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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?

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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.

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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.  

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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.


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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.

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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.

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How my gurning Medlock gurnard spouted from Gandalf’s mouth

I pen this ode to the Gurnard on the day Sir Ian McKellen has decided not to return to the West End stage as Falstaff. Understandable fears were raised for the 85-year-old legend, AKA Gandolf,  after he crashed into the orchestra pit during a performance at the Noel Coward Theatre and was rushed to hospital.

Robert Icke’s Player Kings is an unashamed showcase for Sir Ian, compressing into one play Sir John Falstaff’s ‘star turns’ across Shakespeare’s King Henry IV Parts One and Two (plus his poignantly reported demise at the start of Henry V). We saw the production  at Manchester Opera House and were transfixed by this bravura, fat-padded tour de force.

So how does this tally with arguably the most unprepossessing of our sustainable fish? Well, think unsustainable PM Rishi Sunak’s cunning plan for National Service. On the eve of the Battle of Shrewsbury Sir John regrets lining his own pockets through his ‘recruitment policy’: “If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet.”

The Medlock Canteen
Chef patron Sam Grainger

Typically Tudor, the gurnard’s fillets have been marinated in vinegar. This week in the Medlock Canteen, one of Manchester’s most interesting new eating places, I was served it whole off the barbecue as a fish special of the day, the bulging eyes in its large, prehistoric head staring regretfully up at me from a pool of melted butter, infused with lemon and chive. It was quite glorious, the firm white flesh easily detached from its bony, spiny frame. It’s not so easy to fillet the fish raw,

My fine specimen was apparently fresh in that day, so no qualms about ordering, Once home, though, I checked the Marine Stewardship Council sustainability charts to find the red gurnard fishery may be in choppier waters than I envisaged. I was certain it was the red common in the Irish Sea and off Cornwall, not the larger grey or tub varieties found elsewhere. The Project Inshore assessment, based on MSC sustainability standards? “Red gurnard – often a favourite among those encouraging consumers to choose alternative species – fared less well in the report (than cod and cockles). A shortage of data about fish stocks and limited management of catches mean that there is an urgent case for investment to improve our understanding of this fishery. While a shortage of data doesn’t mean that the fisheries are inherently unsustainable, that data will be increasingly important as the species gains in popularity and catches increase.”

Further choppy waters as I discover a Wildlife Trusts warning to avoid during the breeding season, May-July, while the Cornwall Seafood Guide advises against eating during the spawning season, April 20 August. Whatever, only consume mature gurnard, ie longer than 24cm. My lunch certainly measures up to that

My old friend Clarissa Hyman has written the most scholarly appreciation of the gurnard: “(The red’s) bright-red coloration and pinkish-silver mottling has led to it being called the ‘grondin rouge’ in France and the ‘Engelse soldaat’ in the Netherlands, a reminder perhaps of the uniforms their former red-coated enemies across the Channel once wore…

“One immediately noticeable, and somewhat unnerving, feature is the fish’s long, thin lower rays or tentacles of the pectoral fins. These contain sensory organs used to sweep the sea bed for dinner – the small fish, crustaceans and other invertebrates that lurk in the sediment. They derive their more gentle, alternate American name of sea robin from the large pectoral fins with which they seemingly ‘fly’ through the seas.” 

Once they are caught, then, what’s the best cooking method? The usual fillets fried, grilled poached or baked, all taking advantage of its firm white flesh, almost stickily akin to monkfish, that other ugly bruiser from the deep. Bouillabaise or soup would certainly accommodate the gurnard. Gone are the days when they seemd only fit for lobster bait. Endorsed by chefs, the gurnard is upwardly mobile. Quite a feat for a bottom-dwelling species given to making an unappetising croaking noise. Moral of the tale – who needs Sexy Fish when you’ve got Ugly Fish?

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How a snail trail led back to Manchester’s own flourishing flatbread scene

So why are flatbreads having their moment? And how many snails have to make the ultimate sacrifice to sate the ‘pillowy flatbread’ Instagrammers of London? Pillowy is always the reviewers’ adjective to bolster the image of unleavened delight. In the right hands. No one’s going to laud a supermarket pitta for its fluffiness.

But back to the Escargots and the topping role they are playing. Roe, a new 500-seater restaurant, has opened in Canary Wharf. It is an offshoot of Fallow in St James’ (my review), which sold 10,000 whole smoked cod’s heads dowsed in a sriracha emulsion in its first five months. At Roe the grasp-the-nettle dish is a flatbread with snail vindaloo, mint yoghurt and coriander for £11. For a fiver more there’s a Cornish scallop/bacon butter one.

