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Celebrating Mexican Independence Day with Santiago Lastra’s goosegog salsa

It’s not all about technicolor parades and mariachi bands, you know. This year’s Mexican Independence Day (September 15) has become my excuse to make inroads into our glut of gooseberries. Who would have thought the little green globules could make a substitute for tomatillos (hard to source in this part of the Pennines)?

The consequent salsa, also featuring tart apples from our communal orchard, is set to partner a whole braised oxtail. Sourced from Gazegill Organics, not Guadalajara. Down Mexico way they call tongue lengua and it is the base for a particularly tasty taco.

Santiago Lastra, Mexican maestro

The inspiration for all this kitchen activity is Mexican Soul: A New Style of Cooking by Santiago Lastra (Quadrille, £30). Born 45 minutes south of Mexico City, 36-year-old Lastra has pursued a stratospheric trajectory in iconic restaurants such as Mugaritz and Noma and contributed to the Basque Culinary Centre and the Nordic Food Lab, culminating in his own Michelin one-star in London – KOL. Last year it held its 49th place in the 50 World’s Best Restaurants list.

Fonda is a vibrant venue

Fonda, (pictured above) its deliberately casual sibling off Regent Street, is the more straightforward proposition, importing authentic ingredients from the old country, including the vast palette of chillies, to recreate regional home-style  classics in appropriately colourful setting. On my spring visit I just loved it. Fave dish was the bone-in short rib mole and exemplary fish tacos.

Fonda and KOL are both also committed to using the best British raw materials wherever possible, but only at his starry flagship does the inventive Lastra follow his mission statement to seek out local ingredient alternatives. Those roasted gooseberries instead of tomatillos for the requisite sour kick, an essential part of the Mexican food experience. Kombucha in place of lies. For guacamole instead of avocados, Scottish pine oil and pistachios. The only ingredients he brings in directly from Mexico for KOL are corn, chilli, and chocolate.

This mission statement extends into the more user-friendly Mexican Soul, which is designed to persuade readers that their inability to source mas harina, epazote, nopalitos, achiote and chilaquiles at the local supermarket many not proved a barrier to their gringo culinary ambitions. He freely admits that as a boy Mexico’s own food heritage did not grab him. It was from the outside looking in that he developed his grasp on its nuances. “When people used to ask me in the kitchens I worked in, ‘Oh Santiago, make some Mexican food. You’re Mexican.’ I would refuse. I refused for 10 years. I saw it as a sort of sacrilege.”

That shortrib mole
Fish tacos

In the ‘Mexican Soul Cooking’ section of his book Lastra writes of his quest for accessibility: “It wasn’t about using only specialist British ingredients, like we do at KOL, where we can employ foragers to find different kinds of pinecones, meadowsweet, woodruff and wood ants. They are incredible ingredients, but the sourcing of them is so complicated… It wasn’t about using ‘authentic’ Mexican ingredients, either like we do at Fonda, which would never be available for the home cook (the masa for their tortillas is made fresh every day from nixtamalized barley, commissioned from Aberdeen).

His background as a mathematics whizz came to his rescue. “In maths, the answer is not in learning things by rote or following formulas but in trying to find answers through lateral thinking… I determined to go to the local supermarket in London and use only what was readily available. I thought to myself: if I can’t cook Mexican food from this, not one will be able to. And just like a maths problem, we found an exciting and surprising solution through the act of limitation.”

The first part of Mexican Soul sets his ‘developments’ in the context of how Mexican food works. After which guacamole using pistachios, tortillas made with mashed potato, Oaxaca cheese replaced by mozzarella and, my favourite – welcome to the wild garlic poppadom quesadilla.

Tacos de lengua with gooseberry and apple salsa

My idea of lateral thinking appears to be, scrolling through the index to check gooseberries’ role, along with coriander and chives, in ‘Oxtail with Green Mole’ and being intrigued by the preceding ‘Ox’ recipe – ‘Ox Tongue Divorciada’. The term Divorciados commonly refers to a dish dressed in two different styles of salsa. A habanero-led salsa roja would fit the bill  and the raw salsa verde just had to be Lastra’s invention, using goosegogs and Granny Smiths. The supermarket ones looked too waxy by half, so I substituted our scabbed windfalls

The oxtail dish looked labour intensive with overnight preparation; the ox tongue much simpler, braising with black peppercorns, garlic and bay leaves, then cooled skinned and seared in slices. Confession: I ignored the recommendation to serve with warm sourdough, instead using (sacrilege) supermarket mini flour tortillas to create Tacos de Lengua. Lastra’s version of the famous Tacos al Pastor employs cabbage leaf cups as the vessel of choice.

The same day I cooked the ox tongue I chanced upon some meaty oxtail on Todmorden Market and defrosted further gooseberries from the freezer. The Mexican ‘Year of the Ox’ goes on for this independent-minded cook. Mexican Soul is the perfect primer for novices to a sometimes daunting cuisine.

Salsa recipe

Ingredients

300g Granny Smith apples, roughly chopped but not peeled

100g fresh or frozen gooseberries

140g roasted onions

40g roasted and peeled cherry tomatoes

4 roasted bird’s eye chillies (or to taste)

2 roasted garlic cloves

1½ tbsp honey

30g coriander or chervil, stalks included

20g chives

2tsp sea salt flakes

350ml water

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the apples and gooseberries on a baking tray and roast the apples for 15 minutes, the gooseberries for 10. Remove form oven, leave to cool, then transfer to food processor with remaining ingredients and blend until smooth, adjusting water quantity to achieve a smooth loose salsa. Store in refrigerator for up to two days.

