she was born and learned to cook Indian at her mother’s side.

The award-winning Mother India and Fresh India are among the most thumbed through, stained volumes on my kitchen shelves, The fourth, Dinner, continues the plant-based trajectory of follow-up East, offering 120 user-friendly recipes celebrating ‘the most important meal of the day”. That gives a clue to the once hidden, personal calamity at the book’s heart. To quote her chilling Dinner introduction: “A couple of years ago, I lost my love for food. I didn’t want to shop. I didn’t want to cook. I ate for necessity, not pleasure.”

Well, all of us food obsessives have had these days? No, this was true depression,, a can’t het out of bed breakdown – payback time for her over-zealous rise as a food writer. Heart-warming is the way she fought back finally when, realising her husband was himself cracking up after supporting her, she cooked a dinner that brought the family together. This book is a record of how each evening she  rediscovered cooking for pleasure. The pleasure is now ours. This is genuine comfort food to batten down the hatches with against a hostile, demanding world.

An inspired Thai follow-up
The much-travelled Austin Bush

The Food of Southern Thailand by Austin Bush (Norton, £35) and The Book of Pintxos by Marti Buckley (Artisan, £30)

Two very different writers who have settled in a distant country and charted its cuisine in minute but vital detail. Both happen to be American – Bush from Oregon, Buckley from Alabama. Bush has contributed hyperactively to Lonely Planet and rival guides to South Eastern Asia, but until this year his magnum opus was The Food of Northern Thailand (2018). Based in that country and a fluent Thai speaker, he has now followed it up with The Food of Southern Thailand, spotlighting  a cuisine more familiar to Western holidaymakers on the surface, but Bush’s expeditions carry him far beyond Phuket resorts’ green curries ands pad thais. It is a visual revelation, too. His photography skills capture the vividness of diverse dishes such as Pork Braised with Soy Sauce, Pepper and Brown Sugar; a Rice Salad with Budu Dressing; a Spicy Dip of Smoked Shrimp; and Simmered Black Sticky Rice with Taro and Jackfruit. Chinese, Malay and Muslim cuisines come together in one cultural melting pot. 

Marti Buckley
Her definitive pintxos guide

Marti Buckley has been based in Donastia (local name for San Sebastián) for over a decade and I used her debut food volume, Basque Country as a guidebook on a walking tour of that gastronomically rich region. Pintxos dives even deeper via the Basques’ small plate answer to tapas. Rich social history sits on the counter alongside some alluring recipes; I’m taking this one with me on my next trip. Not that I’ll be ordering my pdet phobia, Russian salad. Sorry, Marti.

Loch Fyne and its ruined castle

Between Two Waters by Pam Brunton (Canongate, £20) and Ultra-processed People by Chris van Tulleken Penguin, £10.99pb)

The main image for this article is the view across Loch Fyne from Inver to the ruins of Old Castle Lachlan. It’s lifted from this unique restaurant’s Facebook page. It’s always difficult to illustrate a book review article beyond a parade of covers. On the Inver site alongside a delectable food shot I was struck by this quote from chef patron Pam Brunton:

“The fish and the artichokes grew up a few miles from the restaurant. The sauce –made from the smoked bones of the fish and seaweed from nearby waters – is spiked with exotica from landscapes further away: verbena berries and fragrant bergamot juice, lifting the mellow autumnal umami. The crispy artichoke skins rustle like leaves in cold sunshine. Hardly post anything about food anymore – every time I come on here I’m consumed myself by thoughts of war and political collapse.”

Can’t imagine Nigella Lawson coming out with that, but then she would never have published Between Two Waters. It’s both a memoir of how Pam and her partner created their remote restaurant a decade ago, challenging punters’ expectations and not compromising on their ideals, and a rallying cry, tirade in parts, against how ‘Big Food’ has damaged the way we farm and cook and eat, severed our connection with nature. 

A former philosophy student, she name-checks Descartes and Locke along the way as she lays into salmon farming, the grouse shooting industry and much, much more. She’s proud about buying organic and local, and Inver’s Michelin Green Star for prioritising sustainability. Sounds preachy? No it’s one of the most timely and important food books of recent years, tender and down to earth to when she explores her family roots in Dundee, rhapsodical about the staples of Scottish peasant cuisine. Just don’t get her started on the Highland Clearances.

Medic turned author Chris van Tulleken (above) took his crusade against ultra-processed foods and the damage they do onto BBC 2 the other night. 

“This was explained to me by a scientist who works in the food industry,” reported  Van Tulleken. “I said ‘but if I’m making a chocolate brownie at home, surely it is basically the same as one I buy in the shop?’ And he explained there are two really important differences. Firstly, the shop-bought one will use much more fat, salt and sugar.”

“The second difference is the shop-bought one will use additives which we don’t at home – these are ingredients that aren’t available to us – different fats and sweeteners, emulsifiers, stabilisers, colourings and flavourings.”

Such products are geared to engaging your appetites commercially, while neglecting your health. Not that the the oafish Rod Little, reviewing it in The Sunday Times, was convinced. Conspiracy theories he hinted at. The food industry is obviously keen to downplay what academic research compiled by Dr Chris has indicated. It scared the life out of me. Just buy the book and you may be too.

Jill Norman’s n

One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine by Pascaline Lepeltier (Mitchell Beazley, £45) and Perry: A Drinker’s Guide by Adam Wells (CAMRA, £17.99pb)

I first encountered Pascaline Lepeltier when she wrote a foreword for (and contributed greatly to) Alice Feiring’s groundbreakingThe Dirty Guide to Wine in 2017, the ultimate terroiriste manifesto. Now Anjou-born, Chenin championing master sommelier Pascal has produced her own erudite overview, challenging pre-conceived ideas. US-based Pascaline also had a background in philosophy and her book ranges across botany, ecology, geology, how perception works in judging wines, the language of wine. It’s a unique work of synthesis, but never dry. Or should that be sec?

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Wells about apple cider’s often neglected country cousin. The mission of Perry is to change all that. I described it as “a hugely evocative beacon of hope that manages to be more celebration than elegy. It’s a wonderful, revelatory read.” It has also added to my drinks bill as I’ve striven to fill the gaps in my knowledge. A trip to the orchards of Herefordshire was particularly fruitful. Do read about my adventures and check out the thoughts of Adam. Last word with him: “Great perry takes consummate care and attention. Which is all the more reason to celebrate the remarkable fact that it even exists.”

The Brandenburg Gate
Border guards on the alert

Vertigo by Harald Jähner (WH Allen, £25) and Borderlines by Lewis Bastion (Hodder Press, £25)

The history of 20th century Europe continues to fascinate me. Aftermath was Harald Jähner’s eye-opening account of ‘Life in the Fall-out from the Second World War’, where he retraced a decade of ruins and restoration in his native Germany. More ambitiously, with Vertigo, he tackles the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic between the debacle of the Great War and the rise of Hitler. It’s more than just Cabaret decadence; a wealth of research reveals a society rich in innovation but wracked by internecine strife. The redrawing of borders after 1918 contributed to major tensions across Europe. In his quirky but sobering travelogue fellow political historian Lewis Bastion journeys to 29 key European borders to question what national/racial identity is all about it. Historical, it couldn’t feel more topical.

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate, £16.99) and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking £16.99)

Colm Tóibín now ranks among the Irish literary greats and Long Island, his sequel to Brooklyn, was ‘eagerly anticipated’ in this household, but disappointed us both. Neither of us either can see what the fuss is about Sally Rooney, so Intermezzo was never likely to make my stocking. Step forward Sligo’s ever-surprising  Kevin Barry and his wild western tale of lovers on the run in 1890s Montana. Opium-raddled wastrel Tom Rourke and mail order bride with a past Polly Gillespie high-tail it out of a mining town with a saddle pack full of dollars and a price on their head. Plot and language are as leftfield lyrical and inventive as ever. I love the pure Barry blarney of “Tom Rourke salted the eggs unambiguously”.

Since her 1998 debut novel Amy and Isabelle Elizabeth Strout has ploughed a very different literary furrow exploring the separate but eventually interlinking lives of two protagonists, Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, one a cantankerous schoolmarm, the other a New York based writer, scarred by a poverty-stricken childhood in Illinois. Their parallel lives, and all involved with them, interlock finally in small town Maine. Strout mines a rare richness out of theconnections. Classic.

/by
,

Go with the flow – a delicious Dordogne foodie journey

Pilgrimages are not uncommon in the Dordogne. The region is on a main Camino de Santiago route and has boasted its own essential holy stop-off for 1,000 years, Rocamadour. My quest was of a more earthly nature – to discover if French food really is a shadow of its former self. Rivals Spain and Scandinavia, with their own different approaches, have stolen much of its culinary thunder in recent years, while Italian produce fills everyone’s  larders.

Surely the Dordogne, bastion of regional tradition, built on foundations of foie gras, confit and every speciality you can squeeze out of a walnut, would uphold the reputation of La Belle France (even if for a substantial period of its history it was ruled by England)?

