Andy Lynes

Very nice pictures, shows Borough Market at its best. If revolution does happen in instalments, then Brighton and Hove council's subscription seems to have lapsed. Between the sea and the farm land of the South Downs, Brighton could be overflowing with fresh seafood, Sussex Downs lamb, artisan cheeses, and fruit and veg (we boarder Kent, the "Garden of England"). The Yellow Pages lists 11 greengrocers and fruit sellers and 23 butchers for the whole of Brighton and Hove. Our restaurateurs should be working with and supporting local suppliers instead of dishing up ton upon ton of high-margin pizza and pasta. Our annual Food and Drink festival is a joke, run it seems in order to promote a few of the larger seafront hotels. If there has been a trickle down effect from food on TV and in magazines and the nations obsession with celebrity chefs, Brighton is yet to feel it.

Of course you are, and others are allowed to disagree.

Even worse, the market is less than three quarters of a mile from the sea.

The fishmongers stock was run down as it was early Saturday afternoon, but his stuff never looks fresh enough to me to be tempted to buy it. The "butcher" only sells bacon, eggs and cheese. I don't think there is even a proper butcher left in the market now. Brighton and Hove is a small city, more a seaside town of 250,000 people, so it can't really be compared with Vancouver, but my God we can surely do better than that.

Reading this thread, I was compelled to visit the open Market here in Brighton, England. I was going to post something amusing along the lines of "hey, if you think you've got problems, you should see what we have to put up with!" But after this afternoon's visit I was just too disheartened. You can see my photos on this thread. I visit markets wherever I go in the world, and while Granville can't match the likes of Les Halles in Lyon or some of the amazing markets I have visited in Malaysia, there's no question that its world class. Borough Market in London was mentioned earlier in this thread; well in my opinion it doesn't come close to Granville. So there's one of two more tourists than you'd like and a bit more tat than might be ideal. Big deal. If you know of better places to shop, then all that says to me is that Vancouver is spilling over with great produce. Anyhow, what's the fun of being a local if you can't say "oh, don't go there, that's strictly for tourists."

Prompted by the Granville Island Market thread on the Vancouver forum, I visited Brighton's Open Market today. My plan was to take a few snaps, post them on the Vancouver thread and say something amusing like "stop complaining, look what we have to put up with." However, what I saw this afternoon was just too depressing to joke about. The Market appears to have been on the skids for a while, but since my last visit (quite a few months ago I have to admit) the number of fresh produce stalls seems to have plummeted, replaced by hardware, bike and miscellaneous junk shops. Mear's fruit and veg is still going strong but it appears that several other disappeared. There is now only one fish shop where there used to be four and the number of butchers has also dwindled (none were open when we visited, although being a Saturday afternoon, the market was not at its liveliest). Some stalls like Mear's and Thai Siam are keeping up standards: ...but overall I think the pictures tell there own story about just how run down and under funded the place is. Frankly it's an embarrassment to the City when it could be a jewel in its crown. There are very few signs to the market, no free transport and the council has apparently told the individual stall holders that it is up to them to publicise the Market as best they can. The ridiculous canopy that you can see in the some of the pictures was the subject of much local derision, generally seen as a total waste of money. Rumours that the council want to let the place die so it can be demolished and replaced with a car park or housing seem very believable after what I have seen today. So much for the British Food Revolution.

Full story at the Caterer (registration required).

Try "food meta-site" and see how far that gets you! Maybe our statement of purpose will help. Or maybe not. I always have difficulty summing up eGullet in a just a few words in a meaningful way, especially to people that are not internet-savvy. How about "its where the world goes to talk about food online."

Wareing and Novelli - now there's an unlikely pairing. In the original series you had Angela Hartnett working alongside Ramsay, but as she works for him in "real life" there was no issue about who was going to head up the kitchen. With these two, there is no such established hierarchy and there is a real possibility of a power struggle. Maybe that's the point. (I know who I'd appoint as head chef though.)

