Gary Marshall

you should enjoy that, i had my stag do there not long after it opened, a great time was had by all. if i hadn't already got saturday evening booked up elsewhere i'd have been at the star saturday lunchtime, one of those wintery saturdays where the best place seem to be in a convivial hostelry with some good food. we had sunday lunch at the pipe and glass, the owners are ex-star and it is a comparable experience, but a little lighter on the wallet.

interview with D E-M http://www.thestaffcanteen.com/featured-chefs/david_everitt-matthias/

yes, i agree

are they the signature dishes? Don't forget gavroche is not the place to go for innovation and change!

just reading DH take on this..... http://www.doshermanos.co.uk/ i like the sound of the menu, not unsuprisingly.

just reading DH take on this..... http://www.doshermanos.co.uk/ i like the sound of the menu, not unsuprisingly.

only been to chaophraya once in leeds and wasn't impressed, bog standard thai i thought. Though its quite popular amongst leeds chef community for its all day sunday service (and banquets? - i may have dreamt that). deffo red chilli over chaophraya in my book, for the reasons thom has posted.

can i start the campaign for marco for next year now please? and maybe ramsay would like to get back behind the stove for 2011 i'm assuming menu wise it's the same lunch and dinner, i enquired about wine, there's going to be a 200+ bin list with a south west france bias, selected from selfridges with help from the petrus sommellier (not sure who though?).

can i start the campaign for marco for next year now please? and maybe ramsay would like to get back behind the stove for 2011 i'm assuming menu wise it's the same lunch and dinner, i enquired about wine, there's going to be a 200+ bin list with a south west france bias, selected from selfridges with help from the petrus sommellier (not sure who though?).

plenty of trains from airport to piccadilly and red chilli is 5 mins from piccadilly. the 'new' branch may be even closer but not been there.

they called, i'm in!

doing my best to get a table, missed the call back yesterday and a voicemail, so fingers crossed!

found a nice route eventually, out from panzano on the sp222 then at the bottom of the descent right to sicelle up the climb to near san donato and then left to castellina in chianti, then over to radda and back to chianti via luccarelli, just over 30 miles, did 5 rides 2 - 2.5 hours each. discovered on the last day i was on the route of the new classic 'l'eroica' but too late to explore. plenty of cyclists out there too....