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How fragrant Malvani lamb took the spice route from Bombay to Leeds

Sanjeev Kapoor, now in his sixties, is the subcontinent’s celebrity chef incarnate. The Mumbai-based telly star’s Mastering The Art of Indian Cooking is one of my go-to-guides to that vast country’s myriad regional cuisines. So, confronted with the new Dishoom Leeds Malvani Lamb special, I consulted the guru. 

He shares several recipes from the Konkan Coast around Malvan town, 300 miles south of the Maharastran capital, once known as Bombay. In context, no distance really; the state is bigger than the entire UK. Malvani Shrimp Fry, Fish Curry, Chicken Hirwa Masala and bone-in Lamb (or Goat) all share the coconut and souring agents such as tamarind and kokum to be found in Goan cuisine even further south. Given the location, seafood I expected; lamb less so.

The Leeds Dishoom version follows the template of a fragrant blend of dried red chillies and spices, ample ginger, onion and garlic. The gravy is infused with roasted coconut, cardamom, chillies, turmeric and pippali pepper. Surprisingly fiery. The upmarket casual dining brand has policy of introducing a unique special for each of its launches. At the time of writing it now operates 11 cafes and four spin-off Permit Room bars across the UK.

All are inspired by the Irani cafes in South Bombay that catered for the Parsi Zoroastrian community, long ago exiled from their native Persia. It is a colourful but dwindling culture and in truth none of the originals can ever have looked as smart as this Dishoom that opened on August 14. It is definitely the hottest ticket in town.

The immaculate re-fit, alongside the Victoria Quarter features cosy leather booths for families and groups to settle into, alongside a wooden bar at the heart of the restaurant. Vintage decorative lights, sourced from the mother city and lovingly restored, sit alongside bespoke lighting throughout the café, casting a warm glow that evolves from breakfast through to late evening. 

Start off with a bacon naan at brekkie, tuck into a Ruby Murray and house black dal at lunch and as dusk falls take every advantage of the Permit Room bar’s delights, culminating in a Samir’s Vice cocktail marrying tart pineapple and sweet strawberry with tropical Takamaka Seychelles Rum Blanc, fat-washed in coconut milk and dashed with cardamom bitters.You need never leave.

That was my inclination on our preview visit. This Dishoom doesn’t have the advantage of the Manchester version’s epic Victorian premises; indeed its defining style is Art Deco more redolent of Thirties Bombay. But it immediately shares the same vibrancy and has a story all of its own. 

Co-founders Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, who opened the original in London in 2010, have hd fun creating a myth for each subsequent Dishoom. Here it’s some shaggy dog tale from war-time Bombay (then a bastion of the British Empire) based upon the explosion on board the SS Fort Stikine in Bombay Dock in April 1944, which sent gold bars flying across the city. Legend has it that some of the missing gold was never recovered.

Dishoom Leeds reimagines the fortune made from the gold bars and glamorous mid-century details abound through  both interiors and artwork. Guests can read the full story on Dishoom Leeds’ website here.

The disaster is referenced in The House Rules emblazoned on the wall of the first floor main dining room dining hall: “No stealing gold bar”. As in other Dishooms the rest of these quirky admonitions are geared to the city they are in. Such as “No exchanging corn for meals” – a charming tidbit from Leeds’ history, where hungry patrons would once barter corn for their supper. 

The all-day dining roster (which does include a toothsome grilled corn cob doused with chilli butter) is fixed on Bombay comfort food inspired by the city’s cafés, grills, street stalls and family kitchens. But is also strays across the rest of the subcontinent.

Witness that slow-cooked Malvani Lamb. Accompanying is golden laccha paratha, flaky and ghee-rich, for dipping and a sharp onion salad. As always at Dishoom don’t ignore the sides. They are some of the best things on the menu – old faves such as the house chaat (fried sweet potato covered with cool yoghurt, pomegranate, beetroot, radish and carrot plus a tamarind drizzle and green chutney) and, of course, Dishoom’s legendary signature dish – black dal simmered for over 24 hours. New to me was a side of warm aubergine chutney, addictively sweet and sour.

To accompany, we had to try Kohra IPA, made specially for Dishoom by Leeds craft beer maestros Northern Monk, built to handle spicy food. I was more than happy with a Dishoom Margarita (aim for the smoky mescal variation)

A sign of the times, there’s a great non and lo drinks offering, even beyond Indian staples such as sharbats and lassis.

Dishoom, 68-78 Vicar Lane, Leeds, LS1 7JH.  It is mostly a walk-in café, with guests welcome anytime. Reservations will be available for breakfast and lunch, with limited evening bookings available from 6pm.

Flavours of home – a Maharashtran diversion

At The Guild of Food Writers Awards 2026 the International or Regional Cookery Book Award went to Indian Kitchens: Treasured Family Recipes From Across the Land by Roopa Gulati (Bloomsbury, £26). The Fortnum & Mason Awards judges went one further and named it their Cookbook of the Year. It is a wonderfully evocative exploration of diversity in food and in culture as seen “from the home front”

Take the Jewish community of Alibag. Roopa’s chapter on Maharastra takes her to this ferry port an hour south of Mumbai, where she meets Yael and Ralphy Jhirad for lunch. The Children of Israel, their Jewish community, here and in Mumbai, has been in India for 2,000 years after fleeing persecution. In recent decades many of its number have migrated to Israel, leaving just 5,000. In contrast to the Parsis, who number 60,000. 

