Reviews

Good food is unfortunately hard to come by in Bolton, there’s a great Thai place, Nam Ploy and a couple of decent restaurants in Horwich but other than that it’s sadly lacking. So I was very happy to hear about the reopening of The Farmers Arms in Little Lever by chef Jon Jones, a Masterchef: The Professionals quarter finalist who has …

After some fairly decent weather (by Manchester standards at least) during early June the last couple of weeks have seen a return to greyer, colder and much wetter days. This downturn seemed to have coincided precisely with the launch of SoLita’s new summer menu last Tuesday. I was lucky enough to receive an early draft of the new menu from owner Franco …

I’d been looking forward to visiting The Farmers Arms in Bolton for weeks since hearing it was to be reopened by chef Jon Jones, a MasterChef The Professionals quarter finalist who’s worked in some of my favourite Manchester restaurants. Unfortunately due to some unforeseen circumstances that wasn’t to be. So I reached for my very long wish list and picked somewhere else instead, continuing my tour of …

Being rather partial to a cooked breakfast, especially the morning after a big night out and knowing that Saturday night would be just that, I spent some time looking into where to eat breakfast in Glasgow on Sunday morning. One name kept cropping up again and again, Cafe Gandolfi. It’s been around for over 30 years and appears to be …

For my first time in Scotland I wanted to eat somewhere fairly traditional. After a bit of research I narrowed down to a small list of possibilities and finally decided on Stravaigin. It was the intriguing menu that swung it for me, made up of both traditional Scottish fare as well as several exotic sounding dishes from Africa and Asia. …

I’m not going to lie, i’m really not a fan of chains like Yo! Sushi. But when I heard of their new invention which combines two of my favourite things in the world – sushi & burgers – I just had to try it. I headed for the Yo! Sushi inside Selfridges at The Trafford Centre. The Yo! Burgers are …

TheGastroClub is a group of Manchester food lovers started by Katie Brunt in 2010. I followed it’s progress closely during the early months, almost joining on many occasions. Although i’d often already eaten at the places they visited I love that they ask the restaurants and chefs to offer menus which aren’t available to the general public and containing innovative …

It doesn’t happen very often but when the sun is properly out as it was last Wednesday, Manchester is a beautiful place. Particularly the Castlefield area with the numerous restaurants and bars with outdoor seating areas overlooking the canal. We were on our way to one of them, ‘Albert’s Shed’ famous for it’s alfresco dining thanks to it’s stunning terrace. I can only imagine …

Hawksmoor is famous for the quality of it’s meat, Giles Coren claimed it “Flawless. The best steak you’ll find anywhere.”, high praise indeed! Thinking that a big, fat, juicy steak would be ideal after a heavy night/weekend I booked lunch at their Seven Dials restaurant on the Sunday of our trip, the 9th and final stop just 48 hours after arriving at …

If you’ve read my Almost Famous review you’ll know that I have a problem with their ‘edgy’ attitude & marketing. So you may find it strange that I loved MEATliquor as it’s pretty clear that Almost Famous were very heavily inspired by them in the first place. There are a few subtle differences though, firstly whilst MEATliqour do have a …

Wahaca was founded by former MasterChef champion Thomasina Miers. Although it feels like a very long time ago and despite forgetting several of the more recent winners I still clearly remember Thomasina winning back in 2005. Perhaps because her bold style of cooking resonated with me at a time when I was getting more and more into cooking myself and her …

The Square is the sister restaurant of The Ledbury, having had such a great time at the latter just over 12 hours before, Phil Howard’s own two Michelin star restaurant had a lot to live up to. Having developed a bit of a taste for rosé champagne recently we started with a glass of Delamotte Brut Rosé, a little pricey …

This was the 5th stop on my epic London weekender and whilst all of the other places were new to me, some with Michelin stars and big name chefs behind them it was Dishoom who I’d already visited last year that I was perhaps most excited about. When I revisit places I usually want to sample different things from the …

I’ve wanted to visit The Ledbury since seeing Brett Graham on Masterchef in 2010, it’s taken 3 years but last Friday it finally happened. During that time both his own and The Ledbury’s reputation have continued to grow. It has retained it’s two Michelin star status and shot up the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants rankings to 13th in the …

Just like my previous post about Guerrilla Eats at The Beagle i’m defying my slight OCD tendencies to bring you this review from yesterday’s Byron opening before my backlog from last weekend. Only because it’s another current event, we’re definitely back to chronological order after this one or i’ll quite possibly be driven insane. If you don’t know about Byron …