Archive for the ‘The Week in Food’ Category

The Week in Food

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Food and Drink and Trains

St Pancras International is hosting a Food and Drink Festival from now through 1 October highlighting some of our new favourite London restaurants.  The St Pancras Grand is offering a special set lunch or dinner for £15 or £20 respectively and the lovely Gilbert Scott Restaurant, new restaurant of Michelin-starred Marcus Wareing, lures you in with six Kingdom of Mourne oysters and a glass of Nyetimber 2006 English sparkling wine for £21.

Beer Here

The Bricklayer’s Arms in Putney hosts the Derbyshire Beer Festival from 21 – 25 September featuring more than 100 Derbyshire ales.  If that sounds like your idea of heaven, there’s a £1 glass deposit as well as entertainment by Majestic Brass, the John Ongom Baig Band and the World Famous Hammersmith Morris Men who will then dance onto the bridge and over to home after their performance.  We hope.

If you’re thinking you shoud maybe get some food on board before embarking on the beer fest, here are restaurants nearby.

Real Food Real Harvest

The Real Food Harvest Festival lands on the Southbank this weekend 23 – 25 September to celebrate the very best of the fullness of the harvest season.  The festival is FREE and features a hit parade of chef demos, live music, a hundred small artisanal producers and food providers, a live Sheep Show, and a Kids Taste Experience.  Featured chefs include some toptable superstars: Vivek Singh (Cinnamon Club, Cinnamon Kitchen), Helena Puolakka (Skylon),  Cyrus Todiwala (Café Spice Namaste), Simon Wadham (Rivington Grill Shoreditch, Rivington Grill Greenwich), Arthur Potts Dawson (Acorn House), Michael Brown (Daphne’s) and Cesar Garcia (Iberica Food & Culture) among many others.

Gordon’s New Gaff

A new restaurant from the Gordon Ramsay stable is always news, and this one is no different. The Bread Street Kitchen at One New Change near St Paul’s opens this Monday, 26 September, at 7am. Bread Street is a relaxed, informal spot open early and late with a raw bar, charcuterie, a wood-burning oven and an eclectic menu.  We fancy it for breakfast, ourselves, and will be beating down the door next week.

Great British Cheese

The Great British Cheese Festival lands in Cardiff next to the Castle this weekend with its usuall great flavours, super workshops, and British humour.  The two tasting tents are dubbed The House of Commons (for cheese lovers) and the House of Lords (for cheese fanatics).  In addition to tastings, explications, live music and beers, wines and ciders, there will be games!  Try the traditional (invented by them in 2001) World Cheese Tossing Championships — open to ‘all levels of incompetence’ — or get a team together for the Cheese Sittles with Lincolnshire Poacher.  We completely agree with the festival writer when he or she calls the skittles game, ‘An appalling but hilarious use for this exceptional cheese’.

If you still have room, we have bags of super restaurants in Cardiff.

… And More In Brief

The Letchworth Beer Festival kicks off today and runs through Sunday and is still seeking volunteers.   The popular and brilliant Alnwick Food Festival this weekend headlines Jean-Christophe Novelli, including a ‘Dine with Novelli’ experience.  As if by magic, the excellent Mold Food and Drink Festival this weekend also features Jean-Christophe Novelli, as well as a tempting Best of Welsh Bake-off open to all.  The 57th annual Galway International Oyster & Seafood Festival Friday through Sunday has, among other fabulous events, fifteen countries entered in the Bollinger World Oyster Opening Championship on the 24th, the Olympics of oyster opening.  A free lunch may be in the offing in Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow: the Innocent drinks people have a Hungry Grassy Van (HGV) touring around with healthy nosh from their new cookery book through 23 September.  Whisky lovers alert!  The Pure Festival this weekend at The Garage in Islington features seven whisky tasting tots included in the ticket price of £28.50 — not bad for a lick of some of the best.  You’ll definitely want to schedule a stop at a nearby restaurant for this one.  Finally, the World Curry Festival at Victoria Gardens in Leeds this weekend promises an exciting and tongue-tingling weekend of chef demonstrations, curry sampling, shopping and coming together in a massive curry jamboree.  We have a host of restaurants to help you recover.

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The Week in Food

Monday, September 12th, 2011

Open House London

We confess: Open House London this weekend, 17 – 18 September, isn’t really a food event.  It isn’t a food event at all, but it is one of the major cool things the capital does, throwing open the doors to some of the most iconic, beautiful, fascinating, historic, modern and most of all hidden spaces in our fabulous town. If you’ve ever really craved the chance to get under the skin of the greatest city in the world, Open House London weekend is the best opportunity you’re going to get.