It certainly has sublime terroir on its side, yet as it turned out the most interesting meal of the trip was served in a dull street in Brive-la-Gaillarde – what counts as a big city in this agricultural region, its airport the gateway to places more immediately touristique. We flew in from Stansted with Ryanair.

The historic Maison Fabri
Local champion Adrien Castagné’

Martel’s Lionhearted legacy

Half an hour’s drive south, this is a harmonious melange of pale stone and red tiles, restaurants and cafes clustering around the rustically timbered 18th century market halle. Facing it is our introduction to the local cuisine, a bistro called Le Petit Moulin.

Chef/patron Adrien Castagné’s mission is to celebrate local products. Even the wine we taste is from his own family vineyard – an organic Cahors. It’s softened by Merlot but is mostly Malbec, a reminder the grape existed long before Argentina monopolised it. Of course, for starters I had to order a tranche of the family foie gras and it was sensationally creamy.

Across the cobbled square sits the turreted Maison Fabri, where in 1183 Henry Curtmantle, estranged elder son of Henry II, perished of a fever, thus speeding Richard The Lionheart to the throne of England and the rest is history, as they say. Hard to credit mellow Martel with such a turbulent past but that’s the reason the Dordogne features so many castles on crags.

Rocamadour is imposing
Miracle-working Madonna

Rocamadour – it’s a bit steep

Even the Cité Réligieuse of Rocamadour is a cliffhanging fortified site, scaled by 216 calf-stretching steps called the ‘Grand Escalier’. Hard to credit that medieval pilgrims used to mount it on their hands and knees. Today’s funicular cut into the hillside was sorely tempting, but that rich lunch had to be worked off.

Out of season is the best time to visit the complex of seven sanctuaries, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which attracts 1.5 million visitors a year. The big draw is the miracle-working, walnut-sculpted Madonna in the Chapelle Notre Dame. Tourist emporia tat aside, the whole Rocamadour experience is spectacular, if a mite spurious. A sanctified fourth century hermit called Amadour is the alleged founder but he may well just be one of those Dark Ages figments.

The hotel’s riverside terrace
Michelin chef Chambon

A rural retreat with a Michelin star

Rocamadour is not a place to seek out Michelin-starred dining. For that drive 20 minutes north west to the Pont de l’Ouysse. This quietly chic four star hotel, in the same family for five generations, is as delightful as its situation, alongside a ruined bridge (hence the name) over tributary of the Dordogne River. From my room terrace I looked on the perched castle of Belcastel (main image above) to the sound of the rippling stream.

Chef Stéphane Chambon and his brother Matthieu, front of house, worked across the globe before returning to take over this stalwart one-star establishment from their father Daniel. It is not cutting edge bells and whistles, mind. Stéphane’s focus is on extracting the maximum flavour from some seriously fine raw materials. A duck carpaccio oozing a walnut dressing sets the pattern for a beautifully balanced dinner. My only regret was that Stéphane’s celebrated Hare Royale wasn’t among the mains. Note that this establishment is open only from April to early November.

Walnut crusher Charlie
An ancient grindstone

A cracking time in Walnut Central

Both here in the river valley and further north in the Perigord Noir, around Sarlat, walnut trees dominate the landscape, as they always have. So valuable was the oil in medieval times it was used as currency, its health-giving properties have been equally treasured and in 2002 it was granted AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) status, protecting its authenticity and quality. 

It’s the traditional mills, strung out along the Route de la Noix and serviced by some 40 sq km of orchards, that really benefit. We popped in on the tiny Moulin de Maneyrol, where Charlie Le Gallo presses award-winning artisanal oils after crushing with traditional grindstones.

Elsewhere, around Sarlat, the walnut products, (like the foie gras too) are manufactured on a more industrial scale. I enjoyed walnut cakes and breads but walnut wines and liqueurs weren’t really for me – even from the celebrated Distillerie Denoix in their historic Brive premises.

The Lanterns des Morts
A Sarlat foie gras stall

Towering mystery of Sarlat’s Lanterne des Morts

Sarlat-la-Caneda, to give it its full title, is much more bustling than of yore. On our visit in-season asparagus and strawberries joined the inevitable walnut oil, confit, magret de canard and foie gras in all its guises on market stalls beefed up for a ‘Festival du Terroir’. 

Yet stray beyond the Place de la Liberté and surrounding lanes and Sarlat still charms. Behind the Bishop’s Palace you’ll find the curious, bullet-shaped Lanterne des Morts tower, built in the 12th century. Purpose? Lost in the mists. Its lawn was a perfect spot for my baguette of torched foie gras and a local craft beer.

The centre is full of eye-catching buildings, notably the narrow French Renaissance masterpiece, the Hotel de Maleville and the gabled, mullioned Maison de la Boetie, once home to the humanist poet Etienne de la Boetie, bosom buddy of the great Michel de Montaigne. For a full view of the medieval cityscape, with its signature ‘lauze’ heavy limestone roof slabs, take the ‘Ascenseur Panoramique’ a glass-sided lift built into a church tower.

And then I fell for ‘sleeping beauty’ Collonges

All was redeemed next day at Collonges-la-Rouge, prime contender for most beautiful village in the region. Swamped in high season, obviously, but even then manages an odd bucolic serenity, its sandstone houses and remaining towers glowing rosily among meadows and orchards.

It is so beautifully preserved because its original raison d’etre, wine, was scuppered by the 1880s phylloxera vive bug epidemic and it all fell into a long sleep until the Sixties when forward-looking souls rescued it from further dilapidation.

Among those saviours was the Breuil family, who run Le Cantou in the heart of the hamlet. Camille Breuil’s parents converted the family home into an inn in 1961 just as tourism was starting to develop; she took over in 1985 and steered it towards gourmet dining. Now it’s being handed on to the next generation.

After perhaps the best foie gras starter of the trip my main of lamb sweetbreads was divine, washed down with a classic Cahors red, Chateau Pineraie, on ther vine-shaded terrace.

Spectacular La Roque-Gazac
Formal Marqueyssac

Relax on the river at La Roque-Gageac

La Roque-Gageac battle Collonges for loveliest village plaudit. It is very different, its ochre houses spectacularly set into a cliff on the north bank of the Dordogne. Alas, the road that separates village from river is invariably rammed with tourist traffic. Do as we did and book a lazy 55 minute trip downstream on a motorised replica of the Dordogne’s traditional ‘Gabares’ river boats. The more energetic could hire a canoe and take in the village spectacle from the opposite bank.

Actually the most stunning view is from the high belvedere of Les Jardins de Marqueyssac a couple of miles away. Walk through a maze of 150,000 topiary boxwood trees, surrounding a rather modest 17th century chateau (its castle neighbours are all more monumental). Beyond the peacock-haunted formal gardens you’ll be rewarded with vertiginous views of La Roque-Gageac, the river and a landscape dotted with Chateaux – Fayrac, Beynac and Castelnaud (whose owners restored Marqueyssac).

The region does deal in the spectacular but it dances to a quieter beat in towns such as Terrasson-Lavilledieu with its Romanesque stone bridge across the Vézère or villages such as Curemonte with its niche drinks offerings – ‘straw’ wine and dandelion liqueur, best sipped on the ridge with a view of the picture-perfect hamlet. 

Brive’s market setting up
En Cuisine rolled carpaccio

Marvellous market day in Brive-la-Gaillarde

No one would call Brive picturesque, but I loved walking into its well-preserved centre at breakfast time just as they were setting up the market, live chicken stall and all. The Marché Georges Brassens in the Place de de la Guierle is called as the droll Fifties chanson singer, who name-checked the town in a 1952 song, Hécatombe, about a market brawl. 

Open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays it’s a more laidback place, give or take a spot of haggling. Workaday rather than Sarlatesque touristique, it is a reminder of the splendid fresh produce the French take for granted.

If that was a clincher for traditions being upheld, our dinner destination was proof that open-minded chefs exist too to take advantage. Maybe Nicolas Eche would baulk at a ‘fusion’ tag, but the menu at his bistro En Cuisine is not afraid to add exotic spice to its market-driven raw materials and yet also here are French classics, pig’s trotters and ris de veau, delicately deconstructed versions. The wine list supports regional wines that often go under the radar in the UK. A red Pécharmant Les Hauts de Corbiac was the perfect accompaniment to both my Limousin beef carpaccio with herring eggs and  a main of ‘Veau, bas carré confit et grillé  legumes du moment, curry vert, royale de moelle’. 

So veal ‘several ways’, seasonal veg but with bone marrow and a Thai-inspired green curry. France still rules – with a little assistance from the global marketplace, naturellement.

/by
,

Instagram glam and serious grub are not odd bedfellows. Discuss!

It’s beginning to feel a lot ike Christmas, Bring on the twinkly lights and the cocktails. Fun as well as food is part of the festive feast…

‘Parallel universes’ spring to mind. The restaurant and chef of the year shortlists for the recent This Is Manchester Awards had only a single nomination in common with similar categories in the Manchester Food and Drink Awards, whose results will be announced in January. 