Snail flatbread at Bistro Freddie’s
Mountain’s pillowy ‘must have’

Meanwhile, over in Shoreditch, bless, Bistro Freddie’s calling card is a more classic snails and parsley butter version, sometimes elevated to tarragon butter with scratchings of crisp chicken skin. Alternatively there’s currently a £13.50 bouillabaisse flatbread. Surely that’s the equivalent of pineapple on a pizza? Still it is an eye-catcher in these confusing  times when Esquire can devote a whole article to The Instagrammable Flatbread.

One reveal there from a Freddie’s sous-chef: “Flatbreads are traditionally unleavened (as the name suggests just flour, salt and water), but at many restaurants, flatbread dough and pizza dough are now basically the same thing. The yeast or sourdough starter (leavening agents) give the bread an improved flavour as well as those charming air bubbles and a pillowy (sic) texture. I guess it’s a way of un-Italian restaurants using a pizza without having to use the name.”

Flatbread goes upmarket. In January Tomos Parry’s Mountain in Soho was named Best New Restaurant in the Good Food Guide Awards and soon after scooped a Michelin star. When we visited to review we were so smitten by the house flatbread being wolfed by our neighbours we ordered our own to mop up some spice-oozing chorizo and ‘nduja with honey.

Erst flatbread with lardo…
… or with gremolata

Manchester is awash with glistening flatbreads of a similar provenance and there is a substantial link with London. Freddie head chef is Anna Søgaard, once a key player in the rise of Ancoats. Raised between Florida and Copenhagen, Anna spent time in Nordic fine dining before joining Erst in 2019 and was co-founder of Manchester charity supper club Supp-HER.

Flatbreads are a constant at Erst, the current Manchester Food and Drink Awards Restaurant of the Year, which still modestly tags itself a ‘Natural Wine Bar & Restaurant. Lardo or gremolata are the usually, equally modest sounding toppings of choice. Cue Observer critic Jay Rayner, who kicked off with their flatbread take on pan con tomate: “On the grill it has bulged and expanded, blistered and broken. It is spread with freshly chopped tomato pulp, grassy olive oil and a knuckle-crack of garlic…. It manages to be crisp and soft, sour and mellow all at the same time. It is the best £5 I have spent in a very long time. Alongside it, we have ordered meaty Cantabrian anchovies, floating on their olive oil pond, with a generous dusting of chilli flakes. The anchovies find their way on to the bread…

“We tell our waiter we’d like another. He reminds us that we’ve already ordered the other version, which comes brushed fatly with garlic herb butter, with a quenelle of bright white whipped lardo on the side. I spread it across the hot bread and watch it melt into the crevices. It’s dripping toast, but as rebooted by Hollywood. It’s the George Clooney of garlic breads: elegant, sophisticated, but with substance underpinning the gloss and shimmer.” Don’t sit on the fence, Jay. 

Flatbreads at Another Hand
My Jaan lunch special

I think he’d also love the genuinely pillowy offering at a ‘Persian Flatbread Kitchen’ that has surfaced in the Exhibition food hall on Peter Street, Manchester, ironically opposite Neapolitan dough champions Rudy’s Pizza. Another Hand, up on Deansgate Mews, has already won plaudits for its ‘Wildfarmed flour’ house flatbreads but at just 24 covers and concentrating on multi-courses there was felt a need for a further outlet. Hence Jaan By Another Hand, sharing the substantial dining space with two Manc indie favourites Baratxuri and OSMA. It also stays true to the sustainable ethos of Another Hand’s chef duo of Julian Pizer and Max Yorke. Unused produce from Another Hand can transfer to a second kitchen in a fast paced venue, further reducing their waste systems.

The slow-fermented, wood-fired flatbread menu is invitingly comprehensive, featuring the likes of slow cooked lamb shank, ancient grains, house pickles, lemon tahini labne, feta mint and house flatbreads; grilled octopus, ‘nduja, green tomato, rosemary, smoked peppers, blackened lime and puffed grains; fire roasted sea trout fatoush salad, fried bred radish and sumac; chermoula chicken broken rice, pickled tomatoes and crispy herbs; and scorched summer squash, burnt onion broth, pickled chilli and za’atar. 