If you’re devoting a day or even two to the Open House, you’re going to need sustenance.  Open House weekend is also an amazing time to check out City restaurants with their special weekend offers.  Say you take the Behind the Scenes at the Barbican tour, you can fall into Smithfield Bar and Grill for supper and get 50% off.  Nice.   Or tour the historic Apothecaries’ Hall in the morning, then head off for an epic lunch nearby at Benihana, just £23 for eight courses and an Asahi beer.  There are jillions of pairings just like that all over the site.

Abergavenny Food Festival

For more than a decade, the Abergavenny Food Festival has been a place to spot up-and-coming culinary talent, get the skinny on food trends and puncture food hypes, restore your connection with fine food producers and enjoy some amazing food and this year is no different.  This weekend, 17 – 18 September, the festival will feature visiting masters Fergus Henderson (St John Bread and Wine, St John Hotel Restaurant), Bryn William (Odette’s), Signe Johansen (Scandalicious), Henry Harris (Racine), Valentine Warner, Angela Hartnett (Murano) and so many more that we’re feeling quite overwhelmed.

Besides the popup restaurants, the drinks yurt, the demonstrations, walks, talks, art exhibits, crucial topics like ‘Cooking in the Real World’, truffles, hangover cures and raw milk will be dealt with.  This is one of the best food fairs in the country and if you’re anywhere nearby, you shouldn’t miss it.

Normally, we say that toptable has restaurants close by.  In this case we have a restaurant close by, the 1861, and it is choice.

Dorchester Celebration

In honour of its 80th birthday, The Dorchester hotel in London is doing a very naughty and tempting thing with its wine list.   The Grill at The Dorchester  is offering 80 bottles of fine wine at £80 throughout September, some of them absolutely head-bangingly great which makes the price just too good to miss.  The Head of Wines UK, Christian Stivert, has chosen 80 traditional and ‘great vintages’ bottles of wine and champagne that truly represent great wines and vineyards of the world and they’ve been shipped to the hotel direct from the chateaux or estates.  If you’re tempted by the top diner rated Grill, the 80 Wines for £80 may just be the tippling point.

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The Week in Food

Monday, September 5th, 2011

Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight

Two days into the Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight, there’s still plenty of time to sample the surprises and delights of the festival that ‘encourages Scottish consumers to discover, buy and enjoy the food and drink produced on their doorstep’.  Now, we applaud the goal, but must we always be ‘consumers’?  We like to think of ourselves as culinary adventurers, phood pirates roaming the uncharted seas of gustatory discovery, hit-and-run chef-charmers.  Know what we mean?

Cafe St Honore

Anyway, there are brilliant events right across Scotland, like the four-course beer-matching Harvest Supper tomorrow evening at Cafe St Honoré in Edinburgh, or the inventive Meals on Reels at Falkirk Town Hall on Wednesday night inspired by celluloid meals before during and after WWII with tastings and displays, or the secret supper club Gaelic Loves Gallic this Saturday evening and that’s all we’re allowed to say about that.  In fact, on the weekends you’ll hardly be able to set food in the auld country without running into a farmers’ market, fair, meet the beekeepers, meet the milkers, dining, learning or shopping event.  Now through Sunday, 18 September.  As always, we have terrific restaurants in Scotland to click and book.

Brighton & Hove Food Festival

Right at the other end of the country, you’ve got the entire month of September to explore the great food and drink of the creative South Coast food and dining scene at the Brighton & Hove Food Festival.  The highlight of this exciting event is the Big Sussex Market in the heart of Brighton this coming weekend, 10 – 11 September.

Hotel du Vin & Bristro Brighton

Local growers, producers and restaurants trot out the best they can do for this fantastic market that last year attracted more than 40,000 people.  Fish straight off the Newhaven boats, local beers and wines, and irresistible dishes from top diner rated restaurants like Terre à Terre, Moshi Moshi and more can all be found here.  If you can’t properly devote a month to delving into the thriving Sussex food scene, this is a perfect place to sample a smorgasbord of Sussex.  Hotel du Vin is holding wine tastings each Wednesday evening throughout the month too.  Other toptable participants include The Restaurant at Drakes, Sabai Thai Gastrobar, Bar Aguadulce, New Steine Restaurant, Madame Geisha and the Brighton and Brighton Marina Zizzi restaurants.