That was Skof with its profile hard to ignore. At the helm Tom Barnes, who ran the 3 Michelin starred L’Enclume for Simon Rogan. Yet even this seems an afterthought on a list majoring in fancy venues. Take your pick of the other restaurants from 20 Stories, Australasia, EastZeast, Fazenda, Fenix, MAYA, MUSU, Ribeye, San Carlo Alderley Edge, The Ivy Spinningfields.

Skof can’t be accused of such flash, rehashing that old bare brick/post-industrial trope. Another recent incomer Blacklock the chops specialist follows that interior template too as they bid to ‘fit into’ Mancunia.

A piece of Mykonos in Manchester
Beware Greeks bearing chocs

The Manc Mykonos – Fenix rising 

The boot, spangly, on the other foot, step forward Fenix as ‘Leading Restaurant (Formal)’. Yes formal can include a shimmeringly glam take on some Mykonos windmills of the mind, featuring curvy, sea cave surfaces, an ‘olive tree’ and lighting that glows like an Aegean sunset in the bar, while the upstairs restaurant boasts “ash-toned driftwood dining chairs paired with decadent marble tables and refined tableware.” 

Still I don’t have insurmountable issues with that choice. Across three visits I have had some outstandingly good refined Greek food. And the cocktail offering is playfully mythic. I’d recommend Heracles’ Eighth Trial.

Louis’s swanky interior
Their signature breaded mussels

It also shared (strangely since it opened last November) the ‘Outstanding Debut of the Year’ award with Sexy Fish, which I’ve visited twice for cocktail and fine wine related dinners. Yes, that fantasy on the former Armani site is all about Instagrammable piscine pzazz. but I didn’t feel a fish out of water. It was fun with some fine Japanese-inspired food, even if it lags behind the menu at nearby three AA rosette MUSU (or KAJI as it has morphed into, still lavishly glam, too, even when promoting fire-based cooking as one element, 

Still this is a shark eat shark world in the tussle for the glitzy dollar. Leaving aside Sexy Fish’s relentless stablemate The Ivy, the golden touch, homegrown at that, seems currently to belong to the Jones Brothers.Trading as the Permanently Unique Group, Adam and Drew have already successfully extended their upmarket Chinese brand Tattu to London and plans are advanced for a Fenix and a Louis to follow.

Osso buco at Fenix
Broken down tart at Fenix

Elevated veal shank and broken down tarts

Ah, Louis. Maybe it was the crooning or the presence of celebs I couldn’t recognise (good luck with the Jungle, Colleen) but only the rip tide of Champagne buoyed me through the launch party in Spinningfields. A return visit to road-test the Italian-American menu has won me over big time. It was a comped meal with the inclusion of one of my favourite Chiantis, but such largesse would never subvert my critical faculties. 

The osso buco alla milanese was especially magnifico. This rich, braised on-the bone veal shank dish with saffron risotto was a favourite of Frank Sinatra’s. So it’s perfect for Manchester’s own homage to a colourful New York past where guys dined dolls after Manhattans on the rocks. Such affectations may grate with some folk but when paired with spot-on service go with the flow.

Slow-cooked shank, pulled lamb this time, shows up in a Fenix dish that has survived the recent menu change. A parsnip bechamel, truffles and mushrooms are baked with it tarte tatin style in delicate pastry. It is served on crockery appropriate to  its name, Broken Down Tart, a playful nod to the Greek tradition of plate smashing. I preferred it to the inevitable plate of wagyu.

Mythical boat up in lights at Fenix
Octopus Oasis at Sexy Fish

Let’s get lit up for Christmas… and the Octopus Oasis

Fenix also upholds another swanky tradition by draping its facade in a myriad seasonal lights. Celeb haunt Rosso back in the day exhausted considerable wattage in the same way and its successor up in Spring Gardens, Cibo, offers a more muted version. Neither can provide a back storey to match Fenix’s. Their lights are “inspired by the story of Karavari – a Greek custom where children carried illuminated boats while singing carols to bless the sailors of the Aegean seas”. 

Meanwhile, back at Sexy Fish, where the decor is an entire Aegean Sea in its own right (check out the Octopus Oasis, next to the main bar).I do recommend a generous wine and matching food event in the Tropical Reef Private Dining Room that should be a regular fixture in the New Year. It’s called ‘Wine and Waves’, the  latter their name for the those Japanese-influenced small plates.

Some seriously goo/d wines featured in the W&W debut – Krug Champagne, Leflaive Burgundy and and a glorious Alsace Riesling from Rolly Gassman, presented by knowledgeable head sommelier Davide Rinaldi.

If that’s not your £125 a head bag, book in for Sexy Fishmas: “Immerse yourself in a sparkling holiday wonderland with a limited-edition omakase menu and festive cocktails, surrounded by thousands of golden fish baubles for a truly unforgettable Christmas experience.”

Stunning Japanese food at KAJI
Maya’s overwhelming bar in the darkness

MUSU is now KAJI and Moffat is at MAYA

A real fish, in the shape of a giant bluefin tuna being butchered, was one of the unlikeliest restaurant attractions in 2024 Manchester (followed by a meal) and we may not see such sell-out session again as the John Dalton Street venue reinvents itself as the Musu Collection. Sushi/sashimi led omakase will return inn 2025 along with a basement fined dining showcase for new chef Steve Smith. For the moment he’s leading fire-based dining experience KAJI in the main dining room, which has re-jigged its giant screen-led decor without shedding the glitz. A relaunch meal showed no sign of slipping standards. 

Smith made his name helming Ribble Valley gastropub. Interesting to see how it goes. Ditto with Shaun Moffat, whose very British approach and technical skills at the Edinburgh Castle gastropub in Ancoats won him Chef of the Year in the 2023 MFDF Awards. He’s now charged with turning around the kitchen at MAYA.

When I reviewed the place under previous chef Gabe Lea I was disturbed by an  interior so penumbral I couldn’t read the menu. Little has changed it appears, reading a review of the new regime by the brilliant Olivia Potts for Manchester Confidential…

“The enormous cocktail bar at the centre of the room is beautiful, all gold and glass and plush stools, but it’s also dominating and it leaves the dining room feeling cramped. Diners are squeezed in closely and I almost knock over the wine glasses on our table when I sidle in, which I feel very stupid about – until the table next to us does exactly the same thing when they sit down. It does rather feel like eating a sit-down, three course dinner in a cocktail bar, rather than a dining room.”

Burlesque is central to MAYA vibe
That wild boar Barnsley chop

Baby Daisy or Barnsley Chop – take your pick

I introduced Olivia to Shaun’s food back at The Edinburgh Castle and I too am a huge fan, in particular of his immaculate sourcing. How all this switch will pan out, it will be interesting to see, at an entertainment  destination currently promoting (get your glad rags on for December 13) “Internationally renowned Burlesque artist, Baby Daisy, performing a brand new show created exclusively for MAYA. Playfully called MAYAnage et trois, guests can expect an evening of glamour, sensuality and dazzling allure.”

But will there be a Wild Boar Barnsley Chop? That was the Moffat EC dish that convinced me of his exceptional talent, honed by running East London kitchens such as Manteca. Funny old world. One floor of MAYA, inside a listed building, does that distressed brick/post-industrial schtick.

Cast your MFDF Awards votes online now

As a long-serving judge I might biased but these eight nominations for Restaurant of the Year are where the food does the talking:

Adam Reid At The French, Another Hand, Higher Ground, Mana, Restaurant Örme (Urmston), The Pearl (Prestwich), Skof, Where the Light Gets In. 

The closing date for votes is midnight on the 10th January 2025. Vote for your winner in all 17 categories here.

/by
, ,

How I grew to love the Bermondsey bounty at the expense of Borough

A Pondicherry fish curry in a French bistro, basmati rice from remote Piemonte flatlands and a raft of six pale ales all made from different Kiwi hops – all part of a delicious dash for freedom from the crush of Saturday afternoon Borough Market.

OK, I should have known better with a few daylight hours to spare in London. A wonderful Waiting for Godot with Ben Whishaw and Medieval Women: In Their Own Words at The British Library had quenched my cultural cravings. Now for quality time with gourmandise.

Camille’s modest frontage
Its merry team looked after me

On my last capital visit I’d found much to admire at Camille at 2-3 Stoney Street opposite the food mecca, so Gallic symmetry demanded I check out Café François further along at 14-16 (restraining my urge for my habitual pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best in The Market Porter at no.9). The pub was heaving anyway, like the inside of the Market, which I had made the mistake of trying to traverse untrampled.

Overtourism is a buzz word of the moment, but who would wish to revert to earlier times at Borough Market? Maybe not the 12th beginnings on this site when bartering turnips for gruel was trade. No, before 1998, when the old fruit and veg market was on its knees, undermined by the power of the supermarkets. Then the decision was made to switch upmarket into a bazaar of artisan foodstuffs to tantalise the tastebuds of the chattering classes. A plan that has worked so brilliantly that it is wise to choose your moment to duck the tourist hordes. The prices, though, remain on the ambitious side, even if you roll up on a Tuesday morning. Weekends are just mayhem as the queues for average ‘street food’ stretch as long as, well, a street.

