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Viva Louis Vegas! American-Italian comfort food it’d be a crime to miss

“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars and let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars,” as Sinatra crooned.

One spring two decades ago we flew into what seemed like another planet – Las Vegas. We stayed on the Strip at The Mirage Hotel and Casino, whose major selling points were a daily erupting ‘Volcano’ and a ‘Secret Garden’, where we bonded with resident dolphins. Further highlights included renewing our vows at an Elvis wedding chapel (pink Cadillac, dry ice and a singalong with the King) and dinner at the place to be, Piero’s, which featured in Martin Scorsese’s Casino.

That mobster classic is celebrating its 30th anniversary. So many of its locations in the city have since bitten the dust, as has The Mirage, site for a new Hard Rock Hotel. The dolphin attraction had closed in 2022 after four had gone belly-up inside 10 months.

Meeting a Mirage dolphin
Putting on a show with Elvis

Through all this shape-shifting across Sin City Piero’s Italian Cuisine has survived, though its signature osso buco, fave of regular Frank Sinatra, hasn’t. You will find this braised veal shank on the bone, though, on the menu at Manchester’s Louis, a homage to vintage American-Italian cuisine, soundtracked naturally by ‘Ol Blue Eyes’, Dean Martin and their ilk. 

OK, the Spinningfields business district outside lacks the pizazz of Vegas, but it’s also free of the gangsters who frequented ‘The Leaning Tower’, Piero’s rebrand for Casino. Mirroring the restaurant’s own checkered associations (and I don’t mean the table cloths).

In contrast to owner Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) taking goreish exception to one customer in The Leaning Tower, our real life Thursday evening at Louis was an absolutely joyous celebration of a fantasy fifties America. And like the Permanently Unique group’s other recent project, Fenix, the place was mobbed (sic) by 7.30pm.

Sharon Stone and De Niro in Casino
Today’s Piero’s (much refurbed)

New York, not Las Vegas, is the prime inspiration. Ippokratis Anagnostelis, exec chef behind the Fenix’s Mykonos-inspired modern Greek cuisine, travelled there with co-founder Drew Jones to find restaurant role models… but Scorsese movies such as Casino and Goodfellas are undoubtedly a key influence on Louis, too.

Drew has admitted this: “Obviously there’s a dark side to those films, but take that away and the environment, the glamour, the clubs, the bars, they’re extremely luxurious.” As is Louis, a destination where folk are encourage to don their glad rags and wallow in the live music as part of the experience. Surely Robert De Niro, star of both films, would approve, as a serial restaurateur in more recent times?

Swish interior of Louis
Its signature osso buco

So does the cuisine here live up to the hype? The offering is far more exciting than the routine high street Italian served up at Carluccio’s, previous occupant of the unit. We were there by invitation to road test the new summer dishes, so I had to resist Osso Buco Revisited. Reminding myself it is, of course, a sharing dish.

Another change since our last visit – they are now allowing customers to photograph their experience. From the launch onwards on arrival punters were obliged to apply ‘fedora’ stickers to their phone for the duration. Removing mine afterwards ripped a chunk of leather off my case. Second visit, replacement purchased, I declined, still promising to obey their privacy edict.

This time round then gave me the chance to capture the beauty of the dishes served. Stand-outs were our starters. An egg yolk, tide of parmesan foam and a fin of crisp topping a spiced steak tartare on a sheet of lasagne (£24) sounds an odd combo but it tasted sublime. Ditto a substantial, gloriously glazed portion of sticky bourbon short rib with equally sticky mushrooms and curly crisps, this time of sweet potato (£22).

Sommelier Pasquale Moschettieri was busy wheeling around the Champagne trolley, the bubbly served in old school coupe glasses, of course. But the true vinous treasures lay in his wine sanctuary just behind us. Oh, the temptation. Serendipitously we had ordered a Nerello Mascalese from his native Sicily, so we became instant buddies. A classic volcanic red from the northern flank of Etna, velvety yet taut. A higher budget for your wine pairing? This is one Palermo boy’s offers you’d be mad to refuse.

Our mains were essentially superior comfort food. Classic Italian filtered through a North American emigre sensibility in a generous contemporary UK take. I had handmade cavatelli pasta smothered in a slow-seethed duck ragu (£30). Across the table Pollo alla Calabrese (50p cheaper) matched chicken breast with a sausage sauce on a bed of polenta. Satisfying both, but neither is likely to supplant in my affections dishes that remain on the menu such as rigatoni with vodka and tomato or the New York, USDA grade strip steak.

To close, we also shared exemplary chocolate tart and baked New York cheesecake (what else?) with shots of rather sumptuous house-made limoncello.

How did it compare with a very distant memory of Piero’s? This 2025 meal experience was surely superior. I suspect that moody downtown Vegas joint might have been resting on its celebrity laurels. In contrast, laid-back Louis has got me “under its skin”.

Louis, 3 Hardman Square, Manchester M3 3EB.

• As I finish this review/reminiscence I discover that after 43 years in existence Piero’s has just been sold to a new corporate owner with a bagel and doughnut empire. This shock move is in the wake of a violent squabble between Piero’s founder Freddie Glusman and his son Evan over substantial missing funds. It had to be in the script.

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Pip, Pearl and Josephine – forays into Prestwich, Chelsea and a certain Treehouse

Just 100 metres and a whole decade apart – Aumbry and The Pearl. But there’s a palpable bond between them on a balmy night along Bury New Road. For once this week Prestwich is spared the not-so-distant rumble of Oasis in Heaton Park but the rival shishes are sizzling in the Istanbul and Anatolian Grills. This is polyglot dining territory, but there’s a place for a ‘Modern British’ restaurant.

Until 2015 that role was occupied brilliantly by Mary-Ellen McTague’s award-winning Aumbry. After it closed, the site on the corner of Church Lane became burger joint Solita and is now Wallop cafe bar.

Change happens. Back in those days 425 Bury New Road was a computer repair shop. Now it’s a self-styled ‘British Dining Room’ called The Pearl, its dazzling blue exterior punctuated by founder Sam Taylor’s little Florentine peccadillo, a ‘wine serving hatch’. The bijou interior owes more to the classic Parisian bistro. 

I’ve been rolling with that French bistro renaissance recently, taking in terroir-driven establishments in Lyon, London’s Bouchon Racine, Camille and Café Francois, Bavette in Horsforth and more recently Chelsea’s Josephine Bouchon, of which more later. There is an Entente Cordiale with Prestwich’s Anglophone heritage going on here, I believe.

George, Matt and Jae at The Pearl

The Pearl – from Arnold Bennett to Matt Bennett

I used to come to The Pearl just to eat chef Ian Thomas’s Omelette Arnold Bennett. Now the kitchen has a new regime featuring three young chefs who’ve all seen service at Manchester’s Michelin-starred Mana. Head chef Matt Bennett looks impossibly young to have also worked at the legendary Gidleigh Park in Devon, but he has.

On Fridays and Saturdays, 5pm-9pm, Matt, George Webber and Jae Haney switch to à la carte. Their new summer menu was the perfect excuse to see if the Pearl remains a jewel. Saturday lunchtime (needs must as a suburban restaurant) the lunch ‘special’ was to be Oasis themed with involving pie specials and a pudding called Cigarettes and Alcohol, consisting of whisky, white chocolate and charcoal ash. On a fashion note, their ‘Yeah, Oui’ limited edition red cap in Isle of Wight red, celebrating the new menu, is preferable in every way to an overpriced bucket hat.

Pip the sustainable showcase for Mary-Ellen?

