Unlikely Restaurant Hotbeds

[AdamLawrence]

The various threads about Padstow have set me to thinking about parts of Britain that are hotbeds of decent restaurants when one might not expect them to be. For there to be six or seven GFG-worthy eating houses in a town the size of Padstow is pretty astounding really, especially when you consider how few and far between decent food appears to be in the rest of Cornwall. Ludlow is the other obvious small town restaurant hotbed - but are there any others?

And what about towns that should be full of good eateries but aren't? I know Andy reckons that Brighton falls into this category. I'd add York - a pretty affluent city with lots of tourists, yet a place I've rarely managed to find a decent meal.

Adam

[Matthew Grant]

Croydon - huge catchment area and about 50 restaurants in a row in the high street and not a decent one amongst them (apart from the tree house which tries hard but doesn't quite pull it off)

[macrosan]

Shame on you Matthew  :wow:  Have you tried Beijing Cottage (Brighton Rd) or Kelong Lower Selsdon Rd) ? Both excellent. The Basil Leaf and Il Ponte (Brighton Rd) are quite acceptable. There's a newish Mauritian fish restaurant which I haven't tried, but it loks good and two people have recommended it to me. Chateau Napoleon (Coombe Rd) used to be superb, but I haven't been for a few years since I did have a bad meal.

[Matthew Grant]

Haven't been to Kelong since it resorted to all you can eat buffets - do they still do that? I agree that a few years ago (11 to be precise) it used to be superb. I've been to Il Ponte once but it was just OK, my other half has been more often than I have though and she does tell me to give it another chance.

Tried Chateau Napoleon many years ago but found it very ordinary and trying to hard to be posh.

Having heard your recomendation I might try the Basil leaf and Beijing cottage - further info please?

Malay house at the bottom of Cherry Orchard road is very good and very cheap - definitely the best place in Croydon (that I've eaten at) now that Mr & Mrs Yeo have left Mantanah Thai, does anybody know where they went?

[SamanthaF]

Matthew - I'd like to mention Glory, a Turkish restaurant in South Croydon. Scott and I went years ago, ate copiously and paid little.

I went back a few weeks ago and it was still good food at really good prices.

[Andy Lynes]

What about Addington Palace? That used to have ex Ramsay chef and Roux scholar Frederick Forster in it's kitchens, who has now moved on. Anyone been?

[macrosan]

I've just heard that Addington Palace is excellent from some people who went there to a private party on Sunday. I will try it.

Beijing Cottage is classy Cantonese/Pekingese, never busy except Saturday night, slow service and not at all buzzy. Best Chinese food since Tung Kum closed down, and particularly try their lamb with ginger and paper-wrapped chicken. Going into Croydon from the south along Brighton Rd, it's on the right after the Swan&SugarLoaf but before the traffic lights (a few doors from that little alleyway that goes into the Council car park).

The Basil Leaf is kinda bistro-ey, interesting menu, simple but well-cooked. It's on the right just past those traffic lights referred to above.

[circeplum]

how about the fantastically up itself richmond, surrey?  despite a massively affluent native population, it's full of little other than pubs and pastry shops.

there's the truly execrable canyon - what a waste of a glorious location - and the dismal prego where i was treated to the rudest service ever.  (i asked if the waiter would clear plates while the thin member of our party nibbled interminably at her rocket salad.  'no!' he retorted, 'this is not a snack bar, this is a high-class restaurant.  oh, really?)

[Winot]

Brixton has increasing numbers of moneyed young people but few decent restaurants (the estimable Helter Skelter in Atlantic Road has been replaced by ... yet another bar).  

"Highlights" include:

Fujiyama - good value noodle bar

Franco's - great pizza in the market but only open lunchtimes

Fish and chips on Brixton Water lane

Greasy spoon in Brockwell Park

Lowlights are:

Neon - overpriced and undergood (great design though)

Brixtonian - has anyone ever survived the noise and eaten there?