A parade of fine new restaurants is a reason to brave the Borough overload

In contrast, a big plus at Borough in recent times has been the arrival of proper restaurants on the edge of the market. Also on Stoney Street, stripped back Sri Lankan diner Rambutan, which I eagerly anticipated and then enjoyed immensely.

The most hyped recent arrivals have been Akara, https://www.akaralondon.co.uk/ a West African cuisine sibling of Michelin-starred Akoya in Fitzrovia and Oma, https://www.oma.london/ a high end Greek place from Smokestak and Manteca founder David Carter.

Café François is in a prime position
It’s an all-day operation

A theme here is: big acclaim elsewhere, let’s bite on Borough. Hence Café François, which has sprung from the fancy success of Maison François near Fortnum and Mason. This more casual spin-off is also styled as an all-day Gallic-inspired brasserie and the simple, classic plates sport the joint’s name. More casual it may be but the designers have been given free rein to transform this former Paul Smith store. Stylewise it’s head and padded shoulders above anywhere else in the foodie ‘hood. 

Further good news? It’s also fun with exceptional service despite it being flavour of the moment. A well thought out French flavour. Well so is Cafe Rouge. Except the François food is light years better. It’s never going to be Bouchon Racine but it’s not aiming for that crowd (well mine and Jay Rayner’s crowd). Henry Harris’s determinedly old school French bistro above a pub in Farringdon would never run to a glass-fronted dessert kiosk stuffed with patisserie and Paris-Brests. Open from breakfast, Café François is still going strong for mid-afternoon sugar rushes.

My tartare was the real deal
The vadouvant was une vrai surprise

Arriving around then I perversely ordered a curry. So should they rename it Café Indienne? Don’t forget there is a very French foothold in the Sub-continent, around Pondicherry. Hence the Vadouvan as their contribution to Indian cuisine – featuring a smoky spice mix and plenty of garlic and shallots. Quite mild this £24 bistro version with plentiful monkfish and a scattering that made an orangey mess as I prised them from the rice.

More colonial influence the presence of a soft shell crab bánh mì on the menu; the Vietnamese love (and supply most of France’s) frog’s legs but the crispy cuisses de grenouille are served with a trad sauce ravigote.

Eclectic touches aside there is a solid bistro/bouchon feel to the menu. A starter portion of exemplary if mustardy tartare du boeuf cost me £18. I drank one of my favourite rosés, Domaine de Triennes from Aix-en-Provence.

Enjoyable but my beating Borough Heart belongs to Camille. It’s a promenade de cinq minutes from La Gare de London Bridge; turn into Stoney Street, veer immediately left and you are in some modest estaminet on the Left Bank back in the Fifties. In truth it’s a plain room, untouched by any cute designer’s hand. 

Ignore the melee outside and tuck into escargots, crispy pig’s ear, frisée and apple, and smoked eel devilled eggs, as I did, before Highland Angus tartare with chestnuts and topped with a fluffy cloud of grated Lincolnshire Poacher. A tie on the tartare with its rival down the street.

Chef Elliot Hashtroudi, once of St John, is on top his Gallic game. As dusk dropped and candles were lit I started humming La Vie en Rose. But that was a while back. On this November Saturday it was time to make my escape from Borough Market. One Underground stop away is Battersea. Present Oyster Card.

Kernel has a remarkable beer offering
Cloudwater’s Beer Mile outpost

Hardly the New Frontier but Bermondsey has a pioneering buzz

I had two reasons to go to Bermondsey – the Kernel Brewery Taproom and the Ham & Cheese Co, neither or which I’d made it to previously. Indeed the Taproom is a smart newcomer, opened only in August. Not every venue in this end of town is now confined to an arch.

Ham & Cheese is. It does what it says on the label imports the finest charcuterie and cheese from Italy. Plus olives, oil, pulses, rice, capers and much, much more, all sourced directly from producers that genuinely qualify as ‘artisan’. I discovered it through the charcuterie for platters they supplied to Coin in Hebden Bridge down the Valley from us. Regular online orders proved a lifeline throughout the lockdowns. My only caveat you could only buy my favourite Mortadella whole – 2.3kg for £65. They recommend eating it with three days, too and there was a further obstacle  – I don’t own a commercial slicer.

Gioia! On the counter at their base in Dockley Industrial Estate there sat a hunk of mortadella to be sold by the 100g and cut wafer thin. Is per favore.

Those mighty mortadellas
From pigs that roam free

Their source in the Bologna Apennines, Aldo Zivieri, keeps his rare breed Mora Romagnola pigs or free range large whites in 40 hectares of pristine woodland and slaughters them at 14-16 months in his own small abattoir before applying traditional charcutier’s skills.

My prime mission was accomplished too. The new season’s extra virgin olive oil had arrived only five days before from the Abruzzo. It is made from a tough little olive called intosso, which only yields fruit above an altitude of 350m. A labour of love indeed. It has only survived as a varietal thanks to pressure from the Slow Food Movement. When I got home and opened the bottle of Casino di Caprafico the colourswas vibrantly, verdantly green with a huge, grassy perfume. At £42 for 75cl it’s a luxury to be sprinkled sparingly, but when even commercially produced olive oils are soaring price my advice is bugger £10 Berio.

I went for Abruzzo oil and came away with Piemonte basmati

A final surprise package, literally, was – alongside the customary Carnaroli rice for risotto – was Riso Gange with its remarkable back story. Let me quote the Ham & Cheese Co notes on this aromatic basmati style long grain rice also grown in Piemonte by Igiea Adami…

“In 1821 Igiea’s distant relative, Paolo Solaroli, was exiled to India for his revolutionary ideas. There he made his fortune, married an Indian princess, returned to Piedmont in 1867 and bought the tiny hamlet of Beni di Busonengo to grow rice. It is in an area of wild flatlands called the Baraggia, now a nature reserve, where poor, clay soil fed with cold waters channeled straight off the Monte Rosa massif in the Alps provides the perfect growing conditions for rice.”

And it was suitable for the ‘Riso Gange’. Each pack that Igiea sells she donates money to the Indian charity Samparc in Calcutta. Just before I wrote this piece I used it to make a kedgeree and it worked a dream.

The Ham & Cheese store only opens for a few hours every Saturday; the nearby Kernel Brewery Taproom closes Monday and Tuesday but is open up to 10 hours a day the rest of the week.

At least until the end of 2024 Kernel is hosting a kitchen residency with Yagi Izakaya, serving Japanese-inspired comfort food such as gyoza, udon and karaage. It would be intriguing to see how such dishes match with Kernel’s classic dark beers. I couldn’t resist sampling the 7.1 per cent Export Stout 1890 but balked at the 9.5 per cent Imperial Russian Stour, cleansing my palate with one of six individually hopped NZ pale ales. I took my server’s advice and went for the Rakau. It was a resinous treat. Does Kernel ever brew a dull beer? It has been 16 years since Evin O’Riordan started brewing at his original Druid Street site and it remains the benchmark for all the other breweries along the ‘Bermondsey Beer Mile’. Many were lined up in the Enid Street arches (including the London outpost of Manchester’s own Cloudwater) as I walked back to Borough Market, hoping in vain the hordes might have dispersed. 

Some special treats to add to your Bermondsey basket

My tip: stop off at the Maltby Street Market on the Ropewalk for your street food, having stocked up at some of the classy food outlets clustered around Ham & Cheese and Kernel on the Dockley Road Industrial Estate. Most of therm do online retail. I liked the look of The Fresh Fish Shop at Unit 8, foraged mushroom and truffle specialists The Wild Room at Unit 3.

In the adjacent Apollo Business Park I recommend Maltby and Greek at Arch 17, a real Hellenic Aladdin’s Cave (sic) from the UK’s leading importer of Greek foods with an impressive wine selection, too, and at Arches 1-11 the cheesy cornucopia that is Neal’s Yard Dairy. Less hectic than the Borough branch, naturally. I rest my case.

FACT FILE

I stayed at the Z Hotel Covent Garden, 31-33 Bedford St, London WC2E 9ED, a delightful bolthole which backs on to St Paul’s Church and overlooks Covent Garden Piazza. It’s a haven of quiet despite being in the heart of the tourist action (you’ve gathered I don’t like crowds). There’s so much to do in this area of great restaurants and theatres, including the Royal Opera House. For my Borough Market/Bermondsey break-out I caught the Jubilee Line at Westminster.

/by
,

Off with its leaves – how I finally executed a recipe using Good King Henry

In Patience Gray’s classic Honey from a Weed (1986),her account of culinary subsistence living in Puglia during the Seventies, she writes of the annual known as fat hen: ‘I was astonished to find that in the Salento people call this plant ‘la saponara’ and use it to clean their hands after working in the fields, rather than eating it. It is often found in cultivated ground next to deadly nightshade. The shape of their leaves is similar, but those of the nightshade are dark green; so study both plants before gathering fat hen.”

All rather insouciant and I’d rather take the frisson out of foraging unless I’m dead certain what I’m picking is not toxic. So I’m not in the “that’s probably not fly agaric” camp. Yet this is a land today where the likes of sea buckthorn and wild garlic prop up restaurant menus in season and at the wonderful The Riverside, in Herfordshire’s Lugg valley I didn’t feel I was being stung when chef patron Andy Link served up a nettle cake as pud. Local snails and sweet cicely parfait also featured in a memorable meal.