Ramsay isn't doing this series because of his golden handcuffs deal with channel 4. Its going to be JC Novelli.

It was my fouth visit, excluding the day I worked in the kitchens. The other three visits were all wonderful, which is what made my meal with Jamie so depressing.

If it's any reassurance to you "Keith", I shouldered a lot of the burden of organising the tasting, so the Canadian Tourist Commission weren't too tied up with the logistics of the event. BTW, if you have some statistics to back up your assertion, I'd be fascinated to read them.

Just for future reference, I really don't like to be called "Lynes" on the forums. Andy will do fine. Thanks.

From "latest 7 - the free weekly whats' on and jobs magazine for sussex" dated March 02-08. Andrew Kay's Food and Drink column "Sole Trader", a review of Brighton restaurant Due South: "To start, I readily fell on a plate of excellent potted shrimps....They were set in just the right amount of clarified butter and I was in piggy heaven. I was also delighted that they did not arrive fridge cold. I know the health and safety laws make problems regarding the temperature of cold foods but ice cold shrimps taste of nothing. Due South managed to get them to the table at exactly the right temperature. Jo started with the scallops, local of course, and very tasty indeed and a decent portion too." "My lemon sole....was really fresh and delightfully plain. My only complaint would be that while Jo's lamb came with potatoes and vegetables, my sole did not..." "Now normally James leaps on pannacotta...Monica makes a pannacotta of sublime wibbliness. Not wobbly, wobbly would suggest too much gelatine, wibbly is that strange stage just before wobble where the merest touch induces gentle rippling. I have to say that the Due South pannacotta wibbled wonderfully...

In my experience, Americans believe that to be the case. For example the Zagat guide to London restaurants includes The Fat Duck (although, to be fair, so does the Gault Millau).

Exactly - "London - some nice places to eat if you look hard enough although overall the service could do with a bit of work" isn't going to shift much product.

I'm not disagreeing with the detail of the articles which I have not yet read, just the general premise as outlined by Slim in his first post.

San Francisco is what, an hour from Vancouver by plane? Sounds do-able to me! If you can't justify it for Chez Panisse alone, then there's lots of other great restaurants you could cover while you're down there as well.

Max, a review of the Cafe menu and that of the downstairs restaurant bears out your point: the involved "Grilled rack, loin and leg of Eliot Ranch lamb with thyme and roasted new onions and Chino Ranch vegetables" downstairs and the more simple "Niman Ranch pork loin with turnips, grilled potatoes, pounded sage and garlic" in the cafe for example. I would say however that my companions main course of "Quinault River steelhead and manila clams with sorrel broth, leeks fennel and aioli" at lunch in the cafe looked quite refined and complex and reportedly tasted "absolutely delicious" so its a venture not without some ambition of its own.

Two things I want to add about my experience of Chez Panisse Cafe. Firstly, I was deep in conversation with my dining partner and the service seemed to just happen around us. Unobtrusive and efficient, everything took place at just the right time and pace, and this in a very busy restaurant. Very impressive. Secondly, its not unusal for me to leave a restaurant feeling full, well fed, happy/merry and at ease with the world. When I left Chez Panisse, I felt something altogether different, that I had been nourished and I was struck by how rare that feeling is.

From the restaurant: "Just in case it helps your members, L'Enclume can certainly arrange for a babysitter if requested in advance by guests. Alternatively, although they don't have baby listening as such, and a lot of the walkabout baby monitors don't work as the walls are too thick, what most people do is to phone reception from their room, restaurant staff answer and neither puts the phone down. It's a little antiquated, but apparently it works! (They had this very situation last night and could hear quite clearly the rythymn of a snoring 1.5 year old boy) It can only be done for one room at a time though, as only one phone line is available for this, so would again need to be arranged with L'Enclume in advance."

Same ingredients, same philosophy, different format.