That band from Burnage came up in conversation two days before in the beyond-quirky environs of the Treehouse Hotel. This is a thrilling transformation of the brutalist Ramada Renaissance at the Cathedral end of Deansgate. Serendipitously, we were dining in its ground floor Pip restaurant, which is under the stewardship of the aforementioned Mary-Ellen McTague. Like The Pearl and Shaun Moffat’s wonderful Winsome Pip showcases great local suppliers and a very British culinary tradition. Her new hotel home is also committed to championing low-waste cooking. 

No, fans up for the BIG GIG weren’t primarily popping in for Mary-Ellen’s deconstructed Lancashire hotpot or the heavenliest of treacle tarts, but as our early evening server reported: `’quite a few will be in later”. A few days earlier Oasis ticket holders were also sighted in Hawksmoor, enjoying the remarkable value three course lunch for £26, which includes rump steak. But then Oasis has long been  about the beef between two brothers.

It has taken a while too for Mary-Ellen McTague to find the right stage. I’ve known her since she arrived back in her native North West after working for Heston Blumenthal. While she was still at Ramson’s in Ramsbottom I had the good fortune to dine with her, and get a kitchen tour, back at The Fat Duck. Then came Aumbry and later The Creameries in Chorlton, which heartbreakingly didn’t work out. A constant triumph for her, though, has been Eat Well, which she co-founded with friends Gemma Saunders and Kathleen O’Connor five years ago. It delivers around 2,500 meals a month, made by Manchester’s hospitality community. Meant to be a temporary response to a global pandemic, this fund-raising initiative continues to feed people in need.

Josephine Bouchon – near perfect Lyonnais corner house

Fulham Road Chelsea is hardly synonymous with deprivation. Michelin groupies may associate it with Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, which has held three stars for nearly a quarter of a century and where the Carte Blanche menu will set you back £260. The best of the rest on the scene had seemed to consist of swanky gastropubs. Until Josephine. It’s named after serial star gatherer Claude Bosi’s grandmother and is a slick but sympathetic homage to those bouchons (bistros) originally frequented by Lyon’s silk workers. Today’s real ones don’t offer the heritage glamour of Josephine but Bosi’s incarnation more than matches them, with less heaviness. 

Josephine’s sea bream crudo
The exquisite ‘bought-in’ terrine

After starters of terrine de campagne with cornichons (£17.50) and dorade marinée aux olives and citron (aka sea bream crudo, £15) we had the lapin à la moutarde – (rabbit in mustard and tarragon sauce) to share for £68. Definitely consisting off more than one whole bunny, it could have fed four, all of whom would have been swooning in delight, as we were. A £17.50 chocolate mousse to share, alas, just seemed one gustatory challenge too far. Next time. And surely will be… if we can tear ourselves away from our perennial Racine fetish. I liked the fact that the menu attributed that terrine, the equal of many I’ve had in Lyon, to London charcutier George Jephson. How very French.

The metropolitan bargains to be found here are a ‘Menu de Canut’ featuring simple Lyonnais specialities (£14.50 for two courses, £29.50 for three). There is also a daily changing Plat du Jour for £16.50). Stick to the £28 a bottle house wine and you won’t ‘faire sauter la banque’ as they say in French. In a further homage to the Lyon bouchons they measure that house wine (we had a very acceptable Rhone red) with a ruler to decide how much you pay.

The Pearl is on the cosy side
Matt (in that cap) with Sam

So did The Pearl live up to Josephine’s folksy finesse?

The red wine that accompanied our four à la carte courses in deepest Prestwich hailed from Sicily, but was prime example of local sourcing. Borgoleo is a 14 per cent Syrah produced from the vineyards of Filippo Zito’s family. These days you’ll find the former Midland French sommelier at the Failsworth wine shop/tasting room he runs with his wife Natasha. They provide other wines for The Pearl, but this, his own, is the one to go for, a complex bargain even at £60 a bottle.

It fitted our evening, which featured a large ‘snack’ of glazed lamb ribs with an exquisite red wine jus and a later main of lamb rack and loin, a fine dish but eclipsed by my ex-Dairy sirloin with hen of the woods mushrooms and a beef fat potato terrine. It was sourced inevitably from Littlewoods of Heaton Chapel. Incredible stuff.

I should by then have been ‘steaked out’ after a beef tartare. Despite the presence of lovage and smoked eel this dish was surprising unassertive; the same could not be said of its fellow starter where a slash of black garlic added oomph to a glorious croquette of Bury black pudding with apple compote and nasturtium. Modern British? Yes.

Milk bread is having its moment so no surprise when a few dinky slices of the kitchen’s own arrived with marmite butter; toasted it partnered, the tartare. Perhaps a raft of French toast under a chantilly blanket that came with Prestwich honey and peaches was a carbfest too far. But it was a generous feast.

The Pearl’s chocolate pavé
‘Peaches and cream’

Did Pip at the Treehouse climb the heights?

As at The Pearl, I kicked off with oysters – each time a modest trio. In Prestwich they were Scottish Cumbrae with a mignonette dressing and a squirt of Tabasco (£10 for three); at Pip I took the ferment liquor option with my Carlingfords (£4 each). We had considered the affordable four-course ‘Pip Mini Tasting Menu’,  available for dinner at £30 a head with a generous optional wine pairing at £20 each, but couldn’t resist the lure of the à la carte, which felt classic McTague. 

Each dish is recognisably a model of clarity. Nothing superfluous on the plate, core flavour the foremost consideration. I had wondered if all this might be diluted in the context of running a whole day hotel catering operation (there is a separate team for events).

Not on the evidence of this particular meal, an antidote to ‘fine dining’. Sardines on toast as a starter is almost an act of daring, but it feels just right. Deconstructed Lancashire hotpot sounds a mite Masterchef poncey? None of it. The regional one-pot dish is translated into a huge, beautifully seasoned Barnsley chop on a bed of melting hotpot potatoes, the dish given seasonal vigour by an abundance of minty peas and broad beans. Classic cauliflower cheese went well with this and my open lobster and crab thermidor pie, topped with a lemon hollandaise, its lushness offset by grilled gem lettuce. 

Treacle tart
Flourless chocolate cake

Among my fondest memories of Aumbry were the puddings and here both a treacle tart, earl grey and bergamot and a flourless chocolate cake with fennel cream were sublime.

Little things linger. So many vapid amuse bouches about. But here we had kicked off with split pea chips with mushroom ketchup. All the ketchups, pickles and ferments are made in-house; it’s symptomatic of what today’s new wave Brit cooks are up to. Who needs an elaborate over-reduced sauce? Not that well-grounded Josephine Bouchon dallies with such Cordon Bleu niceties either. 

After three such well pitched meals, what is the French for common ground?

Fact file

While in London to review Josephine Bouchon I stayed at The Z Hotel Leicester Square, 3-5, Charing Cross Rd, London WC2N 4HS, latest site for this stylish but affordable boutique lodging group. You couldn’t be closer to the West End action, yet the  95-room property nestles in a quiet corner beside the National Portrait Gallery. Indeed our extra comfort Club Queen room looked out on the Gallery entrance.


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What’s your beef, Brian Boru? Hawksmoor Dublin, Clontarf Castle and a Viking bloodbath

I’d wager Brian Boru was a prime steak man. As High King of Ireland you wouldn’t go into bloody battle against the Vikings on a plant-based diet. The hero’s full name indeed, Brian Boruma, means ‘Brian of the cattle tributes’. Owning beef on the hoof was a boost in the medieval bragging rights. 

Rather grand on College Green
Trinity College Dublin nearby

Flash forward a thousand years to a new invader from across the sea. Hawksmoor has landed on Dublin’s College Green to a hero’s welcome. The upmarket UK steak  restaurant sets out its stall on its Dublin website: “Beef from small community farms from all corners of the island, grazing cattle on rotation on fertile Irish soil.” Apparently it has been easier to source premium grass fed, properly aged stuff in Ireland than for sister ventures in New York and Chicago.

