Andy Lynes

I don't want to get too hung up on this but maybe the royalties recieved by the composer when their a song is covered by an artist either live in performance or on record is a closer analogy.

Custard tart and beef fillet? Custard tart and beef fillet? Custard tart and beef fillet? Custard tart and beef fillet? Custard tart and beef fillet? Nope, I don't get it.

Can cooking be literate? I don't understand your point.

Post Michelin arrow award of the Vineyard in today's Observer. It struck me that no one seems to talk about this place very much (as you'll see egullet's last report is well over three years ago), yet in theory it should be a foodie magnet. Has anyone been and not posted for some reason. Are people planning to go, or planning not to go for some reason? Has Jay's very positive review (of the food at least) changed any minds?

Very true, but in the context of this discussion, I think Vongerichten's version is sufficiently different that you wouldn't call "foul" on him. If all the versions you see around the place are Vongerichten's recipe, why shouldn't he receive credit on the menu and royalties for every dessert sold? Totally impractical? Almost certainly, but theoretically the right thing to do. If musicians can recieve royalities for everytime their recordings are played on a jukebox in a bar somewhere then why not chefs when their dishes are served in a restaurant other than their own?

I have to admit that I didn't vote in the awards. There is a bit of a conflict of interests there for me really - voting for people you get paid to write about - so I decided to keep out of it this year. But as I couldn't agree more with the best restaurant one and two this year (Hibiscus came second - how many stamps did that cost you Mr Bapi?) I don't feel too left out.

That's very good to know. All worthy winners, particularly pleased to see Taj Mahal get some recognition, its one of the best stocked food shops I've seen anywhere in the UK - the range of produce they have is amazing. Even better, its not overpriced. The Poole picture is very nearly up there with Fergus Henderson hanging upside on a meat hook. The interview is of course well worth a read as well!

Best newcomer - Bills Produce Store, Brighton Third "best for cheap eats" - Pokeno Pies, Brighton plus best of the rests South East for: Sunday Lunch - The George, Brighton Location - Due South, Brighton Retailer - Taj Mahal Stores, Brighton and Real Eating Company, Hove Restaurant - Terre a terre, Brighton For kids - Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack, Brighton Bar - Black and White Bar, Brighton and The Bar at Drakes, Brighton Breakfast - Bill's Produce Store, Brighton and Real Eating Company, Hove It fair brings a tear to my Brightonian eye. Not that this isn't totally deserved of course and a big up to my adopted home town and all that, but I can't help wondering how many voters from the South East live outside of Brighton. Or how many people voted full stop. Worth picking up a copy if only for the amusing picture of chef Bruce Poole (Chez Bruce won best restaurant) posing on his motorbike with a couple of bunnies. They don't call him the Hugh Hefner of the UK restaurant scene for nothing you know. Full results here.

I think there's a much sharper focus on invention in avant-garde cuisine than in the case of either of the dishes you've referenced. For one thing, I'm not at all certain that Jean-Georges and Nobu are the inventors of those dishes. ← Vongerichten's recipe, which is a reasonably strighforward batter that is "undercooked" to achieve the molten centre, is entirely different from Michel Bras recipe which has a plug of frozen ganache inserted into the middle of the cake batter. As the dessert bakes, the ganache melts. Very similar in effect and no doubt one inspired the other but the two desserts are really quite different to eat.

The Square will have had a bit of a refurb and a new menu launched by the time of your meal. I had Phil Howards food recently when he cooked at Northcote Manor and I was very impressed, but then I've always enjoyed what he does. For what its worth I'm booked in for the end of April so I guess of the three my choice would be The Square.

What harm? Well, how about that sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see your creativity being palmed off by someone else as their own. And them profiting from it? That feeling of having been in some way violated. It's really not nice.

Like an ill-defined Bohemian perhaps?

Maybe you'll just have to weigh Anchor at the bar and Hope to get a table! (I just thought of that. Just now. What can I say, it's a gift.)