The Jhirads follow kosher rules in dietary strictures and observing the Shabat. During Passover food made from fermented grains and pulses is not allowed and processed foods such as dried spices are forbidden, unless certified as kosher. Quite at odds with the pillars of Indian cookery? No tart-tasting tamarind or cooking, so Yael compensates  by adding lime juice, tomatoes or green mangoes.

This ground-breaking book (from an author brought up in Cumbria) and restaurants such as Dishoom unlock a whole world of Indian cooking that is a far remove from the curry house staples of yore. The Dishoom cookbook (Bloomsbury, £26) is a gloriously produced, food-led exploration of the the topography of Bombay, but for a more intensive dive into the specific cuisine that inspired that tome try Farokh Talati’s equally evocative Parsi – from Persia to Bombay (same publisher, same price).

Talati’s ‘day job’ is running St John Bread and Wine in London’s East End, but has promoted his take on Parsi cuisine in supper clubs, including one at Maison Bertaux, Soho’s legendary French cafe. The world surely is a melting pot.

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You say macaroni, I say Squacquerone. Ciao to one of Italy’s best kept secrets

One of the delights of our recent trip to Bologna was emerging from our apartment one Sunday morning in search of coffee to find a buzzing organic market on our doorstep. Just 12 hours earlier the Piazza Aldrovandi  had been swarming with carousing students; now it was celebrating the equally vibrant food culture of the Emilia Romagna region.

On a dairy stall we encountered a tub of Squacquerone. Surely this was the tangy soft cheese layered with prosciutto di parma and arugula (rocket) on the piadina flatbread we had snacked on in the Quadrilatero gastronomic quarter? A purchase and post-coffee tasting confirmed it

Squacquerone di Romagna is a wobblier more spreadable version of the Lombard soft cheese stracchino, matured for a maximum four days, often less. 

It has PDO status, exclusively produced in a well defined area between the Ravenna, Cesena, Rimini, Bologna and Ferrara provinces, and between 64 Porrettana trunk road and Po river. Four cattle breeds, including Frisona Italiana (Friesian) provide the rich milk, the native lactic enzymes joined by natural whey starter, veal rennet and salt. Result: the final product, shaped by the molds, it is poured into, is slightly sourish from brining, but also delicately herbaceous. 

Under my radar till Bologna and I’m now trying to source it in the UK. Perhaps like the Lambrusco wine that accompanies it so well, it doesn’t travel well.

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Red-hot Impala lives up to the hype with a dream duck and molokhia’s ancient magic

En route to Impala through London’s Chinatown you run the gauntlet of lacquered roast ducks garnishing restaurant windows. From the humblest establishments to the Four Seasons, which trumpets its version as the world’s best. Switch from Wardour Street to Dean Street and you enter a different dining realm. It’s hard to resist dropping in on Jeremy Lee’s cosseting Quo Vadis, but make the effort and before you emerge onto Oxford Street duck (sic) into the aforementioned Impala, living up to the recent hype, not least because of its own signature duck dish.

Meedu Saad

Just six weeks after opening, this refurbished garage leapt into the National Restaurant Awards Top 50 at no.15 and at the ceremony its creator Meedu Saad was named Chef to Watch. Not that he’s emerged out of the blue in Soho. He has long headed the kitchen at Northern Thai-inspired Kiln, which is part of the Super 8 group, encompassing nearby Mountain, both East London manifestations of Brat and Kiln’s live-fire precursor, Smoking Goat in Shoreditch.

I’ve eaten at all of them, yet none had prepared me for Impala, which references  Egyptian-born Meedu’s own Cairo meets Tottenham upbringing. The name doesn’t spring from the antelope but from the cherry-red 1964 Chevrolet Impala his family drove during his summer holidays in his homeland.

When Super 8 founder and business partner Ben Chapman asked him what new project might be nearest to his heart he didn’t hesitate in saying North African.

Impala is all that but it’s far more, offering a creative fire to match the wood-burning ovens out of which emerges Aish Baladi, signature wholegrain and bran bread – puffed up pucks of loveliness.

Ash baladi
Those creamy beans

We used it to scoop up smoothly pounded (and we don’t mean liquidised) white beans infused with wild herbs and topped with briny bottarga – an appetiser that road-maps the whole Med. More uncompromising were our kibbehs of white crab and sun-dried wheat parcelled in a shiso leaf cone. The chilli hit had me gulping my glass of Aligoté. Not just any Aligoté; Sylvain Pataille’s. Impala’s is a seriously good wine list and the cocktails tempted, too, from a smart bar that’s worth a visit in its own right.

Warily we sidestepped sweetbreads with pickled green chillies or beef tartare laced with baklouti chilli, even though that Tunisian speciality pepper is not high on the Scoville scale, while spiced ox tongue with bird’s tongue pasta lost some allure when we discovered that’s the Egyptian name for orzo.