Ludlow Food Festival

One of Britain’s foodiest hotspots is holding its annual culinary wingding which should not be missed.  Ludlow Castle is the place for the 2011 Ludlow Marches Food & Drink Festival where more than 130 top quality, independent and small food and drink producers will be on hand to thrill your palate.  Superchefs Claude Bosi (Hibiscus), Shaun Hill (The Walnut Tree) and Glynn Purnell (Purnell’s) will be cooking throughout the weekend and there are demonstrations, workshops and incredible festival tasting menus for lunch and supper.  Book now and have a whale of a time this Friday through Sunday.

Feast on the Bridge

At the end of each summer when London returns to itself, the Mayor’s office throws a weekend celebration called the Thames Festival that ends in a massive fireworks jamboree.  This weekend, 10 – 11 September, there are barge races, markets, historical talks, art installations and, speaking of food, a Feast on the Bridge pop-up restaurant. Highlighting forgotten fish and glorifying all things fishy, the Feast on Southwark Bridge will be a mass of workshops, talks, performances and two supper seatings.   Be there for the Toast to the Thames at 7pm and enjoy a terrific supper.  Pray for fine weather and don’t miss this fabulous return-to-London-after-the-travels-of-the-summer event.  And, as ever, toptable has restaurants nearby.

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The Week in Food

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Oysters in Whitstable

Whitstable oysters, renowned for their superior flavour, are shipped right across the British isles so you can enjoy them in fine restaurants.  From this weekend there’s a chance for you to ship yourself to them, and you still get to tuck into oysters.  From 23 – 29 July the Whitstable Oyster Festival trumpets Whitstable oysters, the people who bring them home, the town they built and the exciting artistic activity that has found a home there.  Loads of events are free and there’s a list as long as your arm devoted to family events, so now that the school year has ended, you have a brilliant place to take the children for super events.  We’ve got a load of restaurants to book in Whitstable — including a bunch of Summer of New Restaurants restaurants — so you won’t get lost in the throng.

Pylewell Park Food & Drink Festival

Renowned chef Adam Byatt of Trinity restaurant in London is the official chef of the Pylewell Park Food & Drink Festival this weekend near Lymington, the inaugural year of a festival set in the grounds of a glorious country house hotel with views over the Solent toward the Isle of Wight.  You can shop the farmers’ market, visit the international food area, watch the demonstrations, sip local wines and cider and real ales as you enjoy music by Birdy, Batala samba reggae band and the Crescendi choir.  Rent a tent with luxurious fittings for the glamping experience or bring your own.  And do bring the children.  It’s this weekend, 23 – 24 July, and sounds to us like a festival that should not be missed.

Hyper Japan

Whenever we mention the action-packed Hyper Japan festival this weekend at Olympia Two, we feel we need extra exclamation marks.  Like this:  Hyper Japan!  Sushi!  Sushi competition! Sake!  Never-before-seen Nintendo games to try! Japanese movies! Comedy!  Amazingly cool stuff!  Sorry, we’re worn out already.  The Hyper Japan is just a total hoot of an event that reminds us big-nose western folk that while everyone in the world does the same things, we do them in incredibly different ways.  Just come along and see for yourself.  Top diner rated SO restaurant will be there, as will Mitsukoshi and a load of other great eateries.

ICE CREAM!!

The Ben & Jerry’s Double Scoop Sunday Festival happens Saturday and Sunday this week at Manchester’s Heaton Park AND London’s Clapham Common.  There will be a great range of music in both locations as well as children’s activities and massive amounts of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in twenty different flavours.  Saturday’s already sold out in London, so get on it and get licking.

We don’t know if you’ll have room, but we do of course have loads of restaurants in Manchester and near Clapham Common.

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The Week in Food

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Essex Festival of Food and Drink

The medieval Cressing Temple Barns near Braintree are the setting for the Essex Festival of Food and Drink, a glamorous food festival celebrating nature’s bounty and local produce this weekend, 9 and 10 July, and has this festival got the goods.  Jean Christophe Novelli leads the all-star list of chefs demonstrating their whizz-bang cookery on the Rangemaster Chefs on Stage Cookery Theatre on Sunday, with Mark Baumann of Baumann’s Brasserie on the Sunday.  |You’ll also get to see chef Sherri Singleton of Mistley Thorn and Steve Groves of Roux at Parliament Square among others. Now that’s some star power.  The organisers are inviting you to ‘Spend a complete day in foodie heaven’ and we daresay they’re not exaggerating for once, what with the Colchester oysters, regional wines and beers and a gourmet food court seating 500 of our closest friends.

