Seafood cemented its prominence as the chefs’ favourite genre at this year’s Obsession festival in Lancashire, which ended last Sunday (5 February) – with mocktails emerging as the year’s surprise trend. Hosted annually at Northcote, the luxury gastronomic hotel near Blackburn in the Rubble Valley, the two-week-plus festival sold out this year, with 1,800 guests treated […]
Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about in the week ending 5 February 2023. The Guardian “Pasta is safe in these chefs’ hands.” Grace Dent is the first of the critics to review Notto, the new Piccadilly pasta joint that started as a lockdown delivery service. “It isn’t remotely […]
Reports of the death of cult Merseyside restaurant Fraiche are greatly exaggerated. Marc Wilkinson, the one-man kitchen brigade at the restaurant in the village of Oxton, says Fraiche is very much open for business – whatever Google says. Described in the latest Harden’s guide as a “genius”, Marc has cooked his way to the top of […]
Markus Thesleff, founder of Notting Hill Mexican/Japanese hybrid Los Mochis, has acquired veteran Knightsbridge trattoria Sale e Pepe, which celebrates its half centenary next year. The unlikely-sounding deal brings together the Finnish-born restaurant innovator, who coined the label ‘Baja-Nihon’ to describe the tacos served with Japanese precision at Los Mochis, with Italian dining of the […]
Prominent chef Hrishikesh Desai, formerly of Gilpin Lodge in the Lake District, has taken up the role of chef-patron at Farlam Hall, a boutique hotel on the other side Cumbria beyond Carlisle. Hrishikesh, a 2009 Roux scholar, left the Gilpin in Windermere on Boxing Day, having run its kitchens for seven years. By the end […]
Flamboyant chef Yuma Hashemi is to open a wine bar called Emmanuelle opposite his Persian tasting-menu restaurant The Drunken Butler in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell this spring. Emmanuelle takes its name from the X-rated 1974 French film starring Sylvia Kristel – and will feature a copy of the rattan peacock chair made famous by the film’s poster, […]
The Glasshouse restaurant in Kew, which closed down last summer after almost 25 years, re-opened under a new guise this week, under the co-ownership of former manager Patra Panas. It’s called Hawthorn, in reference – like its predecessor – to the nearby botanical gardens. Patra has teamed up with ex-Murano and La Trompette chef Josh Hunter […]
Former L’Enclume chef Dan Cox opens his ultra-sustainable restaurant Crocadon in St Mellion, Cornwall, today – the culmination of a five-year project that has transformed a 120-acre farm in the Tamar Valley. The 25-cover restaurant with an open kitchen occupies an old barn on the farm, where Dan (pictured, above) has introduced rare-breed cattle and sheep […]
Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about in the week ending 29 January 2023. The Times “Life-changing, aeonic. Oh my God. All I wanted was more.” Giles Coren’s first visit to “big-deal US import” tinned-seafood specialist Saltie Girl was definitely not one that fitted his £50-a-head or under budget. […]
A new European city-style restaurant, Aqua Grand Café, opens next month in Bristol’s Whiteladies Road, from veteran restaurateur Richard Smithson and his son Ben. Richard opened Bristol’s original Aqua in 1998, growing it into the Aqua Italia group with branches across southern England. The company went into administration in 2019, with sites closed in Milton […]