Crab kibbe
Roast duck is a speciality

So the half duck to share, it was. Surprisingly substantial bird and worth 68 quid. Sourced from Cornish butcher Philip Warren, it is dry-aged, brined, stuffed with a black lime spice paste and molasses and hung over embers, its dripping juices incorporated into the final fig sauce.  A final crisping in that ferocious oven imbues it with its mahogany hue. All the fanned slices required for accompaniment was a simple salad of tomatoes cumin and aromatic herbs.

In a launch interview Saad played up the five years of on the ground research that went into Impala, travelling to Istanbul, Athens, Tokyo, Marseille, Italy and the south of France, but mining his memory bank is equally important. 

He recalled a summer in his mid-teens, staying near Ismailia with his cousin and helping out on a mango farm. At lunchtime, there would be these lavish meals of  roast pigeon, roast ducks, rice and fruit. “I knew I needed a dish that one, was delicious, and two, really came from a place in my mind that had a lot of memory.”

Check out Impala website for a list of suppliers stretching from a Tunisian family harissa producer to the great David Lowrie in Fife for fish.

Braised jute leaf
The raw material

Such wide-ranging sourcing came together intriguingly in one dish – molokhia (braised jute leaf) and cull yaw. The latter, I knew, tender mutton from ewes that are too old for breeding. From Matt Chatfield, a Cornish colleague of Warren’s, you’ll find it across some of London’s finest restaurants. But molokhia? One of many spellings of what turns out to be a nutrient-packed green vegetable found across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. Egyptians were cultivating it back in the times of the Pharaohs. Typically, it makes a gelatinous soup; here encasing the slow cooked yaw (ewe). Not a pretty dish, it was vividly earthy and herby. The whole menu, I suspect, would yield similar surprises. Impala so lives up to the hype.

PS: Thanks, Impala, for the birthday candle on the sole pudding, a gorgeous date and pistachio tart.

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Danielle and Sofie to reopen OSMA and introduce Boutikk in Manchester’s Northern Quarter

Loyal readers will recognise I rarely publish new openings-on-the-horizon stories, but in one special case (I’m salivating already) I’ll make an exception, to trumpet the return of OSMA this autumn. It has been almost two years since the acclaimed restaurant abandoned its site on Bury New Road.

To get there entailed a bit of a trek from Prestwich Metrolink, but chef patron Danielle Heron’s food made it all worth while – among the best in the region, testimony to a culinary voyage that involved working at three Michelin star destinations L’Enclume in Cartmel and Maaemo in Oslo.

Danielle’s partner Sofie Stoermann-Naess is Norwegian and the Scandinavian vibe (OSMA is a portmanteau of Oslo and Manchester) will inform the pair’s new Northern Quarter home inside the One Port Street apartment block… and Boutikk, a city centre grocer and provisions shop, next door to the restaurant. Manchester is so short of premium provision stores, so this adds to the excitement.

Provenance always played a big part in OSMA’s success. Guests at Mark II can expect fresh seafood, local meats, seasonal vegetable dishes and the return of some of OSMA’s most-loved dishes. Their sharing Sunday roast will also make a welcome return.

 

While former Bury Grammar pupil Dani oversees the food offering, Fie will lead the front-of-house experience, as well as Boutikk. A first-of-its-kind concept for the area, Boutikk will offer seasonally sourced vegetables, dairy, fruit and a fresh meat and fish counter, where chefs will be on hand to advise customers on product selection, recipes and cooking techniques. The store will also feature freshly baked Scandinavian-style bread, all inspired by the food culture and shopping traditions of Sofie’s native Oslo.

OSMA, which originally launched in 2020, was listed within the Michelin Guide within a year of opening, leading to Danielle to take part in both Masterchef: The Professionals, and Great British Menu where she reached the finals in both shows. Of the opening, Dani and Fie say: “We’re so delighted to be reopening OSMA, we’ve missed it every day and to be bringing the restaurant back into such a vibrant part of the city centre is beyond exciting. We will miss our community in Prestwich but we’re only a couple of miles down the road. “Bringing a shop like Boutikk to Manchester has been a dream for such a long time – we feel that there is a need and a want for this kind of produce in the city centre so when it became apparent that we could create something alongside OSMA we jumped at the chance.”

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How Vilnius paints the town pink, while I try to scrub beetroot out of my chinos

Summer – time for chilled soup? Not same old Gazpacho or Vichyssoise, mind. Both of which I can at least pronounce. Unlike Šaltibarščiai, Lithuania’s legendary ‘Pink Soup’, whose annual festival drew a record 176,000 visitors to the capital Vilnius the other weekend. I wish I could have joined them. Maybe next year. Meanwhile I’m making my own. Simple recipe later.

Basically it’s a Borsch, the bright hue coming from its beetroot base. Other Baltic and Slavic states boast their own takes on such a refreshing chilled potage. The Poles call it Barszcz or Chlodnik, the Russians Svekolnik (the Ukrainians don’t).

Borscht, the hot variety I conjure up through the year, benefits from a rich meat stock, whereas Šaltibarščiai folds diced beetroot, spring onions and cucumber into Kefir, that fermented milk drInk created by lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that thrive at room temperature. Yes, it’s probiotic and good for your gut.

Ever since I witnessed the great Jonathan Meades – in one of his Magnetic North BBC documentaries – visit the Hill of 100,000 Crosses in the north of Lithuania, a  pilgrimage site and symbol of resistance against Russian occupation. I’ve been hooked on its history. The country’s pagan heritage, too. Known as “Europe’s last pagan kingdom,” Lithuania was the last nation in Europe to officially convert to Christianity in 1387.