Mortimer Country Food Fair

This Saturday only, 9 July, the Mortimer Country Food Fair is going wild with the theme ‘Wild Food’ and an apprearance by local author John Lewis-Stempel who lived for a year only on food that he had foraged or killed himself, then wrote about it in The Wild Life.  More than 50 food stalls, a purpose-built demonstration kitchen, an irresistible array of local food and drink and crafts and a menu of music and activities fill the day.  The fair takes place at Brampton Bryan on the Welsh border of Herefordshire west of Ludlow.   

If you’re still hungry, you owe it to yourself to try the amazing La Becasse in Ludlow before you head home.  It’s top diner rated, Michelin-starred French restaurant with a super two-course lunch menu for a mere £26.

Dorset Seafood Festival

All this weekend, 9 and 10 July, Weymouth harbourside plays host to the 4th annual Dorset Seafood Festival, in association with Champagne Pommery and not to be too creepy about it, we couldn’t imagine a better pairing.  Stroll by the water and do your best to take in the 80 different seafood dishes that will be cooked each day.  In fact, the Dorset Seafood Festival is aiming to break the world record for the most extensive seafood menu offered at a single event. 

A parade called Moving Tides starts at 5pm on the 9th and features more than 300 children and young people.  There’s a festival cookbook on sale for just £5 as well as a full schedule of cookery demonstrations from a great roster of chefs, some of whom will be on hand to sign their books.  Mark Hix is judging the Dorset Young Seafood MasterChef of the Year Competition.  And in a moment of madness, the festival kicks off at 10.30 am with the Cross Harvour Oyster Challeng when thirty swimmers compete to cross the harbour then down an oyster and knock back a glass of champagne, Pommery no doubt.

Pontefract Liquorice Festival

The exact date and means of arrival of liquorice from the middle east to Pontefract have been lost in the mists of time.  It may have been brought by Benedictine monks in 1090 or by a member of the De Lacy family coming home from the Crusades, but however it came, its benefits as a medicine were widely known.  In the past few hundred years, liquorice has slowly become a sweet  and the flavour for Pontefract Cake or Yorkshire Penny treats.

This Sunday, the Pontefract Liquorice Festival celebrates the plant and its place in the life of the town with a parade — theme ‘Musicals’ — open to all, lots of liquorice food and drink to sample, food stalls, craft stalls and a list of family-friendly activities.  So get on your Willy Wonka outfit and fall into step for a sweet weekend event.

World Pea Shooting Championship

You know how to whistle, don’t you?  You put your lips together and blow.  Now that’s clear, you can sign up for the World Pea Shooting Championships in Witcham Village near Ely.  Not the foodiest of events, but a delight for anyone who can come along, purchase a very reasonable peashooter and peas and possibly walk away with a world championship.  You can’t say fairer than that.  Saturday, 9 July from noon.  And if you don’t win the championships, you could come away from the cake & bottle stall with something worthwhile, or just tuck into the lunchtime BBQ and bask in the sun.

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The Week in Food

Monday, June 27th, 2011

The Big Feastival

From 1 – 3 July, The Big Feastival hits Clapham Common with the first ever food and music festival sponsored by the Jamie Oliver Foundation and it looks like it is going to be the place to see and be seen this weekend, now that Glastonbury 2011 has entered the ‘history’ section of Wikipedia.   A main stage and band stage will host Soul II Soul, The Athletes, The Charlatans, Norman Jay, The Cuban Brothers and lots more.  Then there are live comedy acts like Jimmy McGhie and Tom Deacon.  The British BBQ Society are sponsoring a BBQ cookoff for grownups and two ages of children as well as a Pit Masters’ Exhibition.  Then there’s the Little Dudes Den with storytelling, crafts, magic and puppets and a fabulous-sounding WI tent that doesn’t sound like any meeting of the Women’s Institute we’ve ever crashed.  A really amazing line-up of chefs and food writers will populate the The Big Kitchen, including Michael Caines MBE, Rachel Allen, Gizzi Erskine, Peter Gordon, Sophie Grigson, Atul Kochhar, Giorgio Locatelli and the adorable Jamie Oliver himself.  The Kitchen Garden is full of ideas and experts too.

