Andy Lynes

Mark, I personally think your itinerary sounds perfect - if I had a couple of weeks free that's what I'd do! I visited the Lake District for the first time recently and I honestly had difficulty keeping my eyes on the narrow, twisting roads because the scenery is just so beautiful. I live near the Sussex Downs which I think is a lovey part of the country but the Lakes just blew me away. There are a ton of great restaurants, hotels, pubs and food shops up there so you will be spoilt for choice in that respect. The Cotswolds is similarly blessed both by nature and by decent places to eat and stay. Given your relatively limited time, I would definately advise a trip to Bath instead of York - there's just a lot more to see and do there and its a very fine city indeed. It will be packed with tourists, but I'm sure you won't mind that! I'll post a few specific recommendations when I get a moment, but I'm sure others will chime in before long.

Passionate it is, and a public thanks for your swift action on "the other side". You get the Harden's reporters edition simply by filing around 20 short reports to the guide which you can do online. I take all guides with a large pinch of salt but I do find Harden's a handy format and mostly reliable i.e. I can often agree with its findings.

I have never met Pat MacDonald, or spoken to him or eaten in any of his restaurants and have no strong feelings one way or the other about him, although I wish him the best of luck in his future ventures. I did email his office once for a photo of Paris for a alittle item on restaurants in shopping malls that never saw the light of day, but that's the extent of it. I also enjoyed his Kitchen Nightmares-protoype TV series a few years back. As you've spoken to him on the phone and obviously liked the restaurant, I can see why you might be a bit touchy about this (although that doesn't excuse the appalling behaviour of others posters on the Birmingham Plus forum). But I must reiterate that I was simply reporting the facts - Paris closed and it got the worst write up imaginable in a national guide. I speculated that the two might be connected in some way, which is not an unreasonable thing to do in my opinion. Those sort of things can be damaging to a restaurant's reputation, even if you believe them to be inaccurate and that the 30 positive reports on your site and 4 AA rosettes are much closer to the truth.

Here's McDonald's version of events as reported on Birmingham Plus- "After two and a half years in Birmingham Mr McDonald feels that his other business interests (he was speaking from Dubai and has ongoing consultancy projects in Russia and Italy as well as a number of recent and forthcoming London openings) do not allow him to continue to run an operation with his name over the door to the extent that he would like." I don't think that really explains anything, do you?

Due to Corinna very thougthfully posting the tape to me, I had the chance to watch this programme last night. Really enjoyable and absorbing. Thornton pretty much lost the respect of his apprentices when he told them to be at the restaurant at 6.30am for the abattoir visit, which they did, and then didn't turn up until 8.00am. It was all downhill from there. Thornton appeared incapable of making allowances for the contestants complete lack of training. A Michelin starred kitchen is a very difficult place to be and there were times when the chef seemed to be taking some small sadistic pleasure in his charge's uneasiness. His edited self showed an almost complete lack of patience which inevitably led to frustration on the contestants part. Thornton spoke about showing the contenders "the beauty of what we do" but seemed only to succeed in displaying an ugly reality which they naturally shyed away from. He came across as a serious, intense, talented, dedicated but humourless man lacking in empathy. Perhaps he thought the whole thing was a joke, and maybe it was. But he didn't do himself any favours by not going along for the ride.

Apologies, I had no idea those marks only appeared in the reporters edition. For the benefit of those who don't have access to a copy, Margot's scored 1 for food, 1 for service and a measly 2 for ambience. I'm not a betting man, but I'd happily wager that Adrian won't be suddenly closing his doors under mysterious circumstances anytime soon...

Harden's rate restaurants 1 to 5 (where 1 is exceptional and 5 is poor) on Food, Service and Ambience; they're the three numbers at the top righthand corner of every entry. Paris scored 5 (poor) for Food, 5 for Service and 5 for Ambience.

No, you?

