Andy Lynes

It should really be just UK restaurants, but what the hell, we're a part of Europe. Shall we officially extend this to Europe? Might give the game more legs anyway.

I bet that has a flavour similar to well hung game, am I right?

You couldn't make it up. The additional days on the sentence is a particularly cruel twist.

Please note : some of these links may require free registration to view. Richard Johnson and the humorous sandwiches. Hmm, good name for a band. Peek through the kitchen door, see Mark Hix in the raw (did you ever, did you ever). Belinda Richardson goes mad for the Crazy Bear. With puns like that, I could get a job on local radio, no problem. Has Matthew Norman contracted rabies? Find out why Thyme has got him frothing at the mouth. Jay Rayner goes back to basics at St John Bread and Wine. Alimentary my dear Coren. Giles investigates Sherlock's Grill. AA Gill dines at Fino. There is nothing funny about Rowley Leigh's Aubergines. Oh well, better luck next week I suppose. You can never have enough recipes for summer pudding can you? So here's another from Jill Dupliex. There's red, white, rose, dessert, and now "hot weather" wines according to Jane McQuitty. What will they think of next. Giles Kime is after affordable reds. Nigel Slater gives us his take on kebabs. I'm aquiver with the excitement of it all. Tom Conran on shellfish. Tim Aiken is living la Vida Nova with Sir Cliff of all people. Who'd have thought it!! The Observer Food Magazine is on line now. Don't miss the cracking short story about an Irish celebrity chef who ends up in the Brooklyn Detention Centre cooking for the mafia. Oh no, my mistake, its all true apparently. Amazing lives sone people lead. Like, really amazing.

Welcome to eGullet Sarah. Waterside or Cliveden are within your geographical range as is The Vineyard at Stockcross. In London, I would be tempted to suggest Putney Bridge, which is my current favourite and I think would meet your requirement for fine food, with a romantic but relaxed atmosphere. Tell them its for a anniversary meal and see if they will give you a window table.

No, I've been doing it for years now and couldn't care less really. Oddly enough, the couple at the next table at Wishart started chatting to me and I of course told them about eGullet (they are going to the Three Chimneys this week I think and have promised to log on and send us a report). That is the first time that has happened to me as far as I can remember, so I am usually more than happy just to eat and drink myslef into a pleasant mild stupor. Front of house are sometimes more chatty if you are on your own, but it depends how well the meal is going as to whether or not I want to chat back to them or not.

Last night, I dined alone at Martin Wishart, managing to get a reservation just one day in advance during the festival. The room was busy when I arrived and filled up during the evening. I was initially sat at what is probably the only bad table in the smart Petrus-like room (beige table skirts, textured beige and gold wallpaper), right next to a stone pillar near to the main entrance which blocked the view of most of the rest of the dining room. I hate being jammed up alongside walls in restaurants, I find it oppressive and it makes me tense for some reason. When I saw the horrible flowery typeface on the short and quite expensive a la carte, I began to get a bad feeling about the evening ahead of me. A request to move to a more suitable table was met without rancour and my original table was then given to what appeared to be a couple of regular customers who had no issue whatsoever with it (just me then). I relaxed with a beer and chose a smoked haddock tart and halibut with pig’s trotter and waited to see how the evening would unfold. Wine was brought swiftly (a Chilean Viognier which was OK for £20.00 from a steeply priced list), very good olive bread appeared, but no butter for about 10 minutes. I was being especially mean and wanted to see how long it would take the many front of house staff who were buzzing around looking terribly busy to notice, so I deliberately said nothing. I’m sure it would have arrived a bit quicker had I asked for it, but it was a useful test of the service. At approximately 8.10pm, 25 minutes after I sat down, the amuse of a rillett of rabbit “bon-bon”, cone of chicken liver parfait and shot glass of vine tomato presse arrived. The chicken was lovely, the rest simply ok. Fairly soon after, the smoked haddock tartlette arrived and any reservations I was harbouring about just how good the meal was going to be evaporated on the spot. A light pastry case was filled with spinach, smoked haddock and puy lentils and set on a silky puree of shallot which in turn was encircled by a frothy moat of intensly flavoured lobster sauce. A few salad leaves and a rogue sliver of roasted pepper made a fleeting appearance to no great effect, and despite the pastry being a superfluous element flavour wise, it was a memorable dish. It is quite unusual to find smoked haddock on restaurant menus these days and so made a refreshing change from the more familiar ingredients like foie gras, crab and scallops, all of which featured on other starters that night. I have had a few fish/meat combo dishes recently, but Wishart’s halibut and pigs trotter has been the most successful of them all. A decent slab of nicely cooked fish sat on a crisp potato galette (rosti really) with a little spinach beneath. On top was some braised endive, clasped in a girdle of fried bacon. Around this were three thin slices of stuffed trotter and a gribiche sauce let down with a jus of some sort. Atop the trotters were more slivers of roasted pepper. If there had been more of the endive, perhaps replacing the spinach entirely, a little more of the trotter and less of the unimpressive stuffing, and the pepper been done away with completely, this could well have been a 9/10 plate of food. As it was, I was more than happy to settle for 7/10. Desserts were all fruit based, and I went for a passion fruit souffle served with mango sorbet and a sabayon of some description. This was a poor showing in relation to the food that went before it. The souffle was very eggy, with little of the fruit flavour coming through, and not a patch on Alex Aitken’s definitive version that I enjoyed a few years back at the original Le Poussin restaurant in Brockenhurst. The bill including 1 beer, 1 bottle of wine, 1 glass of dessert wine, coffee and tap water was £68.00 before service, although I did have the cheapest starter (£8.00) and main course (£20.50). Overall, a nice room and some really impressive cooking with big flavours was slightly let down by an uneasy mixture of over attentive service in the form of constant wine and water replenishment and some uneven waits for sustenance although the total duration of meal itself at around 2.15 hours was absolutely fine. Restaurant website