Surprisingly Vilnius offers a riot of ‘wedding cake’ Baroque churches, which every late May play second fiddle to a mass of folk in bright pink costume slurping ice-cold soup

This year around 35,000 visitors from abroad were able to participate in the Pink Parade held on water, the signature costume competition, a giant four-storey tall pink slide, and culinary interpretations spread throughout the city. The sheer scale was reflected in 355 mapped locations offering šaltibarščiai-themed food, activities and events, culminating in the Best Pink Soup Costume Contest. The ‘traditional egg topping’ is on my garb bucket list.

Food trucks stationed around the White Bridge epicentre of the Pink Soup Festiavl used more than 4 tonnes of kefir, which was the main ingredient for almost 6.5 tonnes of šaltibarščiai devoured across the weekend. 

Nearly 16,000 people dressed in pink took part in the 10.5 km IKI Pink Soup Walking Competition across the city alongside more than 600 pets. Later, participants exchanged their steps for almost 50,000 fruits, and other ingredients used to make Lithuania’s iconic cold soup, including 4,000 cucumbers, 2,000 beets, and 4,000 bundles of dill.

• The 2027 edition of Vilnius Pink Soup Fest, the fifth, will take place on May 28–30, returning to its traditional last-weekend-of-May slot, and symbolising the beginning of summer season in Lithuania.

How to make Lithuanian Šaltibarščiai

first of all I consulted my Baltic food bible, Amber and Rye (Murdoch Books, £25) by Zuza Zak.She refines the recipe by creating an add-on fermented beetroot elixir, which I might use another time but had no patience to wait the five days it would take to bubble up. So here’s a simpler take on this classic dish that I Googled…

It supposedly serves four, but is ample for six. Spoiler alert: be careful with your colourful beet dicing. I splattered my chinos.

Ingredients

1kg kefir

200g beets, boiled or marinated

200g fresh cucumbers

six spring onions chopped

a pinch of fresh dill

2 eggs

salt, to taste

For serving

400g potatoes, boiled

dill, chopped, to taste

Method

Finely chop the vegetables and dill. Mix them all in a large bowl. Pour the kefir over the vegetables, flavour with salt according to taste, mix and let stand for several minutes (the longer the mixed vegetables stand, the tastier it will turn out).

Pour the soup into bowls, cut the boiled egg in pieces into the bowls. The cold soup is served with dill-speckled hot boiled potatoes on the side.

 

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Bella Bologna is pasta and mortadella centrale… yet a whole lot more

It was the unlikeliest bonding in cinema history. Danny de Vito and Arnold Schwarzenegger teaming up as Twins in the 1988 movie. It ought to have been boloney, but retains an easily digestible charm. Unlike the US sausage of that name that is a pallid, industrial copy of true Bologna sausage – the sacred Mortadella.

Bologna, of course, is Mortadella Centrale, Italy’s food capital. Inside the trattoria, Drogheria della Rosa, it appears I am  in the realm of Hollywood legends, too. Read the clippings. Drogheria devotee Arnie’s tip-off led to dinner visits from Danny and later Francis Ford Coppola.

But this converted pharmacy is no obvious celeb haunt. Indeed founder Emanuele Addone (above) takes centre stage. His “You’ll enjoy this  Montepulciano d’Abruzzo with your osso buco and vitello tonnato” is an offer we can’t refuse. Still, this is a benign Godfather. The whole experience radiates warmth. Under Emanuele’s twinkly but watchful eye service for our dinner is super-efficient. It all belies the cluttered, offbeat setting, featuring shelves of the original apothecary’s bottles.

It’s the pasta rolling show
I confront a local vegan

The menu feels a step away from the rigid Cucina Bolognese template that dominates around the Piazza Maggiore and deep into the heart of the city’s gastronomic quarter, the Quadrilatero. 

Not that you’re likely to be disappointed by the pasta on offer in most places. It’s a spectator sport to see the sheets being rolled out in pasta shop windows. Just don’t expect spaghetti with your bolognese ragu. They are strict about pairings; it has to be fresh tagliatelle, which holds the sauce better. 

Lasagne at Trattoria da Me
Tortellini at the Drogheria

Even more seriously, there is specific legislation about the dimensions of each pasta type and we discovered tradition demands (mostly ignored) that the Emilia Romagne classic lasagne be only served on Sunday.

At the Drogheria my pasta course  was the archetypal Tortellini in Brodo, where hand-rolled tiny pasta parcels are simmered and served in a clear chicken and beef broth. The best fillings combine pork loin, prosciutto, mortadella, and Parmesan. 

Make your mind up about the legend behind its creation. After a battle the gods Jupiter and Venus retired to a country inn between Bologna and Modena (where balsamic vinegar comes from). The innkeeper spied on the goddess of love through a keyhole. All he could see was her navel. In his infatuation, he sculpted a pasta replica.

Bring your own food to Osteria Sole
A classic piadina

Confession, I prefer the larger Tortelloni encasing perhaps spinach or pumpkin. The Montepulciano, by the way, was an inspired accompaniment at just 25 euros.