Andy Link in his Riverside Aymestrey kitchen garden

Behind this 16th century sheep drovers’ inn rise veg terraces steepling into wooded hills. And there among the brassicas and edible flowers we stumbled upon the bane of my summer, Good King Henry. Now we all Know who Bad King Henry was; recent polls have awarded ‘Worst Monarch’ label to the VIII. But The Good? 

The name of this species of goosefoot (and close relative of fat hen/white goosefoot) doesn’t reference royalty. It comes from the German Guter Heinrich (Good Henry) to distinguish it from Böser Heinrich (Bad Henry) a name for the poisonous plant Mercurialis perennis. Brits adde the King bit later. No that it has ever ruled our tables. It is still much cherished by home cooks in Alpine regions for its spinach like qualities. I wanted to join their number when accepting a sturdy specimen as a gift from Andy Link. Then my wobbles began.

Safely replanted at home next to the Charlemagne horseradish and the research began into a wild plant whose Latin name is Chenopodium bonus-henricus but goes under a variety of monickers – perennial or oak-leaved goosefoot, poor man’s asparagus, mercury, common orache, long-stalked orache, spear-leaved orache and, notably in this country, Lincolnshire spinach. Until the 19thy century Good King Henry was regularly  been used in British kitchens, possibly first introduced by the Romans; pollen from it has been found been found on sites even before then,

Good King Henry
Its cousin fat hen

Like the fat hen (Chenopodium album) it is semi-wild and can grow up to 75cm tall. It has large, triangular leaves with powdery surfaces and wavy edges. The first green leaves emerge in April and are available for picking until August. From May through August, the small flower spikes are visible. 

The leaves, stalks, and blossom buds can all be eaten, but the flavour of the leaves becomes bitterer as the season goes on Which is why, now it is September have I left my harvesting too late. Already the leaves at the back are turning ruddy and sere.

From the star those large triangular leaves share with sorrel (a favourite of mine) acidic traces of oxalic acid. OK, it is proof of valuable iron but bad for you if you suffer from rheumatism or gout, apparently. I’m working on the later.

Surely, it’s no bitterer than kale. Should I just lightly steam it as I make my belated effort to cook with Henry? Or perhaps go down the salsa verde route? Blending it with vinegar, salt and capers?

Quiche Ingredients
The final dish

In the end I aim for a more substantial dish, a quiche with a touch of honey – to counter the ouch factor – ricotta and honey. I had first soaked the leaves for an hour in a salty solution to leach out the bitterness and then rinsed them. How did it turn out? Dandelionish, the hint of honey didn’t detract from a sharpness, quelled by the eggs. I accompanied it with steamed Swiss chard, scattered with toasted pine nuts.

My harvest left very little foliage on my Good King Henry, but it’s a perennial and famously pest-resistant, so I expect it will be back sturdier than ever; and it hardly seems invasive. Famous last words not quite. Further research reveal it is also a host plant to several moths: death’s-head hawkmoth, nutmeg, orache, dark spinach and plain pug moth. What does this mean for my little plot?

/by
,

Omelette Arnold Bennett – the making of a masterpiece

Contrary to popular perception Arnold Bennett did not spend a substantial number of his mealtimes consuming the eponymous omelette. Only two years after the Omelette Arnold Bennett was created for him in 1929 by by Jean Baptiste Virlogeux, a chef at The Savoy, the author was dead at just 63. Cause was typhoid, contracted by drinking tap water in the South of France. Suicide has been suggested such was his unhappiness despite his wealth and fame. A recent biography has vividly described him as a chronic insomniac, “his brief rest ruined when ‘flatulence damnably announced itself’.”

As a best-selling author and hyperactive journalist from humble origins in the Potteries, his work was famously dismissed by Virginia Woolf and other snooty literati. I’m unsure whether his 34 novels are much read these days – even Anna of the Five Towns or The Old Wives’ Tale. Which leaves us with that Omelette.

Essentially it’s a big deep omelette (5 big eggs) cooked in a 12 inch pan – then smoked haddock, which has been lightly poached in milk. is flaked into the top of the egg mixture  while it is still liquid. Add double cream, finely grated Parmesan cheese… and grilled till lightly brown.

It’s still on the menu at the Savoy, where Bennett stayed while researching his last finished novel, Imperial Palace, which was set in the hotel. It’s still there a £14 starter on the River Restaurant menu; at the Savoy Grill for nine quid more taste how Gordon Ramsay has ‘upgraded’ it in to the ‘Arnold Bennett Soufflé’, featuring Montgomery Cheddar sauce.

In the same years when Mr Bennett was indulging in his favourite dish a large family house on the Windermere shoreline was being transformed into the Langdale Chase Hotel. Its new owners, Thwaites, closed it for most of 2023 for a multi-million pound refurbishment with spectacular results, not least a sympathetic enhancement of its period features.

Our recent visit featured a stay in possibly the pick of the 30 luxurious bedrooms, the Langdale Pikes Suite, with its sweeping views of the Lake (what fun to watch a sunset paddle boarder struggling to get back on his precarious craft!) and the sybaritic ‘Swallows and Amazons’ afternoon tea, but a delightful bonus lit up the breakfast menu. Yes, there, in the specials, under the inevitable kipper, ‘Omelette Arnold Bennett’.

Surely, it’s a bit rich to start the day with, suggested my wife? Of course not, my dear, I love a literary homage with lashings of double cream. It came, still steaming, in a searing skillet, a puffed up, golden moonscape of a dish. 

Fergus Henderson
Sam’s Chop House

The most memorable OAB I’ve encountered since well over a decade ago I ‘author-sat’ Fergus Henderson. He was in Manchester for a Food and Drink Festival event that evening, so lunch at Sam’s Chop House seemed the perfect way to pass the afternoon. The two bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin Fergus ordered helped. Before ample platefuls of devilled kidneys (“this hits the spot, Neil”) we each indulged in an Omelette Arnold Bennett.

So is a liquid lunch the best excuse for the dish? Guardian recipe guru Felicity Cloake probably agrees with the time of day. She wrote: “Though Bennett himself seems to have enjoyed the dish as a post-theatre supper, this silky, smoky tangle of eggs, cheese and haddock is so ridiculously, deliciously rich that it’s best consumed well before bedtime … though I won’t judge you if you want to go back to bed afterwards.”

Since that Fergus epiphany I recall one disappointingly bland example at The ‘under new ownership’ Wolseley in London, where they charge a princely £19,50, and a splendiferous one for just £12 from Iain Thomas at The Pearl in Prestwich. https://www.thepearlmcr.com. It has recently returned to the menu at this benchmark indie bistro, which has just made it onto the Good Food Guide 100 Best Local Restaurant list, but it proudly illustrates their home page, so expect it back soon.

Iain used undyed smoked haddock for his version, which any chef worth his or her salt would do. Otherwise it’s about tweaks. Do you make it hollandaise-based or bechamel-based, or both? How much cream?

The Pearl’s Iain Thomas…
… and his take on the Arnold Bennett

Here is the recipe used by the Savoy Grill under Ramsay:

Ingredients

400ml milk

3 cloves of garlic

300g smoked haddock

20g butter

20g plain flour

3 large eggs

1 sprig of thyme

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

Cheddar cheese

Gruyere cheese

Chopped chives

Chopped parsley

Method

For the smoked haddock, bring to a simmer about 400ml of milk along with three crushed cloves of garlic and sprig of thyme. Add the fish and cook for around three minutes or until the haddock starts to flake. Be careful not to over cook as it will become dry. 

Drain off the fish reserving the milk and flake up the fish into nice big pieces. With the cooking milk from the fish make a white sauce with 200ml of the milk, 20g butter and 20g plain flour. Enhance the flavour with half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt pepper and a few scrapes of nutmeg.

Cool the sauce slightly and add the haddock flakes. Stir lightly being careful not to break up the fish too much. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more of the milk. To cook the omelette, break three large eggs into a well buttered skillet pan, season and stir then let the egg cook out to form the omelette base. 

Remove from the heat and sprinkle on grated Cheddar and Gruyere cheeses, then add the haddock sauce mix to evenly cover the omelette. Sprinkle with a little more cheese and then place under a hot grill until lightly golden and bubbling.

Finish with some chopped chives and parsley and serve from straight from the pan.

The cosmopolitan Arnold Bennett

Virginia Woolf may well have labelled Bennett “the bootmaker”, but he transcended his provincial small town origins, living in Paris for 10 years and marrying a French woman. He was certainly a man who knew his way around restaurants. They even inspired his fiction. Here he recalls the genesis of The Old Wives’ Tale – a novel set in the Potteries but inspired by people watching in a Parisian cafe…

“A middle-aged woman, inordinately stout and with pendent cheeks, had taken the seat opposite to my prescriptive seat. I hesitated, as there were plenty of empty places, but my waitress requested me to take my usual chair. I did so, and immediately thought: with that thing opposite to me my dinner will be spoilt!’ But the woman was evidently also cross at my filling up her table, and she went away, picking up all her belongings, to another part of the restaurant, breathing hard.