Just heard that Pat McDonald's Paris restaurant in Birmingham closed yesterday. I don't have any further details but with a triple 5 rating in the Harden's guide (the worst possible) and a write up that includes the description "sterile" and "up itself" , perhaps it was only a matter of time.

We must have very different measures for "too dear". ← Maybe, but its hardly Pied a Terre (also in the vicinity) prices is it?

Its still very much Corrigan's place. Although he was often to be seen manning the oyster bar at Bentley's when it first opened, he was apparently back in Soho as soon as he was happy with the way things were running at the new restaurant. I honestly don't know how many services a week he is in the kitchen, but I will say that the food is just stunning at the moment. Presse of rabbit and foie gras with baby artichokes and pickled cep followed by braised shoulder of Elwyn valley lamb with sweetbread and Irish apple tart with single malt cream was just wonderful - and that's just the 27 quid set lunch. Despite any service issues, I think the downstairs dining room is one of the nicest in London - it has real character.

Whatever happend to him? Its a real shame as he showed so much promise...

Take away Italian, Chinese, Indian and Japanese. Divide by "not expensive" and multiply by "near to the BM". The restaurant you first thought of is Fino.

I disagree, I think this is one of his moments - at least on a par with his late night "Tall Structures" panel discussion programme he made a few years back. Fascinating stuff.

Have a great time and say hello to Nigel and Craig for me if they're around (surely they take Sunday nights off though?).

5 North Street - the only Michelin starred restaurant without a website? A friend of mine goes there every Cheltenham Cup and absolutely loves the place.

I'd love to go back next year and just enjoy the festival. I actually fell very ill driving up and had to spend the night in a travelodge in Oxford because I couldn't continue. It turned out to be a 24 hour bug and I made it up for the whole of Sunday but wasn't really in the best of spirits. I think they must think I'm a right miserable git - moping around the place feeling sorry for myself ("no change there then" says the wife).

I've had two really outstanding meals at Lindsay House over the last couple of months. I would recommend it highly but you have to take into account the fact that the restaurant is spread over about four floors and that the service inevitably suffers because of that. The new maitre'd is ex-Square and does a great job but even he can't be everywhere at once. Lunch at £27 for three courses is particularly good value.

It's Ronson's weekly column in the Guardian's Weekend magazine, not a restaurant review as such. Its the first thing I turn to; I think he's hilarious in a scary sort of way.

I've always said that a restaurant review by Jon Ronson would be worth reading. Click here for the first installment.

I don't suppose the show will get an airing in the UK but I'd love to see this programme. I've tried to run the pass at restaurants on several occasions and I imagine being an air traffic controller at Heathrow is an easier task. Its a real skill and you have to understand exactly how a kitchen runs to be able to do it without landing everyone in the weeds.

OK, I understand the point now. Kitching does seem to be trying to do something totally nonderivative here. Although some of this food sounds utterly bizarre, that doesn't mean Paul Kitching is illiterate in a culinary sense. I won't repeat myself but will refer you to this post I made a couple of years ago.

I swear that ceremony gets longer every year, but its a great and truly worthy event and well worth sitting through for the amazing canapes and food stations afterwards (the lamb masala was particularly good). Pravin looked dead chuffed, the rest of them looked heart broken. Understadnable when you learn that the winner's prizes this year include (and I'm quoting from the Scholarship website) "three month stage at a 3-star Michelin establishment, plus £3,000 cash, courtesy of the Savoy Educational Trust,... a week’s paid work-experience in New York, courtesy of Restaurant Associates; an expenses paid trip including travel and overnight accommodation to visit the wine cellars of Champagne Gosset at Aÿ for a guided tour of the production process, a trip for two to visit the Caffé Musetti roasting factory in Milan and a set of Global Knives to the value of £1,000." Roll on next year!

I felt moist and pearlescent just reading it.

I'm not really talking about the letter of the law here, just making a broad comparison to illustrate a point. I think we established there was no legal issue quite a while ago. You've been hanging out with lawyers for too long Sam!