Earlier in the day, whisked in by the monorail from the airport, we had undergone everyone’ds Bologna wine initiation – a visit to the Osteria del Sole in the Quadrilatero. The selling point of this 15th century tavern haven on the Vicolo del Ranocchi is good affordable vino to wash down food you can bring in without charge. It certainly hides its light sotto un moggio (under a bushel); twice we had walked past. Saturday lunchtime, so it was heaving.

To share we took the Emila Romagna region’s favourite flatbread, piadina, packed with prosciutto di parma, the soft cheese squacquerone and arugula (rocket), and sank tumblers of local Lambrusco and Pignoletto, each lightly frizzante.

Sunny abundance of the Erbe
But cuttlefish cast their shadow

Around the corner you’ll find the Mercato di Mezzo (the Middle Market), which dates back to the Middle Ages and was transformed into the city’s first covered market after Italian Unification. These days it operates as an eating-in exhibition space.

I much preferred the less touristy Mercato delle Erbe along the Via Ugo Bassi, which lives up to the greenery in its name. Altro is its own collection of eateries, the pick of which is Banco 32, a vibrant seafood bar attached to that rare Bologna animal (sic) a fishmonger. 

Banco 32 – great spot for fish
Sicilian-inspired gilthead fish rolls

Still Bologna’s best known food stores are in the Quadrilatero and charcuterie and cheese rule the roost. Swanky Tamburini, with its own cafe, is the most high profile, but Salumeria Simoni is certainly the mortadella mecca, even hosting its own food tours to explain the superiority of mortadella tradizione.

Ham array at Tamburini
Cheese feast in the Mercato delle Erbe

Yes, even the Italians can pass off sub-standard, Spamlike versions. At its best it lives up to the 16th century version documented by Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to Pope Pius V, and writer of groundbreaking cookbook Opera. His mortadella method involved finely chopping lean pork and fat with two knives rather than grinding, and seasoning subtly with spices to create a delicate, cooked sausage, wrapped in caul. Pale pink, it should be laced with bright gleaming spots of fat.

No wonder one of the nicknames for Bologna is La Grassa (The Fat). The others are La Rossa, for both its communist leanings and terracotta red rooftops, and La Dotta or The Learned because the city’s university is the oldest in the Western world.

Porticoes are ubiquitous
The Piazza San Stefano

The need to house the students led to the expansion of residential space and so the construction of the 40km of porticoes in the city centre alone. It rained on and off during or stay, so were were more than grateful for these distinctive covered walkways.

The are particularly attractive around the angular Piazzo Santo Stefano, home to my number one must-see in Bologna – the labyrinthine complex of medieval churches, cloisters and crypts named after that saint. It originally consisted of seven churches. Four remain and they are the very definition of ‘hallowed spot”. It’s such a contrast contrast to the monumental Cattedrale di San Pietro and Basicilica di San Petronio. In Pilate’s Courtyard, see if you can spot in its alcove the 16th century ‘Crowing Rooster of St Peter’.

You have to earn the right to …
… reach the Santuario

Once you’ve got the taste for porticoes, it’s worth making the pilgrimage to the 18th century Santuario della Madonna di San Luca, a pink Baroque basilica on a hill top 10km south west of the city. It is a fair walk out before you test your calves ascending the world’s longest portico – 3.8km uphill all the way under 660 Unesco-protected arches. If you’re not up to it, there is a little tourist train. You’ll be met by a grand view across the city to the distant Apennines. 

Our reward for our own strenuous  efforts was a late Sunday lunch back in town at the Trattoria da Me. Michelin-mentioned, with a new generation in the kitchen, its food is decidedly more contemporary, but it still honours lasagne as a Sabbath special. So that was our starter and its light layers and textures were a revelation.

The cool Trattoria da Me
Even cooler – Forno Brisa

En route from Santuario, we had stopped off for an IPA at another beacon of new wave Bologna. Self-styled ‘independent and rebel bakery’ Forno Brisa, has five outlets, offering their own sourdough, cutting edge coffee and a very un-Bolognalike vibe. Ditto Il Punto, the city’s best birra artigianali pub. Excellent craft pours in a heavy rock ambience, five minutes walk from the Trattoria da Me. You have to venture further out to sample the wood-aged wild ales and sours at the Ca’ del Brado taproom.

Ragu and Draft operate at street level
Worship cocktais at Le Stanze

We were staying on the fringe of the beautiful Piazza Aldrovandi, just beyond the night-time hubbub of this cluster of al fresco bars and street food. Buzziest spot, another crack in the bulwark of trad Bologna, the Ragū & Draft kiosk, combining the city’s signature meat sauce in buns or on tagliatelle with draught cocktails. Walk north from here up the Via Giuseppe Petroni and in 10 minutes you’ll experience a very different cocktail setting. At aperitivo hour where better to sip your negroni than  Le Stanze, inside the vaulted former chapel of the Palazzo Bentivoglio? Pull up a bar stool against a backdrop of faded 17th frescoes.

Unmissable Cinema Modernissimo
A homage to movie greats

In complete contrast is the bar of the art house Cinema Modernissmo. Originally  it was an underground theatre of a medieval palace that was demolished in the early 20th century. The cinema it became finally closed in 2007, but with the backing of Martin Scorsese reopened three years ago and it is a glorious city centre bolthole. After exploring a free exhibition on the great French director Agnes Varda we each sipped a sbagliatio. One plus of viewing a film (a portion of which are in English with Italian subtitles) are the food boxes, which could include tortellini – naturally.