“Then she abandoned her second choice for a third one. My waitress was scornful and angry at this desertion, but laughing also. soon all the waitresses were privately laughing at the goings-on of the fat woman, who was being served by the most beautiful waitress I have ever seen in any Duval. The fat woman was dearly a crotchet, a ‘maniaque’, a woman who lived much alone. Her cloak (she displayed on taking off it a simply awful light puce flannel dress) and her parcels were continually the object of her attention and she was always arguing with her waitress. And the whole restaurant secretly made a butt of her. she was repulsive; no one could like her or sympathise with her, but I thought — she has been young and slim once.”

I know the feeling. It is not just the temptation of the Omelette Arnold Bennett that has tightened the waistband of late.

/by
, ,

The Book of Pintxos – inside story of Basque small plates

In a recent The Rest Is History, on the build-up to the Great War, podcast pals Tom and Dominic reached a quirky consensus on their dislike of Russian Salad… a view I share. You’ll have to listen to episode 3 to discover the context. Clue – a Serbian ultimatum that was hard to stomach,


This digression just happened to coincide with my perusal of The Book of Pintxos (Artisan, £30), Marti Buckley’s wonderful, San Sebastián-heavy follow-up to Basque Country, her indispensable guide to that great foodie region. I have to believe her when she writes: “Ensaladilla rusa is, after tortilla española, the most ubiquitous and popular pintxo in Spain.” For pintxo also read tapa, that small plate rival across the rest of the Iberian peninsula. Indeed it remains a restaurant mainstay in (its disputed birthplace) Russia and in old school diners across the globe.

Russian salad – a mutual bete noire

Marti, raised in Alabama, schooled in Louisiana, has spent well over a decade as the adopted daughter of Donastia (local name for San Sebastián). She’s the go-to gal to message the States that Italian and French are not innately superior cuisines to Spanish and her beloved Basque. But, as witness for the defence, Russian salad? Albeit, it HAS to be made with home-made mayo and hopefully the tuna might be canned ventresca in escabeche. Which still doesn’t in my eyes excuse a salad combining cooked potatoes, carrots and canned peas.
The author adapts her recipe from one of San Sebastián’s most acclaimed pintxos spots, the Bar Ezkurra, dating back to 1933 and physically little changed. It shifts, from its dark wooden counter, 175 pounds of rusa on busy days.

The joy of The Book of Pintxos is its depth of historical research, and pen pictures of the folk who keep the legacy alive, some by radically ‘elevating it’. A spin-off perhaps from a region boasting the highest per capita concentration of Michelin-star restaurants in the world. There’s a place for many approaches.
What unites many dishes is the toothpick. Pintxos was first promoted properly in North West England by Ramsbottom’s sadly missed Baratxuri, where at the end of a night full of bar snacks they tallied the bill according to the number of little sticks collected.
Before pintxos evolved to knife and fork this was the standard serving of simple snacks such as my old favourite to accompany a glass of tzakoli wine – Gilda. Arguably the original pintxo, this is just an anchovy fillet, pitted manzanilla olives and sharp pickled guindilla peppers threaded onto a toothpick. Hardly molecular gastronomy but at its core pintxos remain bar food.

The simple guilda
Burnt Basque cheesecake

Some of the 70 recipes are more complex as Marti traces the historical evolution, interviewing all the key players. Take Santi Rivera. In 1988 he took over the kitchen at his parent’s San Sebastián Old Town bar, La Viña, and perfected the one Donostian dish recognisable worldwide – Burnt Basque Cheesecake. Since then he has won a Pintxos Oscar’ in 1998 for his anchovy and cheese stuffed cone, but it is the cheesecake that shifts in vast numbers to this day – pan-burn crust on the outside transitioning into the creamiest of soft cheese custards, “the interior all jiggly and loose” in Marti’s words.
The author spreads her net beyond San Sebastián (or Donastia as the Basques call it) and covers my favourite places in Bilbao, a city I know better and have more affection for. One of my home page images was taken in Bilbao’s Plaza Nueva.

Certainly the Gure Toki’s truffled eggs and mi-cuit foie gras nougat are a step up from th humble guilda. Quality of ingredients has a role to play in the bar scene. La Vina Del Ensanche in Bilbao’s Old Town offers not just an encyclopaedic wine list but majors in the the world’s best jamon, Joselito Bellota.

If you must – Ensaladilla rusa recipe from The Book of Pintxos

Ingredients
Salt
3 large Yukon Gold potatoes peeled
1 medium peeled carrot, ends trimmed
7 large eggs
3 cups mayonnaise, preferably homemade*, divided
¼ cup drained canned green peas
¼ cup drained canned tuna ventresca in escabeche, or any good-quality oil-packed tuna, flaked
1 baguette, sliced on the bias into 15 pieces

Method
Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and carrot and cook for eight minutes, then add the eggs and boil for 12 minutes more. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggs to an ice bath. Pierce one of the potatoes with a fork; if it slides in easily, drain along with the carrot and transfer to a cutting board. (Alternatively, continue boiling until the potatoes are fork-tender.) 
Peel the eggs and finely chop five of them (set aside the remaining two whole eggs). Cut the potatoes into ½-inch pieces and the carrot into ¼-inch pieces; transfer the chopped eggs, potatoes, and carrots to a large bowl. Add 1½ cups of the mayonnaise, the peas, tuna, and ½ teaspoon of salt and use a silicone spatula to gently combine. Fold in more mayonnaise (up to ½ cup) until the mixture is creamy and soft. Season to taste with more salt if needed. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. 
To serve, scoop generous portions of the salad atop the baguette slices, using a butter knife to form little mountains. Remove the yolks from the remaining two eggs (reserve them for another use), then use the small holes of a box grater to grate the whites over the pintxos. Using a pastry bag fitted with a decorative tip or a zip-top bag with a corner snipped off, squeeze a generous teaspoon of mayonnaise onto each pintxo.  

/by
,

Calcio’s a game of two halves – retro sports bar and shrine to Brazilian new wave cuisine!

Casting a quizzical eye over Manchester’s Northern Quarter in this summer of riots and rain I’m struck by the febrile reinvention of bars. PLY in Stevenson Square is a month away from re-emerging as The Salmon of Knowledge, aka an Irish joint where crispy buttermilk fried chicken boxty stacks will soak up a stoutfest of Guinness and and Cork rival Murphy’s. The equally longwinded The Lamb of Tartary (once Cottonopolis), which launched in February under the stewardship of Manchester Chef of the Year Shaun Moffat, has now turned to a ‘Silk Road Menu’ – small dishes fuelled by spices from China to the Middle East.

 On the surface, then, it’s no surprise to see Calcio sports bar on Dale Street turning out a Brazilian menu. Except there is no shadow of cultural appropriation hanging over Caroline Martins’ SAMPA tasting menu. Indeed some of the unfamiliar ingredients featuring may well have made it into the hold luggage after a recent visit to her native São Paulo. Cupuacu, calamansi, cumari chilli peppers, the cassava powder farafa are all imported, though the requeijao cream cheese for the dip that accompanies her crudités is, I believe sourced in the UK. It tumbles like some Amazon waterfall from a plant pot stuffed with immaculately sourced raw corn, celery, lettuce and, a further touch of the exotic, physalis.

Corn shows up again in the ‘sweet corn butter’ to spread on her Pao de Queijo cheese-topped cassava bread (she learned the recipe in her mother’s kitchen). Except this is bitter sculpted to resemble a corn cob. 

Our cosy dining corner
Beef fat candle with bread


There’s a rosemary-infused beef fat candle, another of those playful Martins staples from past pop-pups at Blossom Street Social and Exhibition. Her fusion of molecular gastronomy and authentic produce was honed during (stressful) stints on Brazilian Masterchef and Great British Menu, twice. All part of a startling career change for the erstwhile theoretical plasma physicist.

So how does her cutting edge cooking style fit in with Calcio, now a permanent berth for herself and husband Tim? It’s a two-headed feast. You can still order a Madri and burger while you watch the footie. Not Samba Soccer, mind. On our visit the screens were showing the Dundee clubs playing out a 2-2 draw in their Scottish Premiership opener. There was also some top-heavy Chinese gymnast securing Olympic gold at one point. 

That toadstool finale
Smoking snacks kick off with a wow

We were sheltered from much of this by curtains and a floral trellis, but the sporty vibe might deter foodie Instagrammers and the like, here to shoot Caroline’s signature pudding. Spoon into the globular red spotted mushroom resembling a toadstool or toxic fly agaric and you unleash flavours of the guava parfait and jelly at its core plus creamy Minas cheese. The combo also contains a Genoise Sponge and a chocolate crumb from Manchester’s top producer, Dormouse, who import the cocoa beans from Brazil. It’s her take on a classic dessert from back home,’Romeo & Julieta’.

The £58 12 course tasting menu at Calcio is slightly restrained compared with previous incarnations, one of which, at Blossom Street Social, involved the sensational Jackson Pollock/Grant Achatz choc, candy, fruit splatterfest (The Dormouse That Roared).