And what about the food?  There’s an irresistible shared menu from some of Britain’s best restaurants like The Cinnamon Kitchen, Benares, Cafe Spice Namaste, Fifteen, Locanda Locatelli, Mango Tree, Redhook, Trinity, Wahaca and many more.    Did you adore that chicken tikka pie from Benares at Taste of London?  Here’s another chance to sample it because it’s on the menu for Feastival too.  Tickets offer entry only, food and entry, and food, VIP experience and entry.  Children under 12 are free!  How cool is that?  And proceeds benefit The Prince’s Trust and The Jamie Oliver Foundation.  Which is also very, very cool.

Waterloo Quarter Food Festival

Sorry, we’re not being terribly clever with our section titles today, but we reckoned this would be easier for you to scan.  The Waterloo Quarter Food Festival starts this Thursday, 30 June, and runs right through the month of July.  Now in its third year, the festival gives you loads of chances to sample new dishes, sip mojitos at and Latin Street Party, find your way into exclusive tasting events, competitions and food fairs.

The area around Waterloo has enjoyed a wonderful renaissance among its restaurants, eateries and markets over the past few years.  We go a little weak at the knees over the Bangalore Express, though Baltic is also a personal favourite.  You toptable diners have given The Laughing Gravy top diner rating and also like Cotto and a lot of other places.  You need to get yourself onto the website to access their Gastro Passport diner discount programme during the festival, because while we always have special offers on toptable, you know how much we love discounts.

Streatham Festival

The capital is hopping with events that start this week and this weekend.  The Streatham Festival is now in its 10th year, shining a spotlight on local musical and artistic talent, the vibrant and exciting melange of cultures and traditions that come together in this part of London to create one of the most exciting neighbourhoods in the capital.  It all kicks off on Saturday, 2 July, with the Big Day Out (free!) at the top of Streatham Common in the afternoon and runs through the 10th of July.

Food doesn’t seem to be a huge part of this festival, so toptable is riding to the rescue with restaurants in Streatham.

Hampshire Food Festival

The Hampshire Food Festival — 1 – 31 July — has a different focus, far from the madding crowd, with an event that features the countryside and villages and towns with an array of farm open days and walks, brewery and vineyard and orchard tours, trout and venison farming, foraging and beekeeping as well as tastings, cookery demonstrations and cookery competitions.  It’s a joyous celebration of food producers right across the county, hosting more than 90 events from one end of Hampshire to the other.  Atul Kochhar, that amazingly busy chef, will be doing an exciting Indian BBQ on the terrace at Vatika overlooking the Wickham Vineyard.  And there are gourmet lunches and dinners, charity cream teas and scrumptious Sunday roasts.  The terrible tendency when we chat about food festivals is to resort to long lists of events.  Instead, just click on the searchable festival programme to find the things that tickle your pickle.

Leeds Loves Food

This weekend, Leeds Loves Food, from 1 – 3 July with a festival that’s bigger and better than ever before.  Now in its sixth year, the festival now has a vast Yorkshire food and drink show. Held in Millennium Square, the show will bring more than a hundred stallholders from across the UK to the city for the first time.  That’s in addition to all the tastings, classes and demonstrations and special menus and meals.  For one weekend, Leeds surrenders to the glory of locally-produced food and the blinding talents of its local chefs, bakers and sommeliers.  It’s exciting and indulgent and not-to-be-missed.

But we already knew how great Leeds’ food scene is, because you toptable diners have gifted a whole raft of Leeds restaurants with top diner rating, like The Restaurant at The New Ellington (with special offers right now), Gaucho, Kendells Bistro, The Bird (more special offers) and many others.

From south to north, England is celebrating food this month, so grab the chance to get out in the summer sunshine — or whatever it may bring — and celebrate our bountiful country and its talented producers.  Enjoy!

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The Week in Food

Monday, June 20th, 2011

Slow Food Week is Good Food Week

The Slow Food movement has changed some in the twenty-two years since it was founded in Piemonte in Italy, a riposte to the ever-quickening pace of  life and eating and the loss of traditional patterns of dining together.  Now in the 21st century, the focus of the Slow Food Movement has shifted to sustainability and community connection but always and forever it cares about the pleasures of food.  Now that is a truly eternal story.

This week is Slow Food Week, with celebrations all around the country where producers and restaurateurs stake their claim to the values of slow food.  Like what, you say?  Three course dinner at Brawn restaurant in London this Friday 24 June for £25 to include popular dishes like pork rillette, pigs trotters, bitter leaves and sauce gribiche, boudin noir and spring vegetables, dessert and a glass of natural wine.