This is all very nice of course and anything to change peoples minds about British food has got to be good. But isn't the truth really that NY has just as many good high end restaurants and beats London hands down on ethnic cuisines, and that Paris with its 10 Michelin 3 star restaurants and countless wonderful bistros offers a unique dining experience that no city in the word can match. As to Rome, anyone care to fill in the gap there?

Alice Waters has been so famous within the culinary world for so long that she has become almost part of the scenery. Coming from the UK, I'm used to a fashion driven restaurant scene, where customers are always on the look out for the next new thing and where it's all too easy to overlook the established places of quality and integrity. Some of those places will inevitably be resting on their laurels and have long passed their sell-by date, so I was curious to see if Chez Panisse could still hold its head up high after 34 years of trading. Due to the brevity of my trip and a very tight schedule, it looked very much as though I would leave San Francisco without either seeing the Golden Gate Bridge or dining at Chez Panisse. However, after attending Waters' cookery demonstration at the recent Masters of Food and Wine in Carmel and having the chance to briefly chat with her, I felt compelled to make the effort eat at her restaurant. I left Carmel Sunday afternoon, stopping over in Los Gatos to interview David Kinch at Manresa. Monday was to be spent mooching around the picturesque town before heading back to the airport for an evening flight to Heathrow. Checking my guide book, I realised it would be possible for me drop off both my hire car and bags at SFO and then take the DART out to Berkeley for lunch and still be back in plenty of time for my 7.30pm flight. A phone call from my hotel room secured a 2.00pm table and I was all set. Berkeley was something of a surprise; not the leafy, bookish stereotypical college town I had imagined it to be. The fortress-like wood and stucco restaurant seems to have fallen into its place on urban, gritty Shuttuck Avenue out of a windy Kansas sky. I was almost expecting to see the Wicked Witch of the East's legs sticking out from under the front steps. Upstairs, past the intimate evenings-only main restaurant is the busy café. There is nothing luxurious about the space, but the open kitchen with its brick built oven, displays of fresh fruit and the dining room's abundance of wood make it a very appealing and inviting place to pass a few hours. The menu is an equally inviting proposition, with its range of simple salads, pasta, meat and fish dishes. Everything here is of course about the ingredients. Alice Waters is not a celebrity chef building towers of food or smearing purees over plates. If Waters has a "signature dish" (and I imagine that she might shudder at the very thought) then it might well be a green salad. She had spoken of her love of salads at the demonstration, about how she makes her own vinegar at home to Richard Olney's recipe and how she likes her dressings to be a little sharp so that you can taste the vinegar or citrus in them. And here was all that on the plate in front of me; a selection of "sound, seasonal, local" leaves bursting with freshness and flavour dressed with the assertiveness you imagine Waters would want. A bowl of accurately cooked garganelli pasta with wild nettles, Bellwether Farm ricotta and pine nuts was enchantingly direct and unfettered, as was the Page manderine sherbet served with Champagne-grapefruit granita and delicate, spicy biscuits, all from the $26.00 daily changing pre-fix menu. It was a delightful lunch enjoyed over half a bottle of Chehalem Dry Riesling, wonderful sourdough bread, good coffee and great company. I hope it's not too long before I have the chance to return for dinner and the full Chez Panisse experience. I might even make the effort to see that blasted bridge.

Over the last 12 months I've eaten in London, Ludlow, Manchester, Brighton, Paris, Vancouver, San Francisco and Belfast among other places. My experiences in Belfast at Cayenne, Roscoff Brasserie, Shu, James Street South and Bourbon were a very long way from appalling. For a small city, Belfast has a decent number of very good restaurants and some very talented chefs. I have generally found the service to be at the very least warm and friendly. I am of course speaking as an infrequent visitor to the city and can't claim intimate knowledge of the broader restaurant scene, but I think the best of Belfast bears comparison with restaurants in any of the cities named above.