If Le Champignon Sauvage is anything to go by, Hibiscus should not be held back by those things at all.

Savoury ice creams and sorbets for one thing. More Fat Duck than Merchant House at least.

Lurking good, posting double good.

My last meal at Petrus, although a good few months ago now, was the least satisfactory and by far the most expensive I have eaten there. The most expensive meal I have ever had in fact.

....please fell free to chime in, we'd love to hear from you.

He's in a slightly akward position now really isn't he? If he says, I'll be spending all my time at "Petrus by Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley " (just trips off the old tongue doesn't it?) then will he be accused of abandoning Fleur and The Savoy? If he says, I'll be spreading my time between the 3 ventures (and however many more there might be in the pipeline in the future) will people say, well why the hell should I pay £60.00 a head at Petrus when you're not even there. Damned if he do, damned if he don't. I wonder if that little word "by" has significance in this context, designed by Wareing, not actually cooked by him.

Thats the risk with having a number of outlets to manage, you have to come up with food that a brigade can produce with consistancy without an the executive chef there all the time to oversee his recipes and ideas. It's bound to lead to food with a production line feel. Hopefuly "Petrus by Marcus Wareing at The Berekeley" as, God help us, I believe the place is to be called, will be where the chef's personal touch can be felt. If you see what I mean.

It sounds like Claudes food has moved on somewhat in the months since my excellent meal there. Did he say where his inspirations were coming from at all, if you can remember. Also agree, from my one meal there, that Hibiscus rates as highly as somewhere like The Fat Duck or Le Champignon Sauvage, which it more closely resembles in terms of size of restaurant and number of employees. David Everitt-Matthias was open for 13 before he got his second star, so I'm not holding my breath for next years guide, but you never know.

Thyme in Clapham?

Previous brigade went to Chewton Glen with Murchison I believe, Galmiche has brought in his own people. The £3mill is the money spent duing Murchison's time. A huge improvement on the JBR period in my opinion. Galmiche said he wanted to bring 2 stars back to the restaurant, i.e . regain what JBR had won. As to why 2 not 3, I didn't ask, but that seems a reasonable ambition to me, maybe something he has agreed with the owners. It was a very informal chat and I don't think the chef was particularly in PR mode. Seemed like a very nice chap, although I could hear him shouting at his chefs from the dining room during dinner, so maybe he not a total pussy cat.

I'm sure we've been through this before (can anyione find the thread, I'm 30 minutes late for an appointment at the moment!), but yes, I agree with you. You have to take my comments in the context of the relatively high cost of wine in restaurants. It's not ideal for the punter, but it's nice to see somewhere upmarket like L'ortolan making an effort. Given what the competition do, they probably don't need to.