The two towers
Neptune in the Piazza Maggiore main square

Step outside onto the Via Rizzoli and turn your head right. Ahead of you lie the Asinelli and Garisenda towers, currently closed to the public, but enduring symbols of this city full of surprises. 

La Grassa, La Rossa, La Dotta, Las Sorpresa.

 

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No piece of cake! Expect fierce contest for Le Cordon Bleu’s Pâtisserie Scholarship

It is not surprising that the Roux Brothers, Michel and Albert, creators of Le Gavroche and a whole UK culinary dynasty, made their name as pastry chefs. Indeed over 30 years ago they penned a definitive book on pâtisserie and in 2008 I remember interviewing Michel Senior as he toured his Pastry: Savoury and Sweet. Another great, now departed French chef I have encountered was Joel Robuchon, who at 15 started his multi-starred as a pastry chef. It’s a skill set at the core of haute cuisine.

Albert’s son and inheritor of Le Gavroche, Michel Roux Jnr served his own apprenticeship in the art and science of sugar, flour and butter. Who would not want such a legend as a kitchen mentor? Well, there’s now a chance as Le Cordon Bleu London launches its new Pâtisserie Scholarship Competition, giving aspiring pastry chefs the opportunity to win a prize package worth more than £75,000. 

Finesse is required
Michel Roux Jnr

As part of its annual scholarship competition, the new initiative has been created to identify and support the next generation of pâtisserie talent through a combination of professional training, mentorship and hands on industry experience. Applications are now open and will close on Friday, May 29 2026. 

Previous annual scholarship competitions from the institute have offered career-launching opportunities across a range of culinary disciplines. 

The overall winner will receive a 12-month prize package, including a place on Le Cordon Bleu London’s Diplôme de Pâtisserie (intensive) and Diploma in Pâtisserie Innovation, beginning in January 2027. 

The prize will also include an internship at CORD by Le Cordon Bleu restaurant and mentoring from Michel Roux and Chris Galvin (of MIichelin-starred La Chapelle), dinner at the 3 Michelin-starred Sketch Lecture Room and 12 months accommodation from Londonist.

Roux says: “The competition offers a life-changing opportunity for an aspiring chef to gain valuable training and industry experience, and a secure foothold on the first step of their career in hospitality.”

The scholarship will also recognise additional talent through second and third place prizes, which will also offer courses. 

The final will take place at Le Cordon Bleu London, followed by an awards dinner at CORD restaurant. The winner will begin their studies in January 2027. 

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Join the morel crusade as Mike Shaw gives the Freemasons new belief

I am still a boy, only occasionally needing to scrape the downy bum fluff off my chin. “So you fancy a half pint of my foaming ale, do you, sonny?” smirks the landlord across the pumps. My school pal Hoppers looks even more callow, so he has pushed me forward to get us served. Only the third pub I’ve ever managed it in and I am still struggling to actually like the forbidden fruit of malt and hops. Ah, the bittersweet joys of under-age drinking long ago…

Fast forward half a century and more and there’s a different sort of epiphany going on in the same hostelry, The Freemasons At Wiswell, these days the very model of a country gastropub. Wiswell rhymes with ‘swizzle’, but you won’t be cheated by the offering at this destination on the fringe of the Ribble Valley.

That stuffed morelo
Chef patron Mike Shaw

The British morel season is vernal and short, April the apogee. Often found clustering under hedgerows, the ridged and pitted fungi are a prized delicacy. I am unsure where chef patron Mike Shaw sources his from. I should’ve asked. The dish he has just served, a morel stuffed with scallop in a vin jaune sauce as part of a six course set menu, is a portal into fantasy Gallic Michelin territory. 

Greenfield-born Shaw has served his time at Raymond Blanc’s two-star Manoir and worked with Richard Neat in Cannes when that maverick Pied à Terre founder  became the first Englishman to win a star in France. The classic training has always been evident in Shaw’s subsequent cooking nearer home. I’ve always been in awe of his patisserie skills. Now his new tenure at The Freemasons looks like taking this acclaimed food pub with rooms to a different level.

Under a previous incumbent Steve Smith it repeatedly featured in Top Gastropubs lists. Indeed it became the 2015 Waitrose Good Food Guide’s Number One Pub in the country. At one point it even leapfrogged the Michelin-starred Northcote down the road in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Restaurants list. Great times, but it has been in the comparative doldrums since. Now the revival is definitely on  the way.

Not that it is forsaking its look of a film set for some Hollywood-imagined country inn It boasts more stag’s heads than you can shake a fox’s brush at and innumerable Dick Turpin meets Jorrocks country prints. You could imagine the Pickwick Club getting exceedingly jolly in the formal upstairs dining areas, which have been tarted up even more. The inn is a conversion of three terraced cottages, one of which was once a Freemason’s lodge apparently. Four beautifully appointed bedrooms have been created out of neighbouring property and remain a huge plus.

We’d have happily hunkered down in one after six fabulous courses for £85`:

 Wye Valley asparagus, miso caramel, miso hollandaise; duck liver, blood orange, golden raisin, heritage carrot; Cornish crab, apple, pickled kohlrabi, preserved lemon, oscietra caviar; stuffed morel, scallop, artichoke, walnut, yellow wine sauce; salt marsh hogget, loin, braised belly, sweetbread ballotine, aubergine, tongue sauce; pistachio parfait poached rhubarb.