Do you think, by any chance, I might be taking this a bit too seriously? I saw the trailer for the Cilla show and I think there was a scene shot at Le Caprice so there might at least be a bit of restaurant action in the show to keep us all amused. I quite like Cilla actually, I was a Blind Date addict and her vocal on "Alfie" is just awesome.

I haven't been since my last post but if you like the sound of the food I seriously cannot imagine that you will be disappointed if you do go. The food really does deliver and there is a real integrity to the place. Its just a sheer delight in my opinion. I'd do the double whammy and go to Hibiscus as well if I were you. You'll be spoilt for any other gastronomic restaurant in the UK thereafter of course but it would be a memorable trip!

No - most chefs are also shown how to prepare it as well... ← Not in a cookery competition which are tests of knowledge and skill not hand holding exercises. This wasn't Masterchef Goes Large, it was Generation Game Goes Large.

10 September is the current official date.

You should get the lady in the skimpy top to come round and inhale a plate of your scallops - it's bound to drive up business.

I really hate to say this but you're going to have to wait for the article when it appears in the Independent on Sunday. ← If your still interested, my Northcote report will appear in the 2 April edition in the Review colour supplement along with some pics and recipes.

It's like something out of a Brothers Quay movie - greedy cow!

The Warehouse video is well worth a look, highly entertaining.

The BBC explain themselves.