The evening before, on 23 June, Thursday, at the terrific new deli shop in stylish Market Quarter in Elizabeth Street in Belgravia there will be a Slow Cheese and Slow Wine tasting from noon until 8 pm with Slow Food adherents on hand in the evening to talk about the movement.

For lots more goings-on, check out the Slow Food blog.

Free Pimm’s!

Be among the first 516 people to arrive at what is now the EDF Energy London Eye at 5.16 pm tomorrow, 21 June, and you’ll be handed a free Pimm’s to celebrate the summer solstice.  There’s a Pimm’s stand at the foot of the Eye because it’s summer and it’s supposed to be warm and sunny and it’s the longest day of the year.  Watch it fade slowly over the Thames.

While you’re there, you may want to book the 12.30pm Individual Pimm’s Experience on the Eye on each Sunday in July where you’ll receive more goodies on the house.  The Pimm’s Experience capsule is decorated with Union Jacks and a picnic rug and not only will you get to tuck into typical British goodies, you get a second go-round on the Eye to give you time to take it all in.

Something Fishy

Something fishy?  More like everything fishy!  It’s Pembrokeshire Fish Week, a seriously fishy festival that’s an award-winner and a terrific destination for food-lovers like you.  The week casts off this Saturday at Milford Haven Marina, then spreads its net right across the county ending Sunday 3 July (Is it July already? Gosh.)  Here are a few of the more than 200 events:

Quayside Lunch and Limerick Competition

The Grove Restaurant

Special Fish Week menu at The Grove Restaurant with Rooms in Narberth and dozens of other restaurants across Pembrokeshire

Mackerel Catch and Keep Fishing

Saundersfoot Seaside BBQ and sandcastle competition

Angling for the Disabled

Celebrity Chef Masterclass: Five Go Fishing with Mark Hix, Valentine Warner, Bryn Williams, Mitch Tonks and Anthony Evans on Wednesday 29 June at The Torch Theatre, Milford Haven.

If you want to learn to surf or fillet a fish or collect food from the wild or fish on fresh water or walk a riverbed or snorkel, it’s all happening at Pembrokeshire Fish Week.  Or if you just want to dine well on special seasonal fishy dishes, well that’s here too.

Here Wormy, Wormy, Worm

Okay, not strictly a foodie event.  In fact, not a food event at all, but we just love it, The World Worm Charming Championships are happening this Saturday, 25 June at Nantwich in Cheshire.  The last winner charmed 511 worms out of a patch of ground in half an hour.  Want to have a go?  The rules are here in thirty languages, including Tibetan.

As it happens, toptable has a delightful restaurant, The Residence, rated a massive 8.3 in the top diner rated stakes, right there in Nantwich, which has a pair of super special offers on right now.

Soho School Feast

Also this weekend, 25 June, the Soho Parish School is holding the Soho Food Feast to raise funds for its healthy eating school dinner project, a commendable initiative that’s been going on since 2007.  The committee includes Mark Hix (busy man!), Eddie Hart from Quo Vadis, Fergus Henderson of the St John Hotel Restaurant among many others.  There will be cookery demonstrations and chances to win amazing restaurant meals and other prizes.  This is a community event that’s made very special by virtue of the ‘community’ being Soho, one of the world’s great foodie neighbourhoods.  Come along and support this terrific local cause and win yourself a prize.

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The Week in Food

Monday, June 13th, 2011

 

TASTE London — Nearly Here!

Tasting London at Taste of London

TASTE of London — Nearly Here!

Thursday through Sunday, 16 – 19 June, Regent’s Park is going to be action central for the capital’s foodies when TASTE of London opens its doors and the gourmets, gourmands, oenophiles, sippers, tasters, savourers and all who adore a great time with mates pour through the gates, ready to throw themselves into the TASTE adventure.  The only problem is that there is so much amazing stuff crammed into four busy days that if we try to list it all then a) this blogpost will go on forever and b) your eyes will glaze over.  So we’ll just hit a very few of the highlights and urge you to book now, using the toptable great special ticket offer.

Guest chefs at the Action Against Hunger pop-up restaurant:

Theo Randall, Marcus Wareing, Cyrus Todiwala, Jun Tanaka and Mark Jankel — that’s at least two Michelin stars

Gwyneth Paltrow will be signing copies of her new cookbook on Sunday

40 top restaurants and we really mean top, not just inflated puffery

Kitchen demonstrations from exciting chefs

200 food producers to try

Get your tickets now by clicking here and we will see you there!