The great bank dome
Sink into the upholstery

Gazing up at the dramatic domed ceiling we were just glad they have also sourced such an amazing venue. So many of these vast bank recalibrations don’t quite get it right (witness the recent  Cut and Craft in Manchester). Here the petrol blue of the bar stool leather and the velvet banquettes is a classy match to all the wood panelling and Corinthian columns. Co-founder Will Beckett reckons it is the most striking of the 13 Hawksmoors (seven in London). It was at the 10th birthday party of their Manchester venue that Will invited us over. Impossible to resist and the food and service more than lived up to Hawksmoor’s own 20 year heritage. 

Of course, history is in these halls too. This was the great Bank of Ireland established in 1835 by Daniel O’Connell, ‘The Liberator’. They named Dublin’s main thoroughfare after this astute politico, who probably turned over in his hallowed grave when for a while the premises hosted a branch of Abercrombie and Fitch.

I like to think the ghost of Brian Boru was at our side as we shared a Chateaubriand  with beef dripping fries and creamed spinach after starters of native lobster and roasted currach scallops. Did he enjoy the Raul Perez Mencia red from Bierzo? We certainly did. He wasn’t having any of my Cherry Negroni.

Panoramic promenade at Clontarf
For the birds – North Bull Island

We live the Castle dream near the site of an epic battle

In 1014 Brian Boru smashed a Norse-Leinster alliance at the great Battle of Clontarf, losing his own life in the process. 10,000 others fell in the slaughter that ended Viking rule in Ireland. Hours before our Feast of Hawksmoor we had visited Boru’s Well in Clontarf. The ‘Well’ is a drinking fountain erected in 1850 to mark where the Irish warriors refreshed themselves before triumphing on the battlefield. Allegedly.

Brian Boru, the High King
True monument to his majesty?

A further bovine footnote: Clontarf, pronounced Cluain Tarbh in ancient Gaelic, translates as ‘Meadow of the Bull’ because the waves crashing into the beach were said to  sound like a panting bull. Hard to reconcile all this with today’s affluent coastal suburb.

With its view across to the Docks and the distant Wicklow Mountains the seafront promenade is perfect for joggers and dog walkers. Keep heading north and you’ll cross a wooden bridge that takes you to Dollymount Beach with its 5km of dunes and North Bull Island Nature Reserve, a sand spit described as a bird watcher’s paradise. Clontarf village has its share of boutique shopping and people-watching cafes.

Regular visitor, the composer Handel
Turner’s view (he never visited)

Walk inland, though, along Castle Avenue past that Well and you come upon a historic castle almost incongruous among the posh new residences that hem it in. Clontarf Castle was erected some 150 years after the battle as part of Dublin’s outer defences and in the early 14th century passed into the hands of the Knights Templar, who made it a monastery. In the 17th century John Vernon, quartermaster of Cromwell’s invading army acquired it and for 300 years it was the family home. One of its chatelaines, Dolly Vernon, captivated Handel, who stayed here prior to the world premiere of the Messiah in Dublin. On a further musical note the first track on Thin Lizzy’s debut album is called The  Friendly Ranger at Clontarf Castle.

The building Handel saw (and JMW Turner painted) is no longer there. The Vernons hired the gloriously named architect William Vetruvius Morrison to rebuild it in 1837. This is the Gothic/medieval style structure that may well have inspired Dracula’s Castle. Creator Bram Stoker grew up close by.

The lobby incorporating medieval stonework
By night, the stuff of Bram Stoker

Luxurious, arty and handily placed – Clontarf Castle Hotel

Today’s Castle has metamorphosed further as a luxury four star hotel, incorporating a contemporary wing housing its 111 bedrooms. The mod cons in our top floor Junior Suite were state of the art but, aided by the presence of a four poster bed and mullioned windows, it felt of another age.

This was more than compounded by the public rooms beyond the soaring lobby where the family motto has been retained on a banner, “Vernon Semper Viret” (Vernon Always Flourishes). It’s all a mixture or old and new, so alongside the suits of armour and Boru references, each floor of the hotel offers a riot of contemporary art. Often quite quirky. ‘Owls with hats’ outside our suite, particularly so.

Our junior suite with its four-poster
Knight’s Bar for a fine pour

In the absence of old family retainers, the hotel staff were terrific. From the front desk man who provided us with in depth guides to the Castle and wider Clontarf to the old school barman who poured a perfect Guinness for me in the Knight’s Bar. A shame not to be able to dine in Fahrenheit, the lauded main restaurant, but Hawksmoor called.

One reason for choosing Clontarf, its amazing history apart, was easy public transport access to central Dublin, not the easiest place to park in. It was a 15 minute walk to the DART commuter line and a 10 minute ride to Parnell Street Station. What better appetiser for the glorious meal ahead than a stroll through the grounds of Trinity College.

Howth – resort and working harbour
King Sitric’s sunset glow

The other reason: Clontarf is only a quiet 15 minute drive back to Dublin Ferry Port. Time on your hands first? Half an hour north of the Castle is breezy Howth with a fine headland walk and great fish dining options. On past evidence I’d go for lobster at the upmarket King Sitric restaurant with rooms. The name commemorates Norse king Sigtrygg Silkbeard, an arch-rival of Brian Boru. Defeated but lived to tell the tale and created Ireland’s first coinage. A history lesson there.

Factfile

Neil Sowerby travelled to Dublin with Irish Ferries. Short break return fares to Ireland start from £214. He took the Dublin Swift, a high speed catamaran which travels from Holyhead to Dublin in just 135 minutes, making it the fastest Irish Sea crossing. It’s the best ferry experience I can recall with a highly efficient boarding process for our car at either end. To be admired too Irish Ferries’ quest for greater sustainability; the Swift has transitioned to using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil, a fossil-free biofuel, as an alternative to conventional diesel.

Highly recommended for this trip is an upgrade to Club Class from £18 per person. It includes priority vehicle boarding, an executive lounge bar (get there early to snap up a panoramic window seat), free wifi, complimentary soft drinks and snacks (and wines on the Irish Sea and Dover-Calais routes).

If you fancy a full meal check out Boylan’s Brasserie, which offers a range from a  Full Irish Breakfast at 16.95 euros to mains at 21 euros.

Clontarf Castle Hotel, Castle Ave, Clontarf East, Dublin 3, D03 W5NO, Ireland. +353 1 833 2321.

Hawksmoor, 34 College Green, Dublin 2.

For tourist information go to Visit Ireland and Visit Dublin.

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An alternative Greek legend – Fenix pairs red snapper with mango and fills dolmades with wagyu

These days I eat out less than I did. All relative maybe. But I do cook tenaciously at home on the back of canny sourcing and our own garden bounty (again only relative). And, of course, vicarious pleasure is always there when I see chefs and restaurants I was among the very first to champion picking up plaudits. Great to see a national critic finally make it to Bavette Bistro in Horsforth and laud it to the heavens. Equally welcome is the universal praise for the great Shaun Moffat at Winsome (bring back the wild boar Barnsley chop please). Amazing but not surprising news that Pignut, Helmsley (shortly to be Pignut at the Hare in Scawton) is one of five restaurants shortlisted for the Estrella Damm Sustainability Awards).

In contrast, some eating places I have loved from the start suffer from perceptions of glam overload, which detracts from the food on offer. Take Fenix in Manchester, a pioneer in the happening quarter around Aviva Studios.

