The news that the latest issue of The Good Pub Guide predict 'up to 4,000 pubs will close in the next year, but they are the ones "stuck in the 1980s" offering indifferent drink and food' was picked by just about every media outlet going, from the Guardian, to Epworth Bells and Crowle Advertiser . Sometimes stories catch...
Of all the weeks to go on holiday I picked the one which saw pretty much everyone in the UK food world attend a press conference to showcase the world's first 'test tube' burger. Not only did I miss that, but also the opportunity to rant about it on the airwaves, having to politely decline...
It started as a throw item from my book on BBC Three Counties radio as we were talking about coronation chicken. You see in 1953 The Ministry of Food granted applications for communities to roast a whole oxen to celebrate the coronation, but only if they could prove that by tradition, an ox had been...
Stone the crows, we've only gone and scooped the Best New Media gong at last night's Guild of Food Writers Awards! The judges liked not only our recipes and interviews, but also the fact that we cover important food issues such as food poverty. The night ended with me filling my trophy vase with negroni in the downstairs...
The phrase 'unexpected item in the baggage area' is guaranteed to bring me out in a fit of blood-boiling rage. Will anything stop the rise of the machines? I've tried readers, I really have. I get technology; love it, in fact. I bought the first iPod when it came out in 2001, and I own...
We live in the age of the story, the news angle, the life before and the multifaceted career after… but Delia just isn't built that way. A bit like Cliff Richard, she's never had another job, other than teaching the nation to cook. It's pretty much all she's done. She offered no opinions on the...
Pre lunch venue: Art and Science on the Brain, Barbican Venue verdict: Playing with brains, what’s not to like? @foodjournalist adopt me please. @thejuggedhare — Melanie Jappy (@japster2008) April 9, 2013 Neuroscience and brains formed the prelude to the latest lunch with a little ‘un, and you can’t get cooler than getting kids into science....
What to serve good friends on Good Friday? Were one of a devoutly religious persuasion then traditionally the day calls for something simple and abstemious, in remembrance of the suffering of our Lord on the cross. But these are not abstemious friends, consequently it had to be something a bit special. And when special is...
To break bread or chew the same piece of meat was one of the human race's most primitive acts of companionship. But fast forward to the present and, though we still eat out communally, what’s eaten has often become separate choices on separate plates. Some venues, however, have embraced family-style serving, sending out a large...
Balthazar doesn’t have a children’s menu, it doesn’t have high chairs, on the face of it, it doesn’t ‘do’ children. And yet within its gilded and mirrored walls daughts and I encountered some of the most child-friendly hospitality we’ve yet received. This past month all of London has been abuzz with the news of Balthazar's...
Pre lunch venue: Highbury fields playground. Venue verdict: Hopefully the refurb will make it even better If George Orwell ever decided to add ‘the perfect neighbourhood Italian restaurant’ to his 1946 search for the perfect English pub, he could a lot worse than Trullo. Loved by the critics (and me) since it opened in 2010,...
London isn’t really one city, but two, we’ve just done a better welding job than Buda and Pest. So while in the East it’s mainly pop-ups, Americana-influenced speak easies, and drinking from kilner jars. In the West End some of the newest restaurants hark back to a golden age of style, it’s just a shame...