It has no good off-licence either.  How can a man survive (without going to Clapham)?

[thom]

Restaurant magazine (you may know us from such threads as 'Taking top 50's too seriously') did an article on Rick Stein and Padstow, and identified 10 other towns which were ripe for the Padstow/Ludlow treatment.

The potential culinary hotspots (some obvious, some not)were: Margate (wealthy, close to London/Dover, the next St Ives?), Ilfracombe (unspoilt, and new road links to Exeter/Bristol, Damian Hirst(!) planning fish restaurant), March (prime produce on the doorstep, close to Peterborough, Cambridge and Newmarket), Melton Mowbray (home of pork pie, and close to home of Stilton, a short drive from Nottingham and Leicester) , Ashbourne (good beer tradition if not food, sited in a National Park, with major population centres nearby), Skipton, (gateway to the Dales, thriving tourist spot) Hornsea (hotspot for fresh fish), Berwick on Tweed (popular tourist spot, between Edinburgh and Newscastle), Arbroath (smokies, working harbour and beautiful beaches) and Stockbridge (rural hampshire, rich area, with great local produce).

Are these places worthy/not worthy of fine restaurants? Are they actually better served than we thought? Did we miss anywhere more deserving?

I would be tempted to name a couple more areas in the Peak District. Buxton would be a prime example, and currently has less than no decent restaurants. It is a relatively prosperous town, in the middle of the beautiful White Peak, and not far from Derby, Manchester and Sheffield. It has a good tourist trade with its Opera House and Spa, high profile through its eponymous mineral water and (most importantly of all) the University of Derby are moving their whole hospitality and leisure department to the town, meaning no shortage of willing staff.

Beat that!

[circeplum]

then there's whitstable, of course, with the original wheelers (book up to a month in advance for a table in the tiny dining room!), the whitstable oyster fisheries, the redoubtable sportsman in seasalter and the dove in plum pudding lane.  

also, in harbour st, the best fish and chippy on the south coast.

word of warning, though - pretend you're not from london ...

[jeremysco]

There is a great little nest of eating on the coast in Suffolk. Aldeburgh has a couple of great restaurants including Robert Maybe's Regatta. Then there is the Butley Oysterage in Orford with absolutely sublime smoked fish and  fresh beach line caught Cod. Both pubs in this little village also produce surprisingly fantastic food.

Just down the road there is a place called The Old Rectory, in Campsea Ashe, where the menu is limited (you get what he is cooking that night, although veggies are catered for if you have to take one along with you) but the host Stuart Basset just loves fresh local food and great wine.

All this and the restaurants in Southwold, with Admans wine merchants and the brewery too.

[Mrs Woman]

I really wish Chester or somewhere near it would become the next Padstow. There's plenty of rich toffs around here willing to pay and us not-so-flush foodies would love it too. Instead a lovely historical city is brimming over with crappo chains and unimagainative indpendents.

I was mulling over the idea of opening a deli in one of the suburbs but there seems little point if there's no decent restaurant culture :(

[stephen wall]

the brasserie in the chester grosvenor is pretty good, offers fairly decent value and is open all day

[Mrs Woman]

Granted, the Grosvenor Brasserie is very good but one good resto surrounded by mediocrity does not make Chester a culinary destination

whinge, moan

[malcolmwilliamson]

Croydon - huge catchment area and about 50 restaurants in a row in the high street and not a decent one amongst them (apart from the tree house which tries hard but doesn't quite pull it off)

On the evidence of my lunch there on Tuesday, Croydon now has at least one decent restaurant in Albert's Table http://www.albertstable.co.uk/. It was also impressively busy for early week in January

(Its at 49b/c South End so Matthew's statement may well still be true.)

[Harters]

Eight years on and I suspect Mrs Woman would probably repeat her comment about Chester almost word for word

[aaronfennell]

Eight years on and I suspect Mrs Woman would probably repeat her comment about Chester almost word for word

if she doesn't i will its shocking the lack of places to eat in Chester!