Fenix’s mythic bar
A dining space that says Med

In my original 2022 review for Manchester Confidential I couldn’t help teasing about its mythical Mykonos persona while being wowed by its contemporary fine dining take on Greek food. I’ve been back several times and never been disappointed, the latest to sample its 2025 summer menu and a range of superb Greek wines. 

There was me, a huge fan of the Thymiopoulos red range, centring on the Xinomavro grape, and I’d forgotten how good their Malagouzia-Assyrtiko white blend from Macedonia can be, melding the full-on fruit of the former with the saline minerality of the latter. Lovely but it was eclipsed by a limpid red from Crete. Nicos Karavitakis has worked wonders in squeezing rich cherry flavours out of the pale Liatiko grape without losing the fresh acidity.

I missed the original Fenix press invitation because I was then eating my way down the Rhone Valley (OK I do get out), but answered the ‘do come along later’ call. And wasn’t disappointed. A co-production, as always by Athens-based exec chef Ippokratis Anagnostelis and in-situ head chef chef Zisis Giannouras (the one with the heroic beard), it offered no dramtic over-haul but some delicious tweaks.

Which chef created this…
…cream of the Crèmes?


Wagyu Dolmakadi, stuffed vine leaves with ‘that’ beef’ didn’t sound me but was delicious, albeit at £24.50 for a trio of the tiny wraps. Even better was charred Calamari with taramasalata cream and lime dressing. Spicy red snapper dressed in aji panca with fresh mango and olive oil felt less authentically Greek, but that’s the point of Fenix. The menu is filtered through an innovative modern Greek sensibility. It doesn’t always work. An over-sweet white sesame dressing on a broccolini side did no favours for the the robata tenderloin with potato terrine and black olive. 

Mediterranean dish of the dinner was tiger prawns on a tangle of linguini in a saffron and tomato crustacean broth, infused with a hint of Pernod. Maybe more Amalfi than Athens, but who cares?

An old favourite remains irresistible among the desserts – the quartet of  Greek baklava ice cream, Greek Tsoureki ice cream, yuzu-lemon sorbet and chocolate Valrhona sorbet. Definitely a trencherful for two to share. It arrived plus another new dish that’s definitely a star in the Fenix firmament – cinnamon fruit crumble and a caramelised apple crème brûlée.

Don’t forget the drinks of the Gods too (here I go again) on the cocktail list. Once again I pre-prandially tested my strength on Hercules’ Eighth Trial. For £16.50 you get an awesome back story as well as a steamingly good presentation. “Son of Zeus and Alcmene, divine monster-slaying hero Heracles was forced to undertake a series of trials. The eighth was capturing a herd of man-eating and fire-breathing horses from Diomedes. His victory is immortalised in our watermelon and whisky pre-dinner sipper.”

Fenix Restaurant and Bar, The Goods Yard Building Goods Yard Street, Manchester M3 3BG. 0161 646 0231. 

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Aishling Moore’s golden touch and the wonder of West Cork wasabi

It’s commonplace these days to chart provenance on a menu. At Goldie one supplier name hopped off the list in front of me – Singing Frog Gardens. Alas, no sweetly croaking amphibians feature at Aishling Moore’s Cork restaurant famed for its ‘gill to fin’ sustainable fish cookery. But wasabi root grown in the West Cork backwoods does. It’s a speciality of the Gardens’ Alex Gazzaniga, a cultivator of rare and pungent salads and vegetables not traditionally native to Ireland (or many habitats in Europe, come to that). The name comes from the raucous frogs attracted to the damp forest setting suited to growing wasabi, brassica cousin to horseradish and mustard. Ironically the root thrives in a moist microclimate that can also encourage potato blight.

My Dublin-based colleague, the talented Caitríona Devery, has written two articles for Ireland Eats (wasabi and gardens) on this reclusive market gardener, who moved to Ireland from England 15 years ago and now supplies innovative indie restaurants with what greengrocers used to call ‘queer gear’. Wasabi seems a given for Takashi Miyazaki, guru behind Cork city’s Ichigo Ichie and Miyazaki. He was among Alex’s first customers; Aishling with her almost Japanese attention to fish is another perfect fit.

Wasabi growing in the wild
Alex supplies the finest restaurants

No question the meal of our recent Irish road trip was at Goldie on Oliver Plunkett Street across the road from equally casual stablemate Elbow Lane. Before seafood called Aishling honed her cooking skills at this fire-led, meat-centric micro-brewhouse (which also name-checks Singing Frog among the butchers and maltsters).

Cork-born Aishling opened Goldie when she was 24, just six months before the pandemic. From the start she was determined to create a sustainable, changing menu from what was landed daily on Ballycotton quayside. Nothing of the available catch was to be wasted, in particular those fish previously thrown back into the sea. The approach is called Whole Catch, the name of the slim volume she published in 2024, the year after she was named Ireland’s Young Chef of the Year. No glossy images, just Nicky Hooper’s characterful illustrations. These include, inside front and back, the golden salmon-shaped weathervane that has crowned the hilltop St Anne’s Church, Shandon since the 1750s and gives its name to the restaurant.

Wasabi root in Ireland!
The Moore bible

Whole Catch is in essence a pared back primer, charting how to handle fish from the whole raw state to the plate. The recipes are not afraid of powerful global flavours, but the freshest Irish raw materials never seem smothered. Surprises include her favouring the butterflied tails of round fish. From the small plates section we tried the hake tail schnitzel with gherkin and celeriac remoulade and soy cured egg yolk. Utter delight until it was surpassed by the chicken and butter miso sauce that perfectly partnered the firm, sweet flesh of pan-fried John Dory, an unexpected ‘luxury’ fish.

Hake tail schnitzel
John Dory and its amazing sauce


A pudding that is approaching a similar signature dish status is the caramelised white chocolate, Achill Island sea salt, milk sorbet, with a buckwheat tuile. Proof of the sophisticated culinary intelligence at work. Pleasure principle counterpointing the sustainability crusade. Goldie’s Michelin Bib Gourmand is throughly deserved. Surely a star must be close.

Chatting afterwards, Aishling distanced herself from the application of meat butchery/charcuterie techniques as espoused by Australian chef Josh Nyland, whose own manifesto, The Whole Fish Cookbook, echoes hers. “Lots of folk make the connection, but I’d never even heard of him when we opened Goldie. Others compare us with Lir up on the north coast of Ireland, but they follow the Nyland route, making their own fish-based charcuterie. The nearest I’ve got to that is some fish jerky!”

Aishling Moore at service end
Unassuming exterior

Lir chef patron Stevie McCarry made it to the final of the Great British Menu 2025. The closest Aishling has got to celebrity across the Irish Sea was a couple of  appearances on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, the last in November, to celebrate World Fish Day. On her July debut she cooked the Shime Mackerel recipe you’ll find in Whole Catch – which I intended to replicate (the main image is Channel 4’s). It involves a 10 hour sashimi-style marinade of salt, mirin, brown rice vinegar and, crucially, dried kombu kelp (Irish and Japanese in one seasoning). Soy and wasabi to accompany. West Cork wasabi had kindly been posted to me and had to be grated quickly to guarantee its kick. Alas, I was called to a France for a week before I could source the freshest of mackerel, which this dish required. So, to avoid drying out, the surprisingly delicate wasabi was summoned to perk up some hot smoked salmon before my departure.

Marinating the fresh fish
My shime mackerel

On my return I bought a couple of Cornish mackerel; from Out of The Blue in Chorlton, Manchester, substituting horseradish from our garden for the wasabi. On Sunday Brunch beetroot ponzu and pickled ginger were the mackerel’s sidekicks. Just some plain roasted beetroot for me, but the dish was drop dead gorgeous.