Newcastle Ground Zero

Beginning this Friday 17 June and for ten food-filled days, EAT! NewcastleGateshead is the other most amazing place to be in all the British Isles for food, drink, fun, creativity and ‘adventures in food’ as the festival bumpf styles itself.  And it all starts with a tornado of activity this weekend, 18 – 19 June, with The Big EAT! Weekend, taking over the streets and squares of NewcastleGatehead for a celebration of North East food and drink that will have you in a spin.  Actually, back up a sec.  There’s an EAT! 5th birthday launch party this Friday 17 June at Stephenson Works in Newcastle, then the thing really takes wing over the weekend.  We could spend the next ten minutes listing events, but that wouldn’t do the festival justice.  Let’s just give a few evocative words: Food Heroes Tasting Market, Chocolate, Chilli, Beer, Fish, Wine, Street Food, Whisky, Eat-A-Long Movies.  Will that do?  Children will love the exciting events created just for them and the fun goes on through next weekend.

Save money too!  For the entire month of June through 3 July, a dozen Newcastle restaurants are offering a recession-busting meal deal for just £20.11, including our own top diner rated Hotel du Vin and Bistro , Jesmond Dene House and Blackfriars restaurants.

Summer Fun

If you’re trying to take in all the amazing food events this weekend, we hope you’ve got the helicopter booked.  The BBC GoodFood Show Summer hits the NEC Birmingham this week, 15 to 19 June, and is it ever hot.  With its array of celebrity chefs, Producers’ Village, Grow Your Own area, Saturday Kitchen Live and MasterChef Experience with that loveable duo John Torode and Gregg Wallace, it is going to be an amazing few days.  And, oh look, it’s Fathers’ Day on the 19th — what a perfect way to enjoy the day with your food-loving dad.

Difficult to believe, but all that food may leave you hungry.  We have restaurants in Birmingham.

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The Week in Food

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Open Gate Policy

This Sunday, 12 June, the Open Farm Sunday event invites you to discover life on Britain’s farms for free.  Hundreds of farms from long-standing family establishments to more experimental agricultural college farms will be welcoming you and your family to meet the people who grow our food and care for our countryside.  You can see the animals, take a look at the cool machinery, tour the grounds, visit farm shops and, in some cases, enjoy extremely local food prepared right on the farm. 

And if it all looks too perfect and you’d like to give farming life a try, then enter the Shaun the Sheep’s VIP farmer competition — details on the Open Farm Sunday website.

 Peyton’s Supplier Showcase

Restaurateur Oliver Peyton honours his excellent suppliers at a dinner and chat this Wednesday, 8 June, at Inn the Park in St James’s Park near Parliament Square.  Evidently this supper — £55 per person for all food and drink — is the first in a series of dinners and events that will showcase the range of small producers who supply the Peyton and Byrne restaurants, giving them the chance to speak about the challenges and joys of producing specialty ingredients for discerning tables.  If you’d like to book a place, this is the person to contact:   jo.boyes@peytonandbyrne.co.uk.

Wish Come True

Winton’s Wish is a charity that assists and supports bereaved children, and six amazing chefs are coming together this Saturday, 11 June, in Battersea to create an unforgettable dinner to help raise money for the charity.  Your £75 buys a drinks reception, five course meal, a raffle and auction and live music and dancing.  There’s more info on their webpage here, but let’s get down to the foodie facts.  The chefs are:

Dhruv Baker (MasterChef Winner 2010)

Lee Behan (Friday Food Club)

Mark Lloyd (former Head Chef at River Cottage)

Steve Groves (Roux at Parliament Square)

James Knight-Pacheco (BBC2 Out of the Frying Pan)

Lisa Faulkner (Celebrity MasterChef Winner 2010)

What more can we possibly say?  Great kitchen line-up.  Heartbreakingly necessary charity.  A super night out.

Singapore Comes to You

The Singapore Takeout is coming!  The Singapore Takeout is a mobile kitchen with ten chefs and fifteen food brands touring nine cities over one year and it’s here in London this week, 10 – 11 June.  We’re stop Number One!  The gaily-decorated shipping container will unfold itself on the South Bank on the Riverside Walkway by Gabriel’s Wharfand Singaporean chef Janice Wong (of 2am:dessert bar) and London favourite chef Peter Gordon (The Providores and Tapa Room) will swing into action, creating an array of dishes inspired by Singaporean cuisine and culture.  And it’s free! 

