Author: andrei

I’ve been looking into all these new recipe box ideas recently and, in particular, the Gousto scheme, which I signed up for at Taste of London. I’d chosen this as…

One of the most appealing cookbooks I was sent just before Christmas was Pascal Aussignac’s Cuisinier Gascon so when I caught sight of his Christmas Goose stuffed with Hay (also printed here in the…

Asking a winewriter what their favourite wine is usually results in a long explanation about how it depends on the mood, the food and the time of year and I’m…

I’ve been a bit short on New Year’s Resolutions this year. The usual – Be More Organized/Lose Weight/Take More Exercise have something of a hollow ring to them as they…

The oddest fledgling food trend to emerge from London’s most fashionable dining rooms over the last few weeks is the Scottish staple ‘mince’n’tatties’ – basically mince and mash. St John seems to…

I spent the afternoon today at the annual New Zealand trade tasting – one of the best of the so-called generic (i.e. country-based) tastings. Each year I’m impressed at how…

The kaiseki meal I had earlier this week at Umu in Mayfair was not only the best meal I’ve had outside Japan but one of the best all year (and I mean…

Having a bit of post New Year clearout I came across a bottle of J W Lees Harvest Ale 2000 that I must have been given to celebrate the millennium.…

You can hardly go into a restaurant these days without spotting Barkham Blue on the menu. Every chef seems to be obsessed with it and I’ve been wondering why. It’s…

If there’s one wine that’s got impossibly fashionable against all the odds it’s Grüner Veltliner. I say against the odds because of its hard-to-remember-verging-on-unpronounceable name (grooner velt-leener, for those of…