  • A major Aishling inspiration is another Brit expat, master fish smoker and ocean activist Sally Barnes, who has been curing wild salmon and other fish at her Woodcock Smokery near Skibbereen since 1979. Aisling confirms: “Conversations with her have massively influenced the way I think and how I perceive things.” At her venue, The Keep, Sally runs artisan masterclasses and occasional dinners. As I write this the guest chef at the latest event is Nina Matsunaga of the Black Bull, Sedbergh, Cumbria, a huge favourite of mine (read my review).

Fact file

In Cork city we stayed in two hotels – The Montenotte Hotel, Middle Glanmire Road, Montenotte, Cork, T23 E9DX, Ireland. +353 21 453 0050.and The River Lee Hotel, Western Road, The Lough, Cork, T12 X2AH, Ireland. +353 21 425 2700.

Whole Catch (Blasta Books, 17 euros plus postage) is available from the Goldie website.

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Smoke me an eel to conjure up visions of brackish Fens and the wide Sargasso Sea

The scene most readers remember from Graham Swift’s 1983 breakthrough novel, Waterland, is the one where the doomed 13-year-old Freddie Parr inserts an eel suggestively into Mary Metcalf’s school-regulation knickers. That was a flashback to 1940 when the water-logged Fenland setting was still teeming with Anguilla anguilla, the European eel.

Incest, madness and regret also populate this rather bleak fiction. I’m guessing that all three are less abundant these days. The same definitely goes for those wriggling denizens of the East Anglian shallows and the locals who make a living out of them.

Step forward Smith’s Smokery of Boston, stalwart purveyors of hot smoked eel these past 30 years. Smoking is the way I like my freshwater eel prepared and that’s what Terry Smith and son Chris do over beech chippings. They net some mature silver eels from the East Coast tributaries and drains that trickle into the Wash and the Humber. The rest are imported from the Netherlands, continuing a perennial trade.

Yakitori eel at Mana
Quo Vadis eel sarnie

You don’t have to have Viking blood in your veins to twig the affinity with herring and eel-centric culinary traditions across the North Sea and into the Baltic. Even today’s groundbreaking Nordic cuisine pays its homage; Noma serves smoked eel in a soup dish with cider vinegar gelée, apple cubes and dill, while Manchester’s own Nordic-influenced Michelin one star, Mana, has impressed with a Yakitori eel glazed with yeast and deep, red blackcurrant vinegar.

It was a remarkable dish I ate recently in Copenhagen that led me to resume my own UK eel trail. A favourite of Noma’s Rene Redzepi, Schønnemann has been the city’s smörrebröd central since 1877. A lunch there provided me with stout-glazed smoked eel on a bed of scrambled eggs with chives on toasted rye bread. Simply perfect. 

Schønnemann smörrebröd and snaps
Its traditional dining room

Back home, where better to start than by purchasing 600g of freshly smoked eel fillets from Smith’s after reading Terry’s back story on their website (from which I have also lifted some atmospheric pictures)?

“Our family has always been catching something. Our great great grandad and grandad were fishermen catching shrimps, cockles, fish and eels in the summer and flight netting for ducks and geese in the winter on the Friskney mudflats in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“But it was eels I started trapping in 1975, after catching them on rod and line during my youth. Eels are always sold live, and at that time Billingsgate market in London was the place to go. I first went to the old market near Tower Bridge which has now gone and is covered in skyscrapers and then later to the new Billingsgate Market at Canary Wharf.

“It was about 1990 that I delivered the first load of eels to Holland by small lorry. Whilst delivering to the Dutch smokehouses we were able to see first hand the techniques on how they smoked them. During this time my son Chris joined me and in 2001 we decided to use the knowledge that we had gained from the Dutch to start Smith’s Smokery. Although many of our eels still go to Holland alive we are smoking more and more as demand and awareness increase.”

Netting the wrigglers
A fine haul of Fenland eels

We have to ask – is eel a sustainable fish?

There is an exhaustive, yet still fascinating, overview, to which Terry Smith contributed. Despite UK eel stocks having declined by 95 per cent in the last half century these experts remain cautious optimistic about the eel’s future both as a species and on our plate. That’s despite EU rules restricting wild eel fishing to preserve stocks.

A history of eels on our plate

It is hard to see jellied eels wriggle back into fashion. This traditional English dish is  associated with East London, where it was a staple food in the 18th and 19th centuries. These pie and mash shop staples are prepared by boiling chopped eels in a spiced stock, which then cools and solidifies into a jelly. The dish is often served cold, with vinegar and white pepper as common accompaniments. 

Not for want of trying but I’ve never got the taste for it. Whereas smoked eel remains on my culinary bucket list. It’s an excuse to pop into Soho’s Quo Vadis to sample Jeremy Lee’s signature starter – a smoked eel sandwich in fried sourdough bread with horseradish and mustard creams topped with red onion pickle.

Hung in the hot smoker
Eeels make a pretty fillet

Jeremy has stuck with his original suppliers Mr Beale’s Eels of Lincolnshire (nothing to do with Ian Beale’s Eel Shop in Eastenders!) through their metamorphosis into the Dutch Eel Co,  Devon Eel Company and, finally, Meadowland Smokery. 

My own long-time online supplier, Brown and Forrest have ditched eels (even though their email address remains info@smokedeel.co.uk). 

To sate subsequent cravings I have enjoyed smoked eel from the likes of Upton Smokery near Burford, Pinneys of Orford and the Port of Lancaster Smokehouse. Sign of the times – the latter import fresh eel from Australia and New Zealand.

How smoked eel is prepared

Hot smoking is the route, preferably with beech wood, which is subtler than oak. Uncooked, the flesh is strongly metallic. Mature silver eels  offer a firmer less fatty flesh than juveniles. Brown and Forrest method was to gut and briefly roast them before have up to three hours’ smoking over sawdust.

What to do with it at home

It’s a mite disconcerting when a whole eel drops through the letterbox, albeit vacuum packed. Yet its straightforward to fillet it from its one bone and spoon off the flesh from the skin. The leftovers make a smoky broth.

The whole eel has a four-week shelf life, it can be hung in the larder or wrapped in parchment and stored in the fridge.In fillet form it can be frozen.

Destination Sargasso Sea – an epic trek

Consult Chapter 26 of Waterland for a romantic exploration of the myths surrounding the eel and its journey back to the Caribbean, via the Azores, to breed for a single time… and die. No  space here for a run down on the enduring mystery surrounding the creature. Modern tagging has confirmed the Sargasso Sea, a 2 million square mile, seaweed-strewn patch of ocean south west of Bermuda, is definitely the breeding ground for the eels. Once spawned, the larvae drift back to European waters via ocean currents. It might take two years before they turn up as fragile, transparent glass eels in familiar places like our own Fens. These adapt to fresh or brackish water, developing into elvers and eventually sexually mature yellow eels around 1m long, before they are ready to make the return journey.

• Eel plays an important role in Japanese cuisine, but that’s a story for another day. Sayonara.

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Bacalhau to the future – the time I shared salt cod with Cristiano Ronaldo 

The salt cod milestones of my life? We’ll stick with three. Flash back to 2006 when Portugal knocked England out of the World Cup on penalties after Wayne Rooney was sent off. It prompted a notorious wink from his Manchester United team-mate Ronaldo. Not long after, at an intimate Sunday preview of a new Portuguese restaurant on Bridge Street, I was introduced to the still gauche CR7. 

Neither of us was going to step over the chance to order Salt Cod Gomes Sa, served with poached egg, crushed potatoes, black olives and spring onions. The Bacalhau was as good as his mum Dolores used to make in Madeira, he told me. And Wayne was still a pal.

