Sunday Lunch at The White Swan, Wighill Sunday lunch is the great British Food tradition for friends and family, regularly voted as one of the things that most define Britishness. We went to The White Swan at Wighill in North Yorkshire recently to see whether they could serve a Sunday lunch that could rival the essence of home-made cookery. The …
Veeno, an Italian Wine Café in the UK
Veeno, an Italian Wine Café in the UK It’s not every day that you encounter a genuinely different take on Italian food and wine in Britain. That Veeno manages this admirably is down to director Nino Francesco Caruso and his business partner Andrea Zecchino. They set up their small chain of 20* restaurants in 2013, starting with Leeds and Manchester. This …
A grand stay at the Wensleydale Heifer
A grand stay at the Wensleydale Heifer The Wensleydale Heifer is a restaurant with rooms in the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a transformed seventeenth-century inn at West Witton, four miles from Leyburn. From the outside, it looks rather like any typical traditional Dales pub. However, the inside is quite a different matter. The only clue to this before you enter is …
Eat Amatriciana for Amatrice
Eat Amatriciana for Amatrice By now, many of us will have seen the devastation caused by the earthquake in Central Italy this week. The epicentre was close to the town of Amatrice. It’s famous for the Amatriciana pasta sauce central to Roman cuisine. To add insult to injury, Amatrice was preparing for its 50th annual festival celebrating their traditional dish this …
Terrys All-Time
Terrys All-Time. Leeds psychoheritage Walking down Woodhouse Lane in Leeds recently, I passed by the Universities, heading toward the city centre. On the left, past the Brutalist Car Park, and where Leeds Beckett Wellness Centre now stands, once stood Terrys All-Time. I sat down, overwhelmed by unbidden memories. Terrys All-Time, (no apostrophe) was a real 24-hour cafe, long demolished and …
Eddie Shepherd’s Walled Gardens Supper Club
Eddie Shepherd’s Walled Gardens Supper Club Vegetarian chef Eddie Shepherd describes his Walled Gardens Supper Club as “an underground restaurant serving innovative modern vegetarian food in an informal, sociable setting”. Yes, it is. But my description afterwards was simpler: it’s brilliant. Here’s why. Supper Clubs are where people sit down to eat in strangers’ homes. These are also called pop-up …
Harry’s Bar in Venice. After Hemingway and Moorcock
Harry’s Bar in Venice. After Hemingway and Moorcock “The Cipriani family ran Harry’s Bar in Venice for 81 years. Many of the great and the good graced the tables at Harry’s Bar, which invented the Bellini cocktail and Carpaccio. Ernest Hemingway had his table in the corner as a regular patron. He made frequent reference to it in his book, Across …
Franco Manca Revisited – great authentic pizza
Franco Manca Revisited – great authentic pizza. Where can you find great pizza? Originally from Napoli, Pizza has travelled the world as a street food staple. However, in doing so, it became much traduced. Napoli finally introduced a law protecting traditional pizza by specifying the ingredients and cooking methods. Fortunately, there is also great pizza in the UK. One such purveyor …
Cotswolds pub: The Wild Duck Inn at Ewen
Cotswolds pub: The Wild Duck Inn at Ewen The Wild Duck Inn is a quintessential Cotswold country inn, dating from 1563. It’s found near to the source of the River Thames, at Ewen, just three miles from Cirencester. Having walked along the River Thames National Path (some 184 miles from source to sea), I was keen to return. So the …
The bucolic delights of the Cottage in the Wood
The bucolic delights of the Cottage in the Wood If there’s a restaurant with rooms that can offer a better Lakeland view than the Cottage in the Wood, then I’d like to know about it. Sitting on a terrace surrounded by trees, with a glass of Champagne and the mighty Skiddaw in the distance is my idea of perfection. At …