well just back from a very pleasant week in panzano, compared to the many italian towns/cities i have stayed in it was an idiosyncratic little place, didn;t seem to have many locals and what people were wandering around appeared to be tourists, mainly american. it's the only italian place i have been to that didn't seem to have an enshrined passagiata/gelato run as a nightly ritual! we arrived at our villa just slightly out of town but overlooking the conca d'oro overlooking i think fontodi's vines, but certainly their villa, which was a coincidence as it was an article written by theo randall about a stay on this estate that prompted our visit. His villa was a little more expensive than mine though! Through our agent karin at chianti and more we had reservations at oltre il giardino on saturday night and sunday lunchtime at officina della bistecca. On arrival about 7-ish i quicly re-built my bike and had a ride around to get our bearings but it appeared that the drive through town to our villa had prettymuch exposed us to all there was to see in panzano! At that time i thought cecchini's solociccia and Oltre looked quite busy but by the time we arrived at 9pm there were only a couple of other tables taken, i was suprised at how quiet it was. We ordered some antipasti, bruschetta/ meats, some ravioli with sage butter and for main peposo, with a beer each and bottle of 06 fontodi classico. i don't know if the kitchen were telepathic but it appeared to us that the friendly waitress walked back to the kitchen with our order and came straight back with the antipasti, sarah's bruschetta seemed a mean portion of two thin strips of bread with tomatos for 6e my meats were decent enough though. As soon as they were cleared the pasta course arrived, it was perfunctory and as soon as that was cleared the main course came! we were on course to be in and out in less than an hour! As we were in no -rush and other tables were in so we weren't holding the staff up we called a halt for a while and just ordered some house red just to have as we settled into our first night, i had a local dessert that was non descript and sarah some pecorino with a blindingly hot sauce, she rued not taking the honey option, staff were friendly , offering us a choice of liquerer (sp) on the house as we left but it felt a sloppy and expensive meal at c. e130 (fontodi was 22e i think). sunday we optimisitically headed to the sunday market but it was packed and we couldn't be bothered to queue for veg etc as it had a numbered system and my italian numbers and veg descriptions aren't great, we found cecchinis and then returned to the villa for a relax before heading out for lunch. The butchers shop was packed when we arrived, and it aint large so we squeezed in an enjoyed being force-fed samples of chianti butter (lardo) and a meat loaf with hot sauce plus obligitory red wine, eventually i told them we had a reservation and were lead through a cool sliding false wall through the back of the butchers shop (which was immaculate) and outside onto the terrace where the grill and two large communal tables were set. We were met by dante who spoke good english and settled us in with some bread and more of their own red, eventually we were joined by an american /french couple and a group of birthday celebrators from padua who had driven a good few hours to be there, it was a very pleasant mix and between us we seemed to get along fine , ie they could speak good english! first up veg from the garden with a dressing made from oil, red wine vingear and their proprietory profuma di chianti (a salt herb mix), then chianti sushi -raw meat, very lemony , then an array of grilled meats of various cuts, followed by a baked onion, potato and some beans, again to be eaten in the vinaigrette, by this point the wine was well and truly flowing and soaked up a little by more meat and some excellent olive oil cake. then of course italian military liqueres and coffee. Then i had to go home. a few hours later things got a little clearer but certainly no more food or wine was required for the rest of the day! on monday the cycling and cooking started with a trip to the coop for supplies and cecchinis for meat, unfortunately they were looking a little barren after the weekend so we just bought a couple of kebabs (about 1kg of meat though some finochier - whatist and a jar of profumo, about 40e though! I also hit the wine shop and picked up a little treat of a fontodi vigna del sorbo 06, about 39e this after the classico was a bit of a disappointment , it was no-doubt infanticde, so it was still a bit tannic and unresolved wheras the CC was very smooth and enjoyable. After a couple of days of cooking i got a bit stir crazy so we booked a table at Vescovino, not without trepidation given our very touristico experience on the first night. We shouldn't have worried, it was everything Oltre wasn't a perfectly paced service that saw us enjoy a lovely evening from 8pm - 11pm. Unfortunatley we had gone a little mad over lunch finishing off various bottles of red and some nice cold peroni that we awoke from an afternoon nap at 7.30 so a quick turnaround was required! A bottle of panizzi vernaccia started the evening with a pear salad and percorino souffle , followed by an exceptional fresh salsicce and penne dish, simply cooked with a soffitto and crumbled sausage , the oils from the sausage effectively making the sauce, delicious! we then moved onto the main event a kilo of cechinis rib eye , with a sassoalloro 05 from biondi sante at 29e. the steak was top quality, perfectly cooked black and blue, and needed no other side dishes, i did feel however it required another half bottle of red but unfortunately they didn't have the billed fontodi but offered another replacement which escapes me. next day for lunch we tried the local pizzeria conca del oro which despite it's unappealing exterior turned out to be gem, the owner a big pizza fan, (he'd been to pizza university - that beats my alama mata!) and also had a wine list to shame a 2 * michelin. my pizza with ndjudu was excellently spicy, just the thing to awake after a couple of days of excess. we visited the wine shop again to discover my sassoalloro choice was a bad one as it was the same price as most of the other chianti's at e15 -6 but more heavily marked up in the restaurant, i was pleasantly suprised at the resto mark ups which seemed to be about 7e more than the bottle price for the fontodi chianti classicos we were drinking. on the last night we revisited vescovino for another good meal, tuscan meats to start with a bottle of le massa 07 - not as good as the fontodi imho , so a bottle of that followed! the same sausage dish again and then some grilled steak with rocket and parmesan, all good various ages of pecorino followed to finish. saturday was our last day and we had originally planned to have one last pizza before heading to pisa for our 5 pm flight but instead decided on a short jaunt to san gimignano for a wander and ended up having a very pleasant lunch in our old favourite chirribirri which we have been to many times before but wasn't too good on our last visit, this time it looked a little spruced up internally and the antipasti and pasta we had were top notch. a pleasant week all in all, with 140 miles on the bike using up some of the mega calories consumed!