Dishes are priced between £8 for a simple back garlic butter version to £24 for the lamb shank. A good way in is the lunchtime special (until 4pm), which currently offers. for £10. the ras-al-hanout lamb flatbread plus a soft drink or non-alcoholic beer (for £2 more substitute a glass of decent Macedonian white). In addition Julian kindly sent out an extra elderflower-infused smashed cucumber and pickled seaweed salad (£6.50) that was a perfect complement. At Exhibition you can mix and match dishes from across the trio of operators.

Ethiopian injera
Indian naan

The world is flat-bread! Even Noma is getting in on the act

All the fine purveyors mentioned are only reinventing the wheel, Flatbreads remain ubiquitous and essential across many cultures. The list is endless – pide and gözleme in Turkey, tabouna in Palestine, Pane carasau in Sardinia, injera in Ethiopia, roti/chapati across the Indian sub-continent and mch, much more. All based on the wholesome trinity of flour water and salt.

My own attempts have been a mixed success. but I was pleased with my take on Noma Projects’ Flatbread with Garum marinated oyster mushrooms. Even if I did substitute Watkins mushroom ketchup and a dash of colatura di alici for Rene Redzepi’s smoked mushroom garum. Here is the surprisingly undaunting recipe.

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On fire! Musu chef Shaw’s smoking take on the Land of the Rising Sun

In the wake of this January’s Noto Peninsula earthquake, which resulted in 245 deaths, I purchased Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Food Artisans of Japan. Partly because all royalties were pledged to the relief fund (the chapter on Hokoriku: Noto Peninsula is the second largest in the book) and because I had been captivated by a previous book of hers on Japanese preservation traditions, a recent Christmas gift from my brother.

Domiciled in a 90 year-old farmhouse in rural Saitama with her organic farmer husband since 1988, this indomitable Californian has written a string of remarkable books charting Japan’s food culture and championing its artisanal ingredients. 

What struck me about Food Artisans was not just the stories of diehard producers sharing their secrets of true miso, shoyu, soba noodles, tofu, air-dried fish, umeboshi, sake, chef’s knives and much more, but the seven chefs she chose to profile. Their straddling of boundaries, sometimes applying modern techniques to age-old traditions, gave the book a contemporary resonance. The backdrop is one of ancient traditions diluted, short cuts taken even in the heartland of Japanese cuisine, yet their new wave artisanship gives hope.

Chef patron Mike Shaw
His Japanese backdrop

Cut to a muggy May evening on Bridge Street, Manchester as we enter Musu, similar hope in our hearts. Walk 10 minutes in any direction and you’ll be served, for a substantial outlay, takes on sushi and sashimi only a small step up from the supermarket chill cabinet.

Musu is different. The name means “infinite possibilities”. Its kitchen has a kinship with those of Shinobu Namae or Takayoshi Shiozawa – Hachisu heroes not averse to French or Italian influences  from our global melting pot. 

Mike Shaw is definitely a less exotic sounding chef – you can take the lad out of Saddleworth etc – but he too has outstanding technique that has enable him to combine his classical European technique, forged under the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc and Richard Neat, with a new-found devotion to Japanese ‘haute cuisine’, inspired by the finest possible raw ingredients. I heartily recommend attending one of the whole bluefin butchery events at the restaurant.

Crab mousse snacks
Mixed vegetable tempura

It’s all about such ingredients treated reverentially but with some flexibility. The closest you’ll get to a near authentic Japanese experience at Musu is to book the Omakase. In my review of this for Manchester Confidential. ‘A Dialogue of Discovery’ I describe it as “where connoisseurs of sushi and sashimi go ‘off piste’, leaving their bespoke menu up to a chef they are eyeball to eyeball with across an entire meal. He’ll be a shokunin (master artisan) and you are in his nimble hands as he slivers raw seafood or moulds nigiri in a masterclass of tactile dexterity.”

What I did learn from Omakase and tuna dismemberment was the three core cuts of the bluefin (and allowing none of the rest to go to waste). Akami (lean) chutoro (medium fatty) and otoro (fatty) are the holy trinity. 

Two of the cuts, akami and otoro, featured in the new look ‘Land of the Rising Sun by Michael Shaw’ tasting menu for spring – described as “a personal culinary journey through the heart of Japan, where each dish I present is a testament to the inspiration drawn from four distinct cooking styles: Edomae, Izakaya, Teppan and Kaiseki”. Check out the Musu website for full background on that culinary quartet. Inspiration is the word. Shaw is riffing on Japanese food, not just replicating.