Classic Bacalhau à Brás
A baby-faced Ronaldo at United

A decade later, at a Naples restaurant devoted to what the Italians called Baccalà, I was treated to a six course tasting menu of the stuff, culminating in a dessert that paired the salt cod with chocolate and pine-nuts. Reader, I gagged.

Of course, on markets across the Med, you’ll find those unappetising yellowy strips of dried fish caked in salt that need to be soaked before cooking. The ubiquitous treatment is what the Provencals call Brandade de Morue and the Spanish Brandada de Bacalao. It’s there (main image above) on the new spring menu at Exhibition on Peter Street in Manchester, where the Baratxuri kitchen has smoked the potatoes for the whipped olive oil emulsion and boosted it with Basque chorizo. The fish flakes offered intense flavour that has finally won me over to salt cod’s charms.

Keen to dissociate itself from your average food hall, Exhibition is offering a single combined à la carte fusing Baratxuri with fellow fixtures Jaan by Another Hand and OSMA . It is a game to guess which dish came from which chef. Just don’t peep at the latest counter your server is arriving from.

All three operators are a destination in their own right and for OSMA it will be their sole outlet after closing their acclaimed Prestwich restaurant in search of a new city centre equivalent. Spoiler alert. Billed as Scandi-influenced, at Exhibition they puzzlingly offer tuna sashimi and panko chicken thigh tonkatsu. Now that’s what I call mix and match.

Salt cod au naturel
Lisbon’s Alto Bairro

Why Bacalhau à Brás remains Ronaldo’s comfort fave

Well over two decades later, as a muscled-up veteran Ronaldo plies his trade for Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr FC, traditional salt cold remains an essential part of a rigorous high protein diet dedicated to career longevity. It may be his one (slight) self-indulgence. Indeed at the CR7 Corner Bar & Bistro Baixa inside the superstar’s Pestana CR7 Lisboa boutique hotel you can order Bacalhau à Brás. Wash it down with a ‘Ballon d’Or’ cocktail.

Brás or Braz in English alludes to its inventor, a bar owner in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto. Brás has since become a technique that can be used to cook various types of fish and even vegetables. It has an onion, garlic, and potato base that is held together by creamy scrambled eggs. The olives are optional. 

Buy salted cod (or its Northern European counterpart, stockfish) at Manchester’s Arndale Market or Out of The Blue fishmongers in Chorlton. Essential before you start give it a 24 hours plus soaking. Now create your own Bacalhau à Brás.

INGREDIENTS

500g potatoes

400g salted codfish 

1 large onion 

2 garlic cloves

5 tbsp olive oil

1 bay leaf

5 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley, spring onions and olives.

METHOD

Peel the onion and thinly slice. Set the oven temperature to 230°C.

Peel the potatoes and slice them into thin strips, then into sticks of equal size. Rinse the sticks thoroughly, drain, and pat dry with absorbent paper or cloth. Place them in a bowl and top them with about 3 tbsp of olive oil. Place the sticks on an oven tray sprayed with olive oil. Check that they don’t overlap. Cook until golden in batches, flipping halfway through.

Place the cod in a pan, pour boiling water and keep the heat on a high flame. Cook for around eight minutes. Drain, reserving the water in a bowl.

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan and over a medium heat.Fry the onion until it becomes transparent. It should take roughly six minutes. Cook for three minutes more after adding the garlic and bay leaf.

Manually shred the cod, eliminating any bones or skin. Introduce the cod into the onion mixture, stirring occasionally and cook for 5 minutes.

Pour the eggs into a small bowl and whisk them together. Incorporate them into the fish mixture. Cook it on a low heat while continually stirring.  The eggs must be cooked while remaining fluffy. Stir in the potatoes and season with black pepper and salt to taste. Garnish with the parsley, spring onions and olives.

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On a rewarding London spice trail I went crackers for starry Anglo Thai

Dusk in deepest Marylebone. Surprised to see swanky Seymour Place still retains an old school hardware shop. It’s shut for the day, so no chance of an impromptu ‘four candles’ purchase. Across the street is my destination – a restaurant years in pop-up gestation, that has won a Michelin star just three months after opening. Anglo Thai’s mission statement? Thai cuisine cooked with British ingredients.

So I have to thank Devon for the Brixham crab and Exmoor caviar that combine in a signature dish that has been a constant on chef John Chantarasak’s journey here. It is as ravishing as the arty upmarket beach-shack fit-out. White crab meat in a coconut cream, topped generously with the fish eggs. To be spread over a coconut  ash cracker shaped like some religious symbol. I worshipped it.

John himself is the embodiment of the hybrid. Born in Liverpool to a Thai father and English mother, he was raised in the Wye Valley. Great British Menu 2020 claimed him for Wales, six years after he returned from Bangkok to work at Som Saa in Spitalfields (founded by two Englishmen). Out of all this sprung the peripatetic Anglo-Thai pop-up with sommelier wife Desiree.

Along the way they fashioned their culinary ethos, built around modern fermentation techniques (John makes his own fish sauce from kitchen scraps) while limiting the amount of imported raw materials. Fresh galangal, lime leaves and lemongrass are still flown in, but chillies can be grown seasonally in the UK and souring agents such as lime and tamarind can be replaced by British-grown sea buckthorn, rhubarb and under ripe gooseberries. Similarly ivy pollen honey from Glastonbury can be substituted for palm sugar. I’m less sure, on the evidence of my Anglo Thai dinner, of serving our heritage grains instead of rice. I love Hon Mali, the pandan scented jasmine rice from North Eastern Thailand. Barley not so much.

Mentored by David Thompson, creator of groundbreaking Nahm

John’s Bangkok grounding combined its Cordon Bleu school and a stint at Nahm restaurant with David Thompson, the Australian Thai cuisine guru. The bright pink dust jacket of his encyclopaedic Thai Food has sat on my kitchen shelf since it was published in 2002 (the hefty, heavily illustrated slab that is Thai Street Food is consigned to the attic),  the year after he opened the original Nahm restaurant inside Belgravia’s Halkin Hotel. Like Anglo-Thai, it swiftly won over Michelin, becoming the first ever Thai restaurant to be awarded a star.

We once ha d a luxury stayat the Halkin and, even if the dining room was a bit shiny Bangkok boudoir, Thompson’s fine dining interpretation of dishes from across the regions felt revelatory. A world away from the pub Thai green curries that were already traducing the tradition. I was already sourcing my own spice paste ingredients but was five years away from visiting the distant reaches of their culinary homeland.

Not all the critics were so impressed with Nahm. A splenetic Jonathan Meades wrote: “Nahm’s cooking is all legerdemain, trickery, disguise, technical flashiness for its own sake; take the extraordinary waffles or rösti-like things made with rehydrated fish – the skill is patent, but the result is boring. Nothing tastes of itself. Most of the dishes taste of chilli, which is used with coarse abandon.”

Jay Rayner was kindlier, but shared Meades’ suspicion about a Sydney-born chef being master of all things fish sauce and lemongrass. Had they never heard of Pacific Rim? Whatever, for him, the whole operation smacked of colonialism. And the food? “There were a couple of high points. But it did not redefine my understanding of Thai food. I was left with those familiar flavour memories: of sweet and sour, of nut and chilli and coriander, just as I am after any good Thai meal.”

Long Chim pops up
The legendary David Thompson

In 2012 Thompson closed the Halkin outpost two years after opening a second branch of Nahm in Bangkok. This soon earned a star and then a place in the World’s Top 50 restaurants. That’s all in the past and late last year Thompson, now in his sixties, returned to London to launch a version of his Sydney casual diner Long Chim.