No it's not , I managed it from leeds once after c.3 hours sleep after our office xmas party. The wonders of sausages and bloody marys.

patrick, it's an easy trip, victoria station (i think) to faversham, pick a cab up there, 15 mins to the resto. probably a good hour from london in total but it's eminently doable in an afternoon, it'n not hard to get there just before 12, have a blow out and get back in time for a train 4 -ish, or alternatively a few beers in the pub across the road from the station in faversham. try google for the local cab firm in faversham and they'll meet you at the station.

Quick trip to needoo last night, brought to my attention by dos hermanos so you probably know the story by now, ex -tayyab FOH manager has opened his own place literally round the corner from tayyabs. so if you like tayyabs this is a very good addition, it is very similar in concept and execution, big on grills and there are curries too, other differentiator is it is open during ramadan which tayyabs isn't (though the sweet shop looked to be) which gave us a little concern as we walked down fieldgate st and saw tayyabs looking closed/under renovation. (tayyabs is closed until 21st september). which means needoo will do doubt get a good start with tayyabs regulars desperate for a fix. we were there early about 5.30 and got straight in with an order for 2 shami kebabs and a mixed grilled, after ascertaining it contained all the goodies, 2 sheek kebabs, 4 lamb chops and 5 pieces tikka. We also ordered some naan bread too a peshwari and normal. the popadums were ok, i thought some of the non spiced ones could have been a little fresher but we scoffed them nontheless and the pickles, especially a really intense dark brown one, good. shamis arrived quickly and the first bite confirmed tayyab-esque level of spicing, tasty but not head blowing off. Mixed grill soon arrived, the sheeks were excellent and both us thought they tasted a little meatier than the tayyabs version, felt a bit better quality, tikka was good and lamb chops again seemed better meat but a little less spiced than the tayyab version, but still very good. we thought it only polite to add another couple of seeks just to be sure and indeed they were. we had a couple of curries to show willing, scott's wednesday special of lamb korma was a little unexciting but hey - it's a korma . I ordered a chicken and keema mix but it seemed to be more chicken than keema but it was spot on, a nice 'madras' curry colour to it , good heat and very moreish . we were a bit stuffed by this point and with thoughts of a train to catch we decided to admit defeat and leave scott enough curry for a post beer feast or breakfast today which we took away. all that with a jug of mango lassi was £31. they looked rammed for later in the evening with tables booked for ramadan meals but early doors we were the only ones in, definitely one for the return list.

I think that restaurant must be the most reviewed by the telegraph, it has had 3 great reviews by moir, palmer and now gerrard. Not tried it in becasse form yet but i love the place, as soon as i caught a glimpse of the wood panelleing as i opened the paper i knew straight away where it was.

i'm sure matt will ask tony for you, if he doesn't already know himself

given some of the prices i 've seen there, i think they've had a good go! fundamentally it looks like a loss leader for the heston brand with the ratio of staff to punters and number of covers making decent profitability unlikely. el bulli the same, doesn't make any money per se.

whilst i suspect a call to them might elicit a positive response, i can see the restaurants point of view, they only have 44 covers (i think) given the fact that there is a large amount of fixed cost in the business 1:1 chef to punter iirc , if they were making the industry average 10% net profit the only c. the last 4 punters would be profit , the rest just goes to cover costs so it might seem petty but if they don't max out the place as often as they can, they'll lose money. or lose even more , as heston often says the FD itself doesn't make money due to the small number of covers and high fixed costs.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/restaurants...pact.5568987.jp

the pork is under 'stir fried french beans and pork' had it last night post races, dumplings as per and a hot pot for the first time in ages, it was probably the hottest one i've had. think i've got my mate suitably addicted now.

I was intending to go last friday lunchtime and have exactly that selection. i also went to red chilli on sunday, spooky eh? everywhere seems quiet at the moment unless they are offering a promotion, it's grin and bear it time. And holiday time too.

yes - she's good, we met her last time i think scott and sam are after some headhunting fees there! give me a shout if you make it up.