Amazing sashimi
My prawn tartare fave

You can choose between five, eight and 12 courses. We explored the latter, which costs £150 a head, the wine matches a further £95. Head sommelier Ivan Milchev provided us with small tastes of what goes on that list. Some brilliant matches there. Stand-outs included a red berry-fest of a PetNat from Austria’s Burgenland (partnering a snack of Cornish crab mousse with melon and togarashi), a fragrant and fruity medium-dry Rose d’Anjou surprisingly good with cod cheeks and lardo, a steak-friendly Mencia red from Northern Spain and my favourite. a lighter red Marzemino from the  shores of Lake Garda that took on yakitori brilliantly

Among the sashimi it’s good to contrast five day aged hamachi (Japanese amberjack) cured six hours in kombu with Cornish salmon six days aged, cured in salt. Each has its own character – the hamachi sour and slightly fatty in a beguiling way, the salmon less tangy, subtler. A trio of nigiri is delicately enhanced by citrus, lime zest for the sea bream, blood orange and umebushi for the Cornish turbot, while the otoro has a lick of wasabi (the proper stuff)…

Land of the Rising Sun – a journey beyond Japan

The Musu operation is among the slickest in Manchester. Just as there’s no stinting on the quality of raw materials, so the staff are tightly drilled about what they are offering. Still I can’t resist teasing our server about a ‘misfire’ on the pass. One course, of A5 Wagyu. has taken a while coming. Reason? A malfunctioning smoke gun refusing to apply the necessary finish inside the dish’s cloche.

When it arrives the intricately marbled steak is a smoke-tinged, melting delight. Burnt onion cream and crispy kale on brioche gives it an East meets West feel. Ditto with a later combo of 34 day aged beef and Wye valley asparagus with an array of miso caramel, lovage emulsion, whipped miso hollandaise/ bordelaise sauce. It’s a main that’s a long way from Kyoto.  

Chicken yakitori
Duck meatball yakitori

It’s the parade of more intimate dishes that float my boat. A tartare of red carabinero prawn with apple gel and oscietra in a butter dashi; a yakitori of umeboshi-glazed duck meatball; further duck with foie gras in a fried gyoza companied by salsify cooked in sake (and paired with sake); and my habitual Musu go-to, a chawanmushi that follows the Wagyu. This time this foaming savoury custard contains a substantial morel, peas and wild garlic.

Yuzu sake fruity pre-dessert
White chocolate heaven

To conclude a Yuzu sake of pineapple and mango with a red shiso sorbet is merely a palate cleanser before Shaw’s signature pudding. Guardian critic captured its rare beauty: “A salted white chocolate loveliness that was somewhere between a mousse, a ganache and a panna cotta, and also featured hints of almond and a scattering of something crumbly and sablé-esque.”

Classic European patisserie to end the sunniest of culinary journeys. Sayonara, Chef Shaw. 

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Tom and Laurissa’s Pignut – sustainable restaurant that prides itself on going to ground

Bank holiday weekend and I’m motoring towards Scarborough. Mist wreathes Sutton Bank as I tackle the hairpin ascent. In drizzly Helmsley the tea rooms are doing a roaring trade and I’m consigned to the overspill long stay. This is journey’s end. No seaside scrum for me. A five minute walk across the Market Square, Pignut awaits.

Context here. This forage-centric restaurant is named after conopodium majus, a commoner than you’d imagine umbellifer, its delicate fronds confirming it’s a wild cousin to the carrot. Uproot it in spring and there’s the tiny edible tuber. Pigs love to guzzle it, hence the name. Alternative monikers include hog nut, earth nut and kipper nut. Trim off the outer skin and taste. Hazelnut? Definitely a hint of sweet chestnut apparently. Need to know more? Check out this video report from the pignut front line. 

Unearthing a pignut
Nature’s preserved bounty

Inside the eponymous restaurant I am not confronted by this forest gift, but there will prove to be a preponderance of late season wild garlic across the £95 eight course tasting menu I have chosen. Also figuring: sweet cicely, cow parsley and hogweed. All demonstrate the ethos behind this debut project from chef Tom Heywood and sommelier partner Laurissa Cook. Rows of ferments, pickles and oils are the sustainable bedrock of an operation rooted in the terroir. Ditto the commitment to local suppliers, proudly listed. This access to amazing raw materials played a big part in why the couple decamped from York, where they worked  together at the now departed Rattle Owl.