That dish was a favourite of our late, great chihuahua Captain Smidge, who in his turn was a favourite of Caroline. She and Tim have their own canine legend in the making, eight-year-old Larry the Maltese, who seemed happy for a taste of our mega-tender barbecued ex-dairy ribeye served sizzling on the skillet.

Sizzling ex-dairy ribeye
Tomato and palm heart salad

We ensured his tithe was free of the chilli element from the assorted condiments, which included the ubiquitous farafa. My favourite refreshing salad of the summer cam on the side, palm hearts and tomato.
The beef was only topped in the meal by the starter of chalk stream trout carpaccio. It came delicately topped with vivid red cumari chillies, onion pickle and shimeji mushrooms and, the master stroke – a dressing of soy and calamansi, a yuzu-like lime hybrid that delivers a sublime citrussy wallop.

Barbecued halibut in banana leaves
The hailbut served on Jersey Royals

In contrast, a fish sharing main didn’t work for me. Halibut barbecued in banana leaves looked fantastic and promised much, but the halibut didn’t come put steamed and flaky, quite soft and overwhelmed by the cashew nut and ajo blanco sauce.
The slightest of blip in a captivating, good value meal, full of invention from the moment snacks of Somerset goat’s cheese and cupuaçu, a tropical fruit with hints of cacao, and gammon terrine with guava paste emerged from a rectangular smoking cloche. I suspect all this may just be the start of great things here for Sampa (or its alter ego, the São Paulo Project).
The wine list is currently limited, but not without curiosities. Anyone for a white Malbec? The pick is certainly Aurora, a late harvest Malvasia/Moscato dessert wine that hails from Brazil’s Serra Gaúcha region. With a luscious glassful we toasted Dundee’s late penalty equaliser.
SAMPA at Calcio, 24 Dales Street, Manchester, M1 1FY.


/by
, ,

Begone the travails of trembling madness – York’s Skosh really is a wizard restaurant

Turned away from the House of Trembling Madness. It’s enough to turn you into a palsied leper begging for alms. It was to have been my debut at the newer, Lendal outlet of York’s quirkily monikered craft beer emporium. Like the original in Stonegate, the building dates  back hundreds of years and promises a refuge from the tourist hordes thronging the Harry Potter-haunted Shambles (or Hogwarts on Ouse, as I call it).

Back to H of TM. “Sorry we’re not allowing anyone in at the moment.” ”But there’s lots of room at the inn,” I splutter, surveying a handful of couples cradling cappuccinos. “Sorry, medical emergency upstairs.” 

House of Trembling Madness
Hogwarts on Ouse

Yes, I’ve failed to register the two ambulance responders outside (hope all turned out well), so instead I decamp to Trembling Madness I and its plethora of half timber and animal heads. Here I swiftly recover my equipoise over a pint and pork pie after a fraught rail journey across.
Fortunately I‘d booked the real object of my York visit for 5.30pm. Aiming for lunch, I might not have made it to Skosh. Broken Britain and all that. Still the day got better and better, culminating in that meal at the destination on Micklegate Observer critic Jay Rayner praised as “the ideal of what an ambitious, independent restaurant should be.”
That was back in 2017 when Skosh had barely been open a year. Last December it shut in order to knock through into next door – a former solicitors, also Grade II listed. The expanded Skosh looks a seamless treat, the open kitchen enlarged and room for walk-ins at the front (not that I was ever taking that chance). I eschewed the offered seat at the pass, but my solo diner’s corner table still offered a prime view of chef/patron Neil Bentinck (blow) and his team in action.

Micklegate has always been my happy place in York and an exemplary parade of small dishes has made it happier. Small plates with a generosity of invention behind them. Fusion is a tired term, so let’s call the Skosh menu ‘global melange’. Korean, Japanese, South Indian influences are all present, intriguingly yoked to some beautifully sourced UK raw materials (listed on the back of a menu that redefines eclectic.
Does it all work? Mostly. I’m still unsure of my final savoury course of tandoori octopus with lime pickle (£18). InItially brash in a smoky way, it won me over, sort of. It was a far remove from the delicate freshness of my snack opener – a sea trout papad packed with avocado, fennel and green strawberry (£4.50). The standard wine list is fine value and the carafe of Grüner Veltliner I ordered worked well with most of the dishes (a later glass of South African Grenache had work on its hands with the spiced up cephalopod).

Tandoori octopus
Sea trout papad

Next up was an odd hybrid called ‘uthapam waffles’ (£8) – substituting for the South Indian semolina crepes a pair of Western style waffles. Light and friable, the conceit worked: sole caveat I would have liked larger portions of the delicious green tomato chutney and fresh coconut. But then the restaurant’s name derives from the Japanese sukoshi for “a little” or “small amount”.
Aguachile verde (£8) is Bentinck’s veggie version of the Mexican ceviche rival, featuring a kind of iced feta slush plus spring peas and broad beans. It was a verdant, tangy treat that acted as a kind of prelude to a bbq spring lamb tartare (£12), dotted with peas, heady with mint and wasabi. Almost a raw ringer for the keemas I’m sure the chef’s food-mad Indian dad used to prepare. Bentinck’s major influence without doubt is his travels in Australia, that melting pot of Pacific Rim cooking and South Eastern Asian influences, restaurants majoring in casual dining and the freshest produce.

Aguachile verde
Lamb tartare

My stand-out dish at Skosh couldn’t have been fresher. The ‘sashimi’ of day boat red sea bream paddled in a fragrant dressing of elderflower and rhubarb with a punch of green peppercorn. It was among the best dishes I have eaten across Yorkshire in the past 12 months and my gastronomic journey has taken in Mýse, the Abbey Inn at Byland, Pignut, Prashad and Bavette (do check out my reviews).
None of these have a kitchen as well-stocked with furikake, ponzu, nahm pla, xo sauce, miso pesto, gunpowder salt, gochujang and sichuan pepper. It’s OK to have access to such a broad spectrum of flavourings; it’s another thing to use them with discretion.Which the brave Bentinck mostly does. On my next visit I hope to discover how he seasons a Tokyo turnip.

Lime leaf is also a Skosh, spawning a collab can on their interesting beer list. Yet I really didn’t know what to expect from my closer of lime leaf cream, pineapple, lychee and shiso (£10). It arrived topped with what looked like a prawn cracker standing in for the clichéd tuile. It added crunch to a delightful combo.The citrussy bitterness of the shiso leaves was a beguiling counterpoint to the slightly caramelised pineapple and the muskiness of the lychee. A memorable, easeful meal for this solo diner.

Skosh, 98 Micklegate, York YO1 6JX.

And while you’re up on Micklegate…

Skosh’s neighbour, The Falcon, is effectively the city tap for Turning Point Brewery of Knaresbough, but it also offers beers from other indie operations. It has been an ale house since 1715 and is decidedly smart. Micklegate Social, at the top of the drag near medieval Micklegate Bar, has a more shabby chic vibe, as befits a music venue. A decent cask selection and surprisingly good cocktails.

/by
, ,

Fish, fowl, fur and flesh – Scotland’s rich larder finds focus in Glasgow old and new

There are many approaches to eating and drinking in Glasgow. At the elevated end the city finally boasts two Michelin-starred restaurants – Cail Bruich in the West End and Unalome by Graeme Cheevers in still hip Finnieston. At the other end of the Clydeside spectrum you could test out the old Glasgae  stereotypes, deep-fried Mars Bars and Lorne Sausages, Buckfast and Irn Bru. I don’t expect these fixtures feature if you sign up for any of the recommended Glasgow Food and Drink Tours run by Gillian Morrison. In their palce you’ll be left with the sense of a city celebrating amazing Scottish produce and revelling in its burgeoning food and drink culture.

I’ve been lucky to visit the city frequently in recent years and have charted the sea change (yes, fresh seafood is to the fore). Below are my personal tips. In no away definitive, especially where pubs are concerned. As everywhere, hospitality is in a state of flux.  Along the way old stagers such as Rogano have gone and Gamba up for sale, while new places are springing up post-Pandemic. Next time I’m up Brett on Great Western Road is first on my bucket list after a rave review by Grace Dent in The Guardian.

Inside The Gannet
A cute sardine dish there

THREE OLD FAVOURITES

If you’d asked me two years ago, The Ubiquitous Chip would have been nailed on. Since its launch in 1971 this converted stables had championed Scottish cuisine from homemade haggis with champit tatties, carrot crisp and neep cream to more contemporary takes on seafood such as seared Islay scallops with pumpkin fondant, malt crumble and seaweed butter. The glorious courtyard dining space only enhances the dining experience  – though I am also partial to the dram-filled warren that is the Wee Pub at the Chip. 

The culinary emphasis didn’t shift after founder Ronnie Clydesdale, the ‘Godfather of Scottish Cooking’, died in 2010, then two years ago his family sold the Chop to Greene Kings Metropolitan Pub Company. Ouch. Cheeringly head chef Doug Lindsay stayed on, but a recent scan of the menu didn’t encourage, so I’ve not been back.