Despite a 9 course feast in Cheltenham on Wednesday night (details of which will eventualy emerge soon on The Daily Gullet, so watch that space) I girded my loins and some how forced myself to eat at L'Ortolan on Thursday. I had cleverly allowed myself to be plied with Calvados the night before which really does help the digestion I have discoverd, and was therefore ready for Daniel Galmiche's 6 course menu gourmand as it appears here. The restaurant has been open 1 week with Galmiche at the helm. Over Calvados (you can tell I'm very concerned about my digestive system can't you?) in the conservatory bar area, he told me that he is working with a less than full brigade, no pastry chef at the moment and is therefore offering just a menu gourmand. He is expecting to have a full complement of chefs very soon for the launch of his a la carte, lunch and gourmand menus, prices of which are yet to be decided. He also told me that there are plans to make L'ortolan a restaurant with rooms, open a cookery school, a brasserie by Shinfield Green and win back 2 Michelin stars. Although we chatted only briefly, I got the sense that Galmiche is a determined man and that he is not the sort to blow hot air. It will be interesting to see how things develop. Given this is a "soft" opening, it would be unfair to provide a detailed review of the food or pass judgement on the operation on the basis of just one meal, albeit a very good meal. Its a great building which they have spent a lot of money on (I was told that the investment so far is approx £3mill), lovely dining room and the service is good; formal, but friendly and welcoming. The wine list has some excellent value bottles on it starting at £14.00, with a lot of choice below £30.00. Very unusual for this sort of operation. I had a very juicy and gluggable Omrah Chardonnay from Plantagenet for £18.00, a wine my local wine dealer stocks for £6.99 a mark up of approximately 250% which is livable with I think. I'd like to go back once Galmiche has had time to settle in, get the full carte up and running and show what he can really do. Very early days yet, but it's looking very promising. (BTW Murchison is now chef at Chewton Glenn).

How utterly charming. This from Ramsay rather than Hartnett I take it.

The fried pork skins appear to be similar to the crackling traditionally served with roast pork in the UK. They also resemble a sort of hot, fresh version of the commercially produced "pork scratchings", sold in packets like crisps (potato chips) in British pubs. This thread has made me very, very hungry and reminds me of how easy, and enjoyable, it is to fall in with Steven's eating patterns when you hang out with him for any period of time.

What a great thread, really interesting stuff. Loved the bbq stuff as well.

Eating and chest thumping is probably not a great help to the digestion in any case. Better to keep the activities as seperate as possible in my opinion. Perhaps a bit of chest thumping mid morning, leaving a resonable gap after breakfast and before lunch. Similarly in the afternoon, between lunch and dinner. That way, eating and chest thumping need not be mutually exclusive.

Please note : some of these links may require free registration to view. The Independent newspaper finally seems to have sorted its food and drink act out and now has what appears to be a fully up to date review section. So for this week here's a link to its index to allow to catch up with all those exciting and fascinating reviews you may have been missing out on : click. Normal service will be resumed next week. Matthew Norman is gonna knock, knock, knock on Boxwood. I wonder if Ramsay will get the knock when he reads it. Its a bad week all round for Ramsay et al, as Matthew Fort gives The Savoy Grill a drubbing. Jan Moir has just got back from the Isle of Skye, she's not very big and she's awfully shy, but she has nevertheless been to The Three Chimneys which came somewhere in Restaurant magazine's top 50 list. They were out in force at the awards ceremony as well, if all the cheering when Bruno Brooks mentioned the restaurant's name is anything to go by. Jay Rayner is still away (tarting around Tuscany or Provence no doubt) so this time its Katheryn Flett at Benares. Calm down la, Giles Coren eats Liverpool. Gissajob, go on gissit, I can do that. AA Gill is in an 8O8 state. Hey pesto, Rowley Leigh is magic! Put the kettle on, Tom Conran has got some scones on the go. What a nice lad. Giles Kime returns to chardonnay and loves limoncello. I've got quite a good limoncello related tale. Get me drunk enough and I might tell you about it sometime. Nigel Slater can't be bothered to write any recipes this week, but has still managed to spin an article of pure gold out of practically nothing. How does he do it. The man's a genius. Tim Aiken says live a little and choose something than your usual tipple. Sound advice sir. Jan MacQuitty's "holiday wines". Whatever the bastard hell that's meant to mean. Jill Dupleix is smoking. Nasty habit if you ask me.

How did they deal with that request, quite unusual I would have thought. Were they taken aback at all?