Asparagus delight
Lamb fat brioche

All lovely, but the star was that stuffed morel. Hand-dived dived scallops are made into a very light mousse, seasoned with sea herbs, steamed for 8 minutes in the morel,  left to rest and then glazed with a double veal stock reduction. Shaw sits it  on a Jerusalem artichoke puree and serves with a sauce made from a grand cru vin jaune, that oxidised wine speciality of the Jura. It’s finished with walnut oil.

Cornish crab
Salt marsh hogget

This is the chef’s take on the kind of dish you might have found on the menu at Nico Ladenis’ London three-star late in the last century. In Padstow today Paul Ainsworth might stuff his mores with chicken mousse, with cured winter truffle, confit shallots and duck liver. Which all sounds a mite over-rich. In contrast Mike Shaw’s is light and spring perfect.

Freemasons at Wiswell, 8 Vicarage Fold, Wiswell, Clitheroe BB7 9DF
01254 822218.

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It’s a Dhokla shock as Bundobust casts off its menu shackles

Rick Stein, little old name dropper you. I first encountered Dhokla in his 2013 cookbook spin-off India. He wrote: “I got this recipe from Chirayu Amin, the former chairman of  the IPL (Indian Premier League Cricket). This grandee had invited our Rick to the launch of his kitchen annexe. Among the dishes served was this savoury cake bread speciality of Gujarat; millionaire foodie Amin topped it with prawns, sacrilege in what is arguably the Sub-Continent’s most vegan state.

Featuring it in her BBC series Flavours Of India (available on IPlayer) Madhur Jaffery declared: “If there is  an haute cuisine for vegetarians – ancient traditional foods with outstanding flavours and textures, all based on sound nutritional principles – it can be found here.” And Dhokla is a perfect example.

Classic Dhokla from Gujarat
The great Madhur Jaffrey

Gujarat is where the Patel family hail from. Its plant-based cuisine is the wellspring of their Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant Prashad in the West Yorkshire hamlet of Drighlington. This in turn has spawned one of the most inspired hospitality collabs of recent times – Bundobust. Prashad founder Kaushy Patel’s son Mayur joined forces with Bradford bar owner Marko Husak to perfect their Indian veggie street food meets craft beer formula. It started in 2013 in Leeds and followed it up with two Manchester outlets and Liverpool.

Now the boys have shaken it up, unleashing a menu for 2026 packed with surprises. 16 new dishes to pick from. Some are reinvented returning classics, others feel newly minted. They call it: “The most Bundo version of of Bundo and everything we wanted it to be when we first dreamt it up back in 2013. 2013!! Mad. More shareable, more new flavours, textures, more Too Much Spicy, just more Bundo.”

They have been launching it in stages. In Leeds on April 13, Liverpool the 20th with Manchester following on the 27th. If you thought their food offering had gone a little predictable think again. I certainly have done after a preview at their original Mill Hill site five minutes from Leeds Railway Station. Fond memories for me here. I was the first critic to review it. Maybe Dhokla was on that original plastic menu card. I can’t remember. It has always been a Prashad signature dish and you’ll find a recipe in their cookbook.

Dhokla chaat
Litti choka

Well it is here now as Dhokra Chaat and is springily gorgeous. This Gujarati steamed savoury cake is made with a gram flour batter, also known as Khaman, which is fermented overnight before steaming. Bundo infuse the mix with ginger and turmeric and serve it with fresh onion tossed in a mustard tarka with a garlic, coconut and coriander chutney.

The revamped menu is the product of patient research around the UK’s Desi hotspots and forays to India. Testimony to this is Litti choka. It is popular in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar and certain Nepalese provinces. Why have been hiding this secret so long? Basically, these are fire-roasted dough balls, made from black gram flour and filled with masala spiced crushed peas and raisins. As is tradition, they are served on a warm smoked aubergine and tomato spread.

I love the back story of another menu newbie. Galouti Kebab was created as a soft,  shallow-fried meat and papaya patty to cater for Lucknow’s toothless Nawab, Asad-ud-Daula. Bundo substitutes masala mushroom and rajma and serves on a puri with pickled red onion and spinach and mint chutney. 

Conservative Bundophiles, don’t fret. This is not a total overhaul. I can’t resist ordering old favourites that have been there from day one – the best Okra Fries around – dusted with kala namak and amchoor – and pomegranate-speckled Bhel Puri, puffed rice and samosa shards made tangy with tamarind.

The Pav Bhaji has featured in various guises over the years, but the latest might be the pick. Here it comes toasted and slathered in masala butter, to scoop up a spiced buttery mixed veg masala topped with fresh cucumber and onions.

It’s still all small plates, but with a certain heft to them. Take the latest variation on Paneer Tikka – two chunky skewers of barbecued halloumi-like Indian cheese, mushroom and pepper marinated in tikka yoghurt. With lashings of red pepper ketchup and spinach chutney to seal the deal.

Wash the new menu down with a glass or two of Bundobust Brewery beers tailored to the spice – a Mango Lassi Dazzler pale ale or a Chacha Chai stout.

* Most dishes are priced between £6 and £8.50. A Combo for Two at £38.50 will save you £5.50, while a comprehensive Bundo Combo, feeding four to six hungry folk, costs £134, a saving of £20.50.

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