Gary Marshall

not seen the article but surely promoting already michelin starred/running 3* kitchens chefs as the new vanguard is, well, shutting the gate after the horse etc etc?

been a couple of years since my visits to the lakes which incuded hipping , punch bowl and 3 nights at gilpin so interested to see how they are all getting on.....

anyone who self proclaims their restaurant an eatery/eaterie should be doomed to die a slow and painfull lack of trade death. Unfortunately the whole provenance lark has been done to death myself included, it's only a matter of time before Bd wetherspoons proclaims it's support of local produce

new tayyab , with that budget you'd have £15 a head for booze easily , BYO too, get some champagne to celebrate or decent rioja or similar which goes well with the grilled meats and curries. bit of a contrast to fine dining but if you're on it for a week then you'll need a change and some spice!

remember JC expanded very quickly from one restaurant into about 5 split between london france and south africa iirc, of course eventually became too much and went bust. given tom's bamford (the B in JCB diggers) family backing he may have more luck.....

saw it for the first time last night, thought the bloke that won certainly had talent, but yes, you knew from the open, 'i'm going to do roast chicken and roast chicken' that his time was up. thought it quite interesting, certainly less irritating and boosted by the gravitas of M. Roux

public/bank holidays as we'd call them

Not been to the capital but i can see where you're coming from, capital is 2* isn't it? I always thought the boxwood was ramsay's take on the ivy more brasserie menu than his usual output, it may well have evolved in the 5 years have passed since my visit!

absolutley, what's all the fuss about being constrained and boxed in etc only to cook the same GR approved food? surely that's just a sop on the phone and the menu will change to show his flair? (turbot & lemon grass excepted ) can't say i'd make the trip for the current menu but if he's pulling out the stops then it would be high on the list, but thinking about it, has he specifically mentioned going for 3* ? I'm sure there's a very good business and living to be had by continuing as he is feeding hotel guests etc rather than a foodie market?

i must have been feeling flush because i did river cafe on a sunday lunchtime and theo randall on the monday night, not long after opening, both cost roughly the same ie a lot, but i'd go back to the river cafe in a flash and i doubt i'll ever darken the doorway of theo randall again. Also had one of my all time favourite meals at locatelli again in the early days, been once since didn;t quite scale the heights but certainly i'd go again.

don't get me wrong, i don't expect every cooking programme to be gagnaire in a cook off with roellinger and i'll generally watch any old sh*te if there's a modicum of foodie interest, but they really take the biscuit. It's sub-standard daytime tv as far as i can see, never mind fairly peak time. Even mrs m who is no food snob wouldn't even let me watch 5 minutes of it this week just to see how bad it was !

i agree , but it's not somewhere you can drop in easily is it ? (except if you are known i assume)

not seen this but it must be better than the hairy 'insert cunning pun' fools on motorbikes which really is the most infantile cookery programme i've ever had the misfortune to spend half and hour of my life on, which i'll never get back.

river cafe caught fire a few months ago and is currently closed i believe, you won't go far wrong with that list, all have their fans. st john also has a spin off - st john bread and wine plus there a few pubs/bistros in a similar vein with st j alumni such as 32 great queen st (?) anchor and hope, and one whose name escapes me but is just over the river quite close to the city - magdalen. all good price / quality for your puny american dollar

I'd say it is superior to northcote in terms of food and certainly ambiance and location

the wolsely £13 plus £1.50 for toast v good.

robert has gone to the isle of wight to his own place with rooms, can't remember the name but it's on here somewhere prob under winteringham fields thread? ETA: here....http://www.thehambrough.com/

what like the turbot and lemongrass dish ? can be no bad thing to have a ( i assume) well funded chef with a burning desire to get 3*. my first and only petrus meal was an early meal at the old site and it was superb, hopefully he can recreate some of that magic. mmm pigs trotter in consomme, pork belly, and tarte tatin to finish, credit to them as my memory of meals nowadays is poor so for that to stick in my mind it must have been great.

maze

uh oh crash helmet where are you ← You'll need more than a crash helmet my friend Glad you are on the case Thom. We just need to find out whether tax exile Marshall will be in the UK for more than a week, in between his fifteen annual European soujorns, to make this happen. ← worry ye not, there's an airport at liverpool, be ok as long as they don't steal the wheel trims off the lear

gives them something to do whilst they're smoking

what, that you'd need 9 courses to fill that belly?

been a couple as highlighted in threads now deceased. he does write in saturday times not sunday though to be pedantic.

unfortunatley also the tagline for liverpool john lennon airport too, obviously working as it's the first thing i thought when i read the review.

the one i am thinking of had a star, they sold up to run a deli? and reports subsequent of the pub weren't great? he used to write in the caterer a bit and had a great spread in telegraph one weekend about their idyllic life running a country pub, oh how i laughed at that one