It occupies the ground floor of Soho Greek/Turkish spot Hovarda. A Thai pop-up, who would have thought it? Alas, my plans to check out Long Chim during a recent London visit were stymied by the dreaded ‘closed on Monday’. Instead I went on a pilgrimage to four Thai restaurants across the capital that have reordered the way we think about the cuisine. Two hold Michelin Bib Gourmands, Anglo Thai that shiny new star.

Try Thai? Here are the four hot spots I sampled on a flying visit

Long Chim means ‘Come and Try It’, but of course I couldn’t. Kolae at Borough Market had the advantage of being open on a Monday. It is a spin-off from Som Saa, which translates as ‘bitter orange’. Kolae itself means ‘fishing boat’ but also refers to food from southern Thailand that is marinated, basted, grilled, slathered and drenched in a paste of coconut curry. That is very much its focus.

Kiln in Brewer Street, Soho gets its name from a furnace, appropriate to its take on the fire-based cooking of Northern Thailand. Two dozen walk-in covers, most on the counter by the grills, does raise a punter sweat. All part of the excitement, when you eventually bag a seat. It doesn’t match Kolae, though, for the regular whoosh of wok flames.

My third new wave Thai (open Monday evenings, there is a God) was Kiln’s stablemate, Smoking Goat, which shares the same in your face prepping and duplicates some barbecue items (the naans are all their own). It started off in Soho’s Denmark Street but now is a linchpin of the Shoreditch hipster scene, more barlike as befits a homage to Bangkok’s late night canteens (sic). I loved the fun of it.

As you may gather, Anglo Thai is a very different beast. Not just through its slogan ‘Rooted in Thailand, Uniquely British’ but because of its casual fine dining feel, with a £110 tasting menu and serious, mainly natural, wine list in a 50 cover space conceived by Thai-American designer May Redding. Obviously  at some expense to the investors, the MJMK restaurant group. Grace Dent, a fellow fan, swooned over ‘strategically placed Lampang Province ceramics’ and ‘flattering Ban Pa Ao lighting’. I was impressed by the strategically informed staff.

So what were the highlights of my new wave Thai spice crawl?

KOLAE

Start your meal in this bright 80 cover space (above) in a former railway arch with the grilled mussel skewers (£6). They have been steeped in a nutty marinade, grilled twice over a smouldering coconut, then enhanced by a squeeze of calamansi lime. As well as stone grinding their own curry pastes the team prepare fresh coconut milk every morning and this imparted a vivid freshness to my southern gati curry of tiger prawns with cumin leaf (£17). Initially gentle, both dishes left a chilli hit on the palate. Sourcing is important. Meat comes from Swaledale in Yorkshire, fish from the South Coast each morning. Veg is UK organic, their new season rice is from ethical suppliers Paddi.

KILN

I was warned my venison jungle curry was not for the faint-hearted. I handled this North Thai style challenge (£16.20) well; my neighbour at the counter was left gasping for water after the spice kick of his som tam of radish and beetroot. Always the salads. Kiln remains cheerfully uncompromising. They too source day boat fish, their Tamworth pigs (pork is a key menu element) are bred specially for them by Fred Price in Somerset, the cull yaw mutton comes from a certain Mike Chatfield. I was lucky to squeeze in at the counter on arrival. A squad of besmitten walk-ins waited their turn with supreme nose-twitching patience.

SMOKING GOAT

Cull yaw in ‘sai oua’ Northern Thai sausage form (£4.90) was one of my starters at Smoking Goat, where I mounted my latest counter stool. I also felt I had to try the sweet and smoky house special of fish sauce chilli wings (£3.90) – perfect bar food for the new West Coast IPA in my life. But what made the trek into Shoreditch memorable was a turmeric pepper BBQ gurnard (£17), the whole fleshy fish splayed out for easy access. With strips of naan and a winter radish som tam with citrus eclectically sourced from Valencia’s Todoli Foundation I constructed my own sustainable fish butties. Bliss.

ANGLO THAI

Fish was a main in Anglo Thai’s beautifully presented 10 course tasting menu. A tranche of pollock in a lake of orange curry. At all the previous Thai stop-offs I had avoided the souplike sour curries. Now was the moment of reckoning. After a Carlingford oyster dressed in fermented chilli with sea buckthorn it was the spiciest dish on the menu, mitigated by sweetheart cabbage two ways, including a cute impersonation of a stuffed banana leaf.

An intriguing substitute for satay sauce was made from sunflower seeds to accompany a grilled Jerusalem artichoke dish. Very true to project, yet Todoli citrus again, made an appearance with lemongrass and pine in a pre-dessert. Anglo-Spanish?

This was Thai food on a different level. Rather than compare it to the other three, fine in their own way, restaurants look for comparisons to the Michelin starred Indian cuisine of Chet Sharma at Bibi over in Mayfair. My recommendation: visit both for equally thrilling spice-driven food.

A country of many cuisines – read up on Thai food heritage

Chef patron Chantarasak has found time to write his own recipe book, Kin Thai, and  modestly recommends David Thompson’s magnum opus. I look no further than Austin Bush’s duo of intensely researched travelogues – The Food of Northern Thailand (2018) and the The Food of Southern Thailand (2024). This American expat is based in the country, a fluent Thai speaker and a compulsive traveller, who has has contributed to Lonely Planet and rival guides to South Eastern Asia.

His latest book is a visual revelation, too. His photography skills capture the vividness of diverse dishes such as Pork Braised with Soy Sauce, Pepper and Brown Sugar; a Rice Salad with Budu Dressing; a Spicy Dip of Smoked Shrimp; and Simmered Black Sticky Rice with Taro and Jackfruit. In Southern Thailand Chinese, Malay and Muslim cuisines come together in one cultural melting pot. 

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The Sampa basement tapes – Caroline Martins’ 10 Brazilian food tips

At the end of a copacetically intimate Chef’s Table dinner deep under Manchester’s Northern Quarter our host, Caroline Martins, whispered to me that liquid nitrogen was back on her SAMPA bucket list. Which might mean the return of the psychedelic Jackson Pollock inspired dessert that wowed the crowd at the supper club she used to run at Blossom Street Social in Ancoats.

Maybe you recall this Brazilian chef’s signature splatfest on a platter that owed as much to the visual alchemy of Chicago super chef Grant Achatz as Pollock’s Abstract Expressionist peak. 

Food as art with Smidge
Caroline running the Chef’s Table

Our gourmet chihuahua Captain Smidge admired it from a distance. He wasn’t allowed a taste of the basil custard and coconut yoghurt scrawled across a huge black base or the dotted cubes of coconut candy, cassava biscuit and guava/banana candy. Definitely too rich for him the centrepiece – a smashed ‘bowl of, containing passion fruit mousse, rose petals, coconut granola, meringue and marshmallow.

Not just any chocolate. This was Dormouse, crafted inside the Great Northern by the city’s artisan chocolatier par excellence, Isobel Carse, using imported Brazilian cocoa beans. Great to see it remains a constant now Caroline has shifted her operation to Calcio on Dale Street, the sports she runs with husband Tim. It comes in the shape of another edible artwork – a chocolate and guava ‘mushroom’ mimicking a fly agaric.

Pouring sloe-infused cachaca
Toucan water jugs and Brazilian booze

That was the dessert climax of a 12 course tasting menu, served in the basement of the bar – remarkable value at £58 a head (drinks pairing, mostly Latin American  wines and spirits just £35, mixed cachaças £35, soft £25). When we first visited the new venue  the former Great British Menu contestant had cornered off a section of the screen-filled bar proper; the new set-up is far less distracting. 