The Gannet is a fledgling in comparison. Its chef/patron Peter McKenna gets credited with kickstarting the vibrant Finnieston dining scene from this narrow converted tenement. Also championing the best of Scottish produce? It goes with the territory. Now over a decade old, The Gannet stays true to its original mission statement: “Something that evokes Scotland’s Hebridean coastlines, giving a sense of place and landscape and at the same time offering a cheeky culinary reference as a moniker for those with large appetites: ‘The Gannet’ was christened.” For a sophisticated  take on those fecund fishing grounds check out the Cured Wild Halibut/Soy /Yuzu/Horseradish or the Tarbert Lobster/Barra Cockles/Summer Vegetables.  

The Cafe Gandolfi
Babbity Bowster

My other two stalwart faves are near neighbours in the revitalised Merchant City (home to my recent hotel base, The Social Hub). A real pioneer in this quarter is Hebridean Seamas Macinnes, since 1983 at the helm of the Cafe Gandolfi in Albion Street with his sons now joining him. The L-shaped room offers a stylish rusticity featuring Tim Stead wooden furniture and quirky artwork. I particularly love the stained glass ‘A Flock of Fishes’ by Glasgow School of Art alumnus John Clark in the dining room (my main image).  Comfortable in its own skin, Gandolfi? Definitely. A snip of a house white, a Veneto Bianco, went equally well with a dish of Mull scallops and mackerel and a fillet of coley in an Arbroath smokies cream. Stornoway black pudding with potato rosti and pickled mushroom was equally comforting. In another season I might have gone for the Haggis (from Cockburn’s of Dingwall), neeps and tatties. The name, by the way, is nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. It’s a homage to the legendary camera maker. 

Just around the corner on Blackfriars Street, the Babbity Bowster  pub takes its name from an old Scottish wedding dance. If the weather’s warm the temptation is to linger in its countrified beer garden at odds with the urban surroundings. That would be to neglect the high-ceilinged cool white bar with a fine array of Scottish ales. The building itself, converted in 1985, is a 1790 tobacco merchant’s house, all that remains of an entire street built by Robert Adam. There is a restaurant and en-suite bedrooms upstairs.

Lobster at The Finnieston
Crab at Crabshakk

SEAFOOD

There are fine seafood places along Argyle Street – among them the aforementioned Gannet and The Finnieston – but the pick of the catch for me is Crabshakk, This stripped back temple to fish has a sibling up at The Botanic Gardens, but I‘m in my happy plaice (sic) here. On my last visit, eating solo in this narrow space, I regretted not begging a large bib as I messily tucked into a whole crab at the counter, followed by a quite wonderful tranche of halibut in a tomato miso with a draping of monksbeard.

An oven out of Naples
A perfect Paeseano pizza

PIZZA

You do wonder when a hugely successful indie food business is sold. Take Manchester’s own Rudy’s Pizza, currently being rolled out across the land. Three months on from their own sale Glasgow’s own Neapolitan crust champions Paeseano still boasts just the two outlets – each with its own oven installed by Gianna Acunto,of Naples, no less. After a torrid train journey up I’m given a quiet corner table in the heaving Miller Street original, off George Square, self-medicating with a Negroni before demolishing a very large anchovy-caper-olive overload pizza at a modest price. Magnifico. 

Agnolotti at Celentano’s
The Necropolis next door

PASTA

In the shadow of that great Victorian boneyard, The Necropolis  (3,500 monuments and  commemorating the city’s grandees plus 50,000 other soulsin unmarked graves) you’ll find Celentano’s, tucked away inside the sandstone pile of the Cathedral House Hotel. It’s the dream project of chef Dean Parker and his wife Anna, whose two-week Italian honeymoon inspired them towards this pasta-led project. Too dreamy? They also worked at some serious restaurants in London before moving to Glasgow a couple of years ago, swiftly earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Antipasti, primi, secondi are on the menu but there’s not a check tablecloth in sight. Their home-made pasta is the draw. Who could resists a Dexter beef ragu with your papardelle? Sourcing is immaculate – Mossgiel organic farm provides the ricotta for the agnolotti with cavolo nero and squash.

Steak at Porter & Rye
Beef Wellington at Glaschu

MEAT

Glasgow is not short of steakhouses. My own favourite for dry-aged prime cuts is 

Porter and Rye on the Argyle Street strip. A regular on the World’s Best Steak Restaurants list, it is a carnivore’s dream with side dishes such as bone marrow mac and cheese and beef dripping thick cut chips. The cocktails too are among the city’s best. Another carnivore’s treat is the Beef Wellington with beef fat carrots and horseradish (£90 for two to share but worth it) at Glaschu Restaurant & Bar, which takes its name from the Gaelic word for Glasgow, meaning “dear green place”. It’s set in the building of the 19th-century Western Club and is technically the club’s restaurant, but, unlike other members’ rooms, is open to the public.

VEGAN

Stereois housed in a Rennie Mackintosh building once home to The Daily Record in a lane near Glasgow Central Station, this bar combines a vegan kitchen with a basement live music space. Pair a Queer Brewing Fight Like Hell DIPA with an arepa with mole and tomato salsa or banana blossom tacos before taking in an indie gig downstairs. Under the same ownership, big brother Mono Cafe Bar is half a mile way

‘Venetian’ West Brewery
Drygate’s different vibe

CRAFT BEER AND TAPROOMS

If Stereo gives you the taste for craft beer, the rest of Glasgow doesn’t disappoint. Current  mecca is down on Southside – Koelschip Yard with 14 cutting edge keg lines. Centrally try The Shilling Brewing Company, a groundbreaking brew pub in former bank premises. Order a flight of four third pints, ranging from the crisp blonde ale The Steamie to the more complex, coconut-roasted porter Black Star Teleporter. Pizzas are the main ballast, but they also offer ‘crust dippers’  that tip the hat to Glasgow with a chilli and Irn Bru flavour jam. An even more spectacular brewpub setting is to be found on Glasgow Green in the East End. The West Brewery and Restaurant occupies a corner of a carpet factory built to echo the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Why? That’s the only way wealthy citizens living nearby back in the 1890s, would allow such commerce to sully Glasgow Green. Today they’d have to put up with the clink of glasses in one of the city’s best beer gardens, serving tipples brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot – the German Pure Beer Law of 1516, specifying the use of only malt, hops and water. ‘Glasgow Heart, German Head’ is one slogan. There’s lots of Teutonic fodder to accompany. Ideal accompaniment? Their St Mungo, a full-bodied hoppy hybrid of a Bavarian Helles and a North German Pils

In sharp contrast a converted box factory is the base for the Drygate Brewing Company – a collaboration between acclaimed independent Williams Bros of Alloa and big brother Tennent’s. It is Glasgow’s interpretation of a US-style tap with 16 keg and four cask lines from the in-house brewery, viewed through a glass panel, and the requisite amount of bearded hopheads. Some excellent value food, too. On the sunny afternoon of our visit we just lazed on the large rooftop beer garden and supped pints of Bearface Lager. It is the antithesis of the mass market Tennent’s lager brewed next door, just to the south of the Necropolis. As a family business it predated the graveyard by centuries and there were once genuine fears the arrival of corpses would contaminate its spring water supply.

The State Bar
A tasty dosa at Dakhin

OLD SCHOOL PUBS

My fave remains The State Bar, off Sauchiehall Street, with its glorious Victorian interior, fine cask ales, Oakham Green Devil IPA a regular, and Glasgow’s longest-running blues jam. Some legendary musical talent has graced The Scotia on Stockwell Street, arguably the city oldest pub. All back in the day – the likes of John Martyn, Hamish Imlach and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band plus Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty when they were still folk duo The Humblebums. The look of the place, low and dark, has barely changed since the Sixties – the 1860s when there was a famous music hall next door. In 1792 when the Scotia was established, it was a favourite watering hole for sailors and folk heading for the Clyde penny ferry. Such ghosts of the past live on here – recorded paranormal activity is off the scale. 

INDIAN

Traditionally, a night of Glaswegian excess involving Tennent’s and dram chasers would end in the generic curry house. Like the rest of the UK there’s now a choice of Indians reflecting the subcontinents’s regional cuisines. For me the most attractive is that of the South – the land of coconut and curry leaves, dosas and moilees. In the Merchant City Dakhin has the menu for me. Recommended dish the palkatti dosa, where the rice and lentil batter crepe is filled with their homemade paneer. They also own the shinier Dhabba further down Candleriggs, which champions the very different food styles of North India.

FACT FILE: The latter was arguably the closest restaurant to my most recent hotel base, The Social Hub. Shiny new, this is the first UK venue for the Social Hub network, founded in Amsterdam over a decade ago by a Scot with a vision of combining affordable hotel space with student accommodation. There are now 23 scattered across Europe.  

I travelled from Manchester to Glasgow courtesy of Transpennine Express and sampled their new addition to the First Class experience, their West Coast Kitchen Menu.

For full Glasgow tourism information visit Peoplemakeglasgow.com and, if it is your first time, go for the City Sightseeing Tour, which you can hop on and off.

/by