As it nears its first birthday I’m surprised how under the radar Pignut has been despite early Michelin recognition. Not quite on the level of Mýse eight miles to the south in Hovingham, which has been fast-tracked to an actual star inside its first year of opening. But then its chef/patron and fellow York escapee Josh Overington has a high national profile from his Cochon Aveugle tenure.

What both restaurants share, apart from open kitchens and stylishly stripped down interiors (Pignut has just six tables plus a cosy upstairs lounge), is a significant attention to their wine list. In Mýse’s case it is curated by Keeling & Andrew, the Noble Rot duo; Pignut’s is more eclectic, making the £65 seven 100ml glass wine pairing an act of global serendipity. Laurissa kindly let me have a truncated version since I had to drive home later via switchback Sutton Bank again, then the A1(M) and M62. I missed out on a Pedro Ximenez collab between Envínate and Bodegas Alvear in Montilla, a Polish Cabernet Sauvignon and, ‘local’ incarnate, Jacky Boy, an imperial stout from Helmsley Brewery 60 metres away. I’m sure the latter would have been perfect with course four, the house soda bread with whipped Fountains Gold Cheddar butter. The matches I did try (of each more soon) all worked brilliantly with Laurissa a font of information at my shoulder.

Lamb offal snack
Salt-aged beef tartare

So what were the stand-out dishes – and wines – of this leisurely lunch?

After snacks built around wastage from other courses (think asparagus peelings in the chicken broth, lamb belly, heart and liver in a mini-faggot) came an exquisite salt-aged beef tartare given crunch by a soda bread crumb, accompanied by a chilled blend of Piemontese grape trio Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo – from Geyserville in California. 

To cope with the Goan spiced, Hodgson’s Crab, another wine at the natural end of the spectrum, a tropical Gewürztraminer from Slovakia. This went even better with a further sourcing from Hartlepool fishmonger Hodgson, which supplies over 20 Michelin star restaurants. This was a pearly tranche of wild brill which Tom had stuffed with a duxelle. After steaming it arrived topped with a smoked mussel under a torched lettuce leaf in an intense mussel and chive broth.

Brill with mussel
Mushroom mousse

If that was subtle craftsmanship the final dish, a Moorside mushroom mousse, was the bravado barnstormer. Sourced from Luke Joseph at nearby Fadmoor, oyster mushroom and lion’s mane are made into a parfait that is then glazed with dark chocolate, topped with a coffee tuile and served with a mushroom ice cream. What could match this earthy pudding  adventure? I succumbed to the recommended Alcyone, an aromatised Tannat red from Uruguay, the bottle adorned with an image of that goddess of the sea, moon and tranquillity. Apparently the base wine was aged for several years in French oak and suffused with various herbs. Hints of chocolate, vanilla and mint reminded me of a Barolo chinato, a dessert wine with a similar savoury edge. A very clever match.

Castle in the mist
Pantiled townscape

This dizzying climax to the tasting menu ‘encouraged’ me to enjoy a prolonged, post-prandial mooch around pretty, pantiled Helmsley, including its Walled Garden in the shadow of the ruined castle. Its community-focused five acres dedicated to horticultural therapy also supply herbs and flowers to Pignut. Naturally.  I hope all this kind of involvement earns them a place in the Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants, currently being assembled. A front-runner is Bavette near Leeds (review here), which makes up my trio of favourite new northern restaurant openings over the past 12 months.

Lamb with hogweed cracker
Soda bread and butters

Pignut’s menus alone, artfully adapting to the seasons, make them well worthy of inclusion. And back to that wine offering. I made my glass of Canadian Cabernet Franc stretch to include the Thornton-le Dale lamb course (maybe a heavy hand with shawarma spicing here) and Angus beef fillet from the Castle Howard estate with beef-fat baked asparagus and a pesto of wild garlic that felt relatively conventional.

My one regret from the visit? Perhaps I should have splashed out on an extra glass – of Belgian Chardonnay. No, me neither. But I foolishly balked at £16 for a 175cl glass. After it aroused my curiosity on arrival attentive Laurissa had poured me a generous taster. Could easily be mistaken for a top-end Macon. When I return to this charming spot, as inevitably I shall, staying overnight in the town, I may well order a bottle of the same. Maybe pignuts will be on the menu.

Pignut, 12 Bridge St, Helmsley, York YO62 5DX. Eight course tasting menu £95 (wine pairing £65), four courses £55 (£30).

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