That’s all great news, but we think we need to let you know how the food sampling works.  By the time we heard about this, the pre-registration for food sampling was full.  Their website says there will be places available on the day, though it’s not clear whether you just queue or would be wiser to check out their web page here.

The organisation of this event — which should be a hoot — seems a bit relaxed around the edges, but if you fail to score at the Singapore Takeout, remember you’re about two steps away from the Dishoom popup over by the South Bank Centre, as well as near some seriously good SE1 restaurants.  Never let an eating out opportunity go to waste.

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The Week in Food

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Learning As You Go

The Leiths School of Food and Wine is kicking off a series of cookery classes for children and their parents beginning Monday, 6 June, with ‘Feeding Your Baby: Starting Solids’ and carrying on up the age groups to ‘Rainy Day Baking Classes’ with children aged 8+.  The Leiths School already runs a hugely popular series of classes for teenagers as well as courses for people aged 18+ for Absolute Beginners and leading to the Leiths Essential Certificate.

Haven’t got children at home?  No worries, Leiths is ready to teach grownups lots of fascinating things about cooking better and more confidently.  Beginning at the end of June, you can take part in classes on Greek Cookery, Sausage Making, Perfect Picnics and Summer Salads — and much more.  Food is an endlessly fascinating topic, isn’t it?

Not sure you’ll need it as you’ll be bursting with expertise, but we know restaurants nearby.

Peruvian Pop-Up

Peruvian cuisine came on the scene years ago when chef Nobu Matsuhisa blended it with Japanese cuisine and opened the hippest restaurant in the world (at that time), Nobu.  Now further fusion stuff is arriving in London in the form of Limanation, a celebration of Lima and its inhabitants and their 500-year history of melting pot-ness.  The Limanation pop-up runs 16-17-18 June, but the last time we checked, the only date available was 18 June, so if you’re interested, best click right away.  It’s five courses and a pisco sour for just £25, which isn’t bad at all.

The menu will be a collection of Peruvian inflected with Japanese, African, New Andean and Chinese.  If you miss out on Limanation, be patient.  Ceviche, the proper non-pop-up restaurant, will open in London in November.  We’ll keep you posted.

Hansel and Gretl, Eat Your Heart Out

How is this for the most amazing half term treat?  Get your children over to The Brunswick in Bloomsbury on 3-4-5 June for a stunning foodie installation that will delight them and support a good cause too.  Upon arriving at the site, children follow a breadcrumb trail deep into The Brunswick where they discover a gigantic gingerbread house, the perfect spot for storytelling, accordian players, and giant gingerbread men.  There’s an enchanted garden with cupcakes instead of grass and a pond filled with confectionary.  Are we drooling yet? How about the furniture made of chocolate and the popcorn popping chimney?

Children can get stuck into Gingerbread Men Masterclasses and sign the giant journal. The £2 entry donation benefits the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and a further £2 donation lets children take part in the masterclass.  This is the place to click for more info.  And this is where you click to find toptable restaurants nearby.

I Polpo, You Polpetto, They Spuntino

… and now everyone can get to Da Polpo restaurant, from the same brilliant restaurateurs who brought you the delightful Polpo, Polpetto and Spuntino in Soho.   The restaurant opens on Thursday, 2 June, but bookings are now being taken for lunch only (dinner is a walk-in deal — maybe bring a book) but sadly –foolishly! — not on toptable.  No, you’ll have to ring 020 7836 8448 and get in quick.

Da Polpo is on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden and features the Venetian tapas style Italian food of Polpo and Polpetto with an enhanced meatball and pizzetta menu.  We predict another surefire hit, and wish Russell Norman and Richard Beatty and executive chef Tom Oldroyd an absolute blinding success.

Getting Crafty

Okay, not exactly a foodie news sort of item, but it’s from one of our favourite bloggers The English Can Cook, the one who does the amazing Underground Restaurant supper club.  Anyway, TECC has expanded into classes, conferences and workshops and now The Underground Restaurant has blossomed into The Underground University.  And this Saturday, 4 June, is Craft Day with brunch and tea cooked by the hands of TECC.  There will be instruction in making teacup candles, crocheting taught by a woman who once made a crochet model of her own intestines, and a combination astrologer-life coach-author will be on hand to ooh and aaah and offer advice as requested.  Did we mention there will be bounteous food?  There will.  Here’s where to book.  Send us photos of your creations.

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