The Chef’s Table counter
The menu for our dinner

Still, when I nipped upstairs for a ‘comfort break’ midway through I came upon a screen showing the Championship derby between Preston and my team, Blackburn Rovers. I might have been torn if the feast that was being served down the stairs was not so captivating. Eight diners at a counter, close to the kitchen action, being talked through ingredients and techniques with a vivacious passion.

In this latest manifestation of her talent Caroline, a former scientist from São Paulo, has restrained the molecular gastronomy wizardry without sacrificing the intense flavour profiles. Less showy now but her devotion to the exotic produce of her South American food heritage is, if anything, more evident.

She is keen to point out: “It is a deeply personal project, blending the rich culinary traditions of my hometown (Sampa was the city’s nickname), with incredible local ingredients and suppliers.” 


Evidence the ex-dairy cow ribeye sourced from cutting edge Littlewoods butchers in Heaton Chapel, out of which she conjured a remarkable steak experience. A big shout out also for  the locally traceable ‘Dan and the Bees’ raw honey, Chalkstream smoked trout and, further afield Eduardo Souza ethical foie gras from Spain’s Extremadura region. I first read about the latter in Dan Barber’s groundbreaking The Third Plate.

Key ingredients on the above menu, though, come from Brazil. I couldn’t resist requesting her to talk me through them.

Requeijão

“That’s a Brazilian-style cream cheese we make in the house by splitting whey/curd from Jersey milk using lime juice. After that, I emulsify the curd using butter. That’s a very traditional technique from in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It goes well and is spreadable for bread and toast, but it also goes well with smoked fatty fish – that’s why I used it with smoked chalkstream trout.”

Cassava

“A Brazilian tuberculous vegetable. It’s very starchy and grows well in tropical countries. In Brazil we use more cassava than potatoes. I like to employ it in different forms. For the scallops I made a puree and used as a mousseline. We like to use it as a crumble for meats and fish (farofa). During summer it makes natura, chopped with mayo – like a potato salad.”

Biquinho peppers
Heart of palm

Biquinho pepper

“That’s a variety of chilli pepper used in Brazil but not very common to see here in the UK. They are sweet and fruity, with very mild hot notes. I like to use them because they are mild and don’t interfere with the flavours from other ingredients. They are also easy to ferment and preserve. I get my biquinhos fresh from Brazil and ferment them in 3 per cent brine for 1 month. After that, I preserve them in sugar cane vinegar. With a smoked quail egg they made  a perfect canapé.”

Heart of palm

“In Brazil we use the whole palm tree: the fruits for palm oil, the leaves to make recyclable plates/cups/forks for takeaways. We use the cores of the tree (heart-of-palm) by cooking them for hours in a pressure cooker until tender, then preserve in 3 per cent brine. I like to use heart of palm with scallops because the texture and mild sweetness reminds me of scallops.

Guava
Acai bush

Guava 

“Delicious tropical fruit – I usually see white-flash guavas here in Europe. But in Brazil we only use the pink-flesh guava. That’s my favourite fruit. I grew up eating guava fresh from the trees. In Brazil we use it fresh, or we make a paste called goiabada. For your meal I used fresh pink-flesh guava as an ice cream for dessert and also goiabada on top of the Extremadura foie gras.”

Acai berry

“That’s a berry from Amazonia, rich in antioxidants. Some people say they are one of those “superfoods” hence there are so many businesses profiting from acai bowls. In Brazil they are traditionally served with fish as pastes, marinades or in sauces, etc… With the hake I served it as a caponata by marinating black olives in acai puree and then chopping it. The ‘earthy’ notes from acai complement fishes such as hake that have mild fat content.”

Brazilian green fig 

“Brought to Brazil by the Portuguese when they colonised us. It’s a green fig slow cooked for hours in sugar syrup, then preserved in the same syrup. When we make it, I like to shave some cumaru (tonka bean) in the syrup to add another tasting dimension to the preparation.”

Canjica
Coalho

Canjica

“It’s a white corn, traditionally used in sweet preparations, but I’ve also been using it in savoury dishes. You had it cooked as a risotto, with lots of butter. I love the texture and the neutral flavour profile. It complements strong meats such as the wild mallard duck. I’ve been growing koji on canjica and it’s starting to taste great! I might use it as a petit four by dipping it in dark chocolate (inspired by chef Gareth Ward from Ynyshir. He does it with barley).”

Coalho 

“Colaho is a popular Brazilian cheese similar to paneer in texture. Everyone barbecues it because it does not melt away under strong heat. It’s usually served with steak in barbecues, that’s why I wanted to use it with the dairy cow ribeye, mixing it with winter truffle to stuff a raviolo.

Pão de queijo

“A Brazilian cheese bread made from cassava flour, eggs, milk and cheese. In Brazil we use ‘canastra cheese’, but here in the UK I like to use mild cheddar. It’s one of the staples of Brazilian gastronomy. Each family has their own recipe. Mine comes from my grandmother Thereza. She lived in the state of Minas Gerais (where pão de queijo was invented).”

SAMPA Brazilian-British Fusion Chef’s Table ,Calcio bar, 24 Dale Street, Manchester, M1 1FY. 

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Winsome restaurant looks a perfect showcase for top chef Shaun Moffat

It was a wild boar that brought us together – in the shape of a glorious Barnsley chop. The dish confirmed the impressive culinary credentials of Shaun Moffat, then head chef at The Edinburgh Castle.

Hence this rhapsody: “I enjoyed one of the great meat dishes of my life upstairs at the EC – a wild boar Barnsley chop. Proper beef dripping chips and mixed kale on the side and a big puddle of Shaun’s sauce, concocted from a stock from duck carcass and pig trotters, mirepoix and herbs, then reduced and infused with pepper dulse, lemon thyme and a snifter of Julian Temperley’s Somerset Cider brandy (we enjoyed a shot later with our post-prandial madeleines).”

Such prowess earned the Ancoats hostelry a swift entry into the Top 50 Gastropubs and Shaun Chef of the Year at the 2023 Manchester Food and Drink Awards. As a senior judge I had a say in the latter.

Shaun also oversaw stablemate The Lamb of Tartary. When that shut last year he jumped ship for glitzy Manchester newcomers Maya. Small world: its chef Gabe Lea swapped to the Castle, where tenures have been as brief as Watford football managers’. Shaun’s talented predecessors included Iain Thomas (The Pearl) and Julian Pizer (Another Hand) were both Best Chef contenders at the recent MFDF Awards. I understand Gabe may be moving on, too.

An ebullient Shaun celebrates winning Manchester Chef of the Year

A Winsome welcome for the wild boar whizz

Against this rollercoaster backdrop it’s great to seeShaun reemerging as Chef Patron of an exciting new Manchester city centre restaurant opening this spring. It’s called Winsome (maybe not a name for your pet wild boar but hey) and promises ‘Northern hospitality at its heart…  British cooking in the kitchen, Old World wines on the shelves, passion, care and detail in delivery.”

You’ll find Winsome on Princess Street (adjoining the Whitworth Locke Hotel) it sounds a perfect fit for the Moffat magic in the way that Maya wasn’t. The dream is to replicate the quality of previous stand-outs on his cv – the London likes of St Leonards, John Salt Hix (all now shut), Berber & Q and the marvellous Manteca.

The next step, Winsome, will provide him with a team geared for similar excellence.

Shaun flanked by and Tom Fastiggi and Owain Willliams

The drinks programme is in the expert hands of Tom Fastiggi, previously of Schofield’s Bar and extends into Whitworth Locke’s Atrium hotel bar, which excites Fastiggi: “The Atrium space truly gives a unique feel to this bar. It’s a great new addition to Manchester’s hospitality scene.”

Completing the team will be Owain Williams; founder of Belzan in Liverpool, Madre and Manchester’s Medlock Canteen. 

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