Here's an unexpurgated press release (fulsome, unctuous prose unedited) I recieved about A Voce which might be of interest: "The word is out: chef Andrew Carmellini, the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef New York for 2005, and Marlon Abela, the restaurateur behind London's Michelin one-star eatery Umu and the one-star with two-stars rising Greenhouse, have teamed up to open a new modern Italian restaurant: A Voce ("word of mouth"), on the edge of chic Madison Square Park. At this sophisticated modern oasis, overseen by Maitre D' Dante Camara, the emphasis is on grown-up, deeply delicious Italian cookery set against a backdrop of Italian style and organic East Coast elements. Desserts are conceived by April Robinson, a veteran of the pastry kitchens at Ducasse and Café Gray; the wine director is Olivier Flosse, former cellar master at Café Boulud and a veteran of the renowned wine program at England's Manoir aux Quatre Saisons. Carmellini earned a Michelin star, a Best New Chef nod from Food & Wine magazine and two Beard awards-the first for Rising Star Chef-during his time at Café Boulud. As Jonathan Gold wrote in Gourmet, "Andrew Carmellini's modernist riffs on traditional seasonal cooking, laced with Greenmarket vegetable worship and leavened with an list of rotating specialties, are the sorts of things you can eat every day." No stranger to Italian cookery, Carmellini spent a year studying and working in Italy and two more at the iconic San Domenico in New York City. A widely traveled culinarian, he "always comes back," he explains, "to the simple pleasures of Italian cooking." At A Voce, he redefines those pleasures: at his table, deeply flavored classic Italian dishes are infused with a downtown city sensibility and the refined touch that has made him justly celebrated as a "chef's chef." With Carmellini at the helm, A Voce promises to become both a neighborhood hangout and a hot destination. A Voce's menu, says Carmellini, is "inspired by the spirit of seasonal simplicity in Italian cooking," but his dishes are hardly strict renditions of traditional classics. For instance he pairs incredibly tender Grilled Octopus with peperonata, chorizo and lemon. While his Rigatone Pugliese with sweet sausage, ceci, and broccoli rabe, is a classic combination of legumes and pasta often found in the heel of Italy's "boot," the dish is transformed by refined classical technique and hand-raised American ingredients. The same is true of his Pollo Cacciatora with sweet peppers and garlic, a true redefined classic. Braised Fennel with Orange, a well-known southern Italian combination, is deepened and intensified with Sambuca; Scampi Peperonata with cannellini beans, sweet-water scampi, rosemary and peporanata draws on the time-honored Italian flavor blend of sweet and sour peppers, bringing together regional flavors and textures in a dish that is Carmellini's own. Robinson, too, draws on well-loved flavors and textures to create irresistible contemporary desserts inspired by regional classics. Her Sicilian-style Coffee Granita is pulled straight from the streets of Palermo; her Diablo Gelato, bittersweet chocolate ice cream spiked with chile flakes, draws on the flavors of Aztec-style chocolate making, a style that was brought to Southern Italy by travelers in the 16th century, that lives on today in the work of artisanal Modica chocolate-makers. Robinson's Tiramisu is classic in its best possible imagining, because, Robinson believes, "sometimes a classic should be left exactly as it is." Flosse believes that traditions are served best when they are looked at with fresh eyes; hence the French-born wine master's cellar features the best Italian wines alongside a wide range of fine offerings from France and America. Categorized by country [50 percent from Italy] and region, Flosse's over 600 selection list offers affordability as well as luxury, ranging from $18/bottle to $9500/bottle. Eighteen wines are offered by the glass, a majority organic, including: Moscato D'Asti, La Spinetta, Bricco Quaglia, 2004, Vino Rosso, Tavola, Paolo Scavino, Piedmont, 2004 and Soave Le Mandolare, Corte Melini, 2004. The list features 64 half bottles including: Alois Lageder, Pinot Grigio, 2003, Pianrosso Brunello Di Montalcino Piccolomini, 1999 and Yalumba Museum Muscat, NV. In addition Flosse has selected 30 magnums, including: Dom Perignon 1961, Honig, Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley, 2003 and La Vieille Julienne Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 2000 and two Rehoboams. A firm believer that one need not spend excessively to enjoy quality wine, Flosse has dedicated 40 percent of the list to selections under $80 including: Calera, Chardonnay, Central Coast, 2003, Stefano Massone Gavi Masera, 2004, Macon-Village Domaine de Verckezes, 2003, and Château de Jau, Macabeu, Languedoc Roussillon, 2003). In addition, A Voce will offer monthly wine dinners featuring guest winemakers. A Voce's design reflects a natural as well as a modern urban aesthetic. The dining room is enveloped by two "garden" spaces, one literal--the 100-seat outside dining piazza adored with lemon trees, flowers and herbs--and the other figurative--an impressive indoor art installation entitled "Falling Twig." The restaurant interior features a mix of modern accents evoking Italy's industrial history: stainless steel and high-gloss chocolate and vanilla lacquers, while American walnut floors, leather-topped tables, and horsehair-upholstered banquettes lend the space an urban elemental feel. A Voce is the first MARC property to open in New York City under the leadership of Christian Palikuca, Chief Operating Officer of MARC US. MARC is the brainchild of London-based Marlon Abela; he founded the group in 2001 with the aim of creating exceptional restaurants around the globe. MARC's properties include London's Michelin-starred Japanese Umu, the private club Morton's, The Greenhouse-recipient of a Wine Spectator Grand Award-and Gaia in Connecticut. A Voce is open for dinner seven nights a week from 5:30PM until 11:00PM. The restaurant is also open for lunch Monday through Saturday from 11:30AM until 3:00PM and brunch on Sunday from 11:00AM until 3:00PM. The restaurant is located at 41 Madison Avenue [the entrance is on 26th Street, between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South, 212-545-8555]."

...and what the hell has happened to Daksha? She seems to have gone from sweet, endearing mother of two to referring to herself in the third person (a sure sign of a rampant ego) in a matter of weeks!

I have been to Leicester and can report back that they do in fact have restaurants, and not just ones run by the Asian population. I went to quite a nice one which I now can't remember the name of and which appears to have dropped out of the Good Food Guide (dead useful this post isn't it?). I can tell you however that Entropy is causing a bit of a stir and got Leicestershire Newcomer of the Year in the Good Food Guide, although I can't imagine there was a massive amount of competition as there are only two entries for the whole of Leicester in the book.