[Chaihana Joe]

...its shocking the lack of places to eat in Chester!

It's probably over-simplistic to set one's expectations as to frequency of decent restaurants on the local catchment area's population. But let's have a go anyway.

In the case of Chester I can come up with eight good restaurants off the top of my head:

1539

Grosvenor Brasserie

Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor

Blackhouse Grill

Chez Jules

Joseph Benjamin

Richard Phillips at Oddfellows

Upstairs at the Grill

That's one per 10,000 population, which seems to me to be a pretty fair ratio. I think most UK cities of half a million pop would struggle to raise 50 restaurants as good as these.

Consider also that Chester has Simon Radley's 2 rising stars while nearby Liverpool and Manchester (500k each?) can't scrape one together between them.

[Kropotkin]

So, in 2002 Restaurant Magazine identifies Hornsea (East Yorkshire) as a potential foodie hotspot... Unfortunately, no-one bothered to tell Hornsea about this and their food remains stubbornly embedded in the 1980s and immune to any improvements since then. Even the Fish and Chips can be ropey.

There is potential in the area -as the Pipe and Glass outside Beverley, plus Artisan in Hessle both prove- but Hornsea has not kicked-off quite yet...

[Harters]

That's one per 10,000 population, which seems to me to be a pretty fair ratio. I think most UK cities of half a million pop would struggle to raise 50 restaurants as good as these.

Consider also that Chester has Simon Radley's 2 rising stars while nearby Liverpool and Manchester (500k each?) can't scrape one together between them.

Fair points, CJ. I take it back.

BTW, any news on the new Marco Pierre White place down your way? I gather, from a post on another board, that the great man celebrated the opening of his new pub near Ormskirk by not putting in an appearance. Name over the door the extent of his involvement?

[RDB]

That's one per 10,000 population, which seems to me to be a pretty fair ratio. I think most UK cities of half a million pop would struggle to raise 50 restaurants as good as these.

Consider also that Chester has Simon Radley's 2 rising stars while nearby Liverpool and Manchester (500k each?) can't scrape one together between them.

Fair points, CJ. I take it back.

BTW, any news on the new Marco Pierre White place down your way? I gather, from a post on another board, that the great man celebrated the opening of his new pub near Ormskirk by not putting in an appearance. Name over the door the extent of his involvement?

Not the case at all!! Mpw is indeed hosting a night

at his pub the swan inn on Thursday the 25th of Feb.

[Chaihana Joe]

BTW, any news on the new Marco Pierre White place down your way? I gather, from a post on another board, that the great man celebrated the opening of his new pub near Ormskirk by not putting in an appearance. Name over the door the extent of his involvement?

The MPW restaurant at the Hoole Hall Hotel opens this Friday (12/2/2010). Curiously, there is no word on their website about the opening. No word either as to whether MPW will be on hand at the opening. Perhaps he'll tie it in with an appearance at the Swan. Save on train tickets.

(Actually, good on him for his non-driving ways.)

[Bapi]

So, in 2002 Restaurant Magazine identifies Hornsea (East Yorkshire) as a potential foodie hotspot...

Intersting..... Tony Naylor who writes for the Guardian has a piece in this months Restaurant magazine. He writes about my very own valley in West Yorkshire- the Ryburn, where it transpires, he used too live until recently. He mentions, amongst others, my local-The Millbank, the Deli in Ripponden, the F Word lauded El Gato Negro Tapas, other GFG recs and the chaps at Pike End farmwho provide premium Dexter beef. It's not a bad place to live trust me, but more importantly he writes articulately that such places which have so much to offer should collectively champion themselves. Such as they have done very successfully in the Ribble Valley, Ludlow et al. Mmmm, mooted something similar a while back, but it might be worth another punt.

[Harters]

Pike End Farm sell at my local farmers market at Ashton under Lyne. 'Tis truly great tasting meat.