Here is our weekly round-up of what the national and local restaurant critics are writing about, for the week ending 7 February 2021.
England is still in national lockdown, with restaurants and pubs closed (many are operating a takeaway or delivery service): https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-local-restrictions.
All of Wales is at alert level 4, with similar restrictions to full lockdown: https://gov.wales/coronavirus-regulations-guidance#section-48600
Mainland Scotland is also in a national lockdown with guidance to ‘stay at home’ https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-protection-levels/
Northern Ireland is under strict restrictions until 5 March: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/coronavirus-covid-19-regulations-guidance-what-restrictions-mean-you
Please continue to order takeaways, cook-at-home kits, vouchers, merchandise and deliveries from your favourite restaurants if you can (we include links to those mentioned); the restaurant industry and everyone involved in it need our continued support.
*****
The Evening Standard
“Dazzling, robustly spiced pyrotechnics… a chance to bask in the glow of a special talent.”
Chief restaurant critic Jimi Famurewa reviewed the meal kit from Chishuru in Brixton Village; Nigerian-born chef Adejoke Bakare “only managed to trade (and build palpable, have-you-tried-it-yet excitement) for two uninterrupted months before the winter plummet down the tiers and into full lockdown”.
Her “expansive West African-influenced cuisine” arrives in “one of the slickly packaged DIY feasts from Dishpatch”, and “despite having to constrain her vision a little, Bakare’s cooking still blazes with enough joy, creativity and rough-edged charm to cure even the most acute case of finish-at-home fatigue”.
Jollof rice was “rendered as a brooding, molasses-brown affair with a forceful blast of campfire smokiness” and the dessert (“a ruby red, hibiscus syrup-poached pear with yoghurt and a knockout clove-infused sweet millet crumb”) was a “cool, clean balm”, a dish that “encapsulates Bakare’s approach in that it educates, innovates and balances homespun charm with a culinary verve more readily associated with fine dining”.
“A tantalising taste… — once restaurants have reopened and insulated packaging isn’t quite so integral to our dining reality — of better days to come.”
*****
Jimi’s week in food column included a “storming midweek order from Deptford’s Sichuan-leaning JinJiang” which featured “rousingly spicy mapo tofu”, plus a few cafe stops and a food delivery from his mum.
*****
Also in the Standard, an interview with Michel Roux Jr, who’s keeping The Gavroche ticking over during lockdowns, and lost both his father and uncle since lockdown began, so it’s no surprise that he says, “Wholeheartedly, this has absolutely been the worst year of my life”, but he remains confident about the future.
“Hospitality is very nimble: as soon as we are allowed to reopen, we can come back straight away, we can contribute, begin employing people, begin paying our rents, our taxes, we can get people in work and get the economy going.”
*****
“Without some serious support, between 30 and 40 per cent of venues in London are likely to have to close for good.” An article by Jim Armitage details The Standard’s five-point recommendation for recovery, based on taxes, furlough, rents, loan schemes and Eat Out to Help Out 2. Let’s hope the Chancellor reads The Standard.
*****
The Observer
The latest in Jay Rayner’s series of articles, “thumbing through his most-beloved cookery books” focuses on The Food of Sichuan by Fuschia Dunlop, a “detailed, sometimes nerdy, often romantic guide-cum-travelogue through what many consider the most intricate and vivid of all the regional Chinese cooking traditions”.
Dunlop wrote the book after studying in Chengdu, Sichuan for several months “at the Sichuan cookery school, the first non-Chinese person to do so”. This year marks the “20th anniversary of its first publication, an event marked by an expanded new edition, complete with endorsements from the likes of Ken Hom” and a certain Mr J. Rayner; “impressively, an edition in Chinese has just been published in China”.
It’s more than just recipes; the book includes “lists of seasonings and stocks”, details the “23 flavours of Sichuan” and “there are pages on the 56 cooking techniques and the many different knife cuts” required. Chef Jeremy Pang, who runs the School of Wok, say “Chinese cooking is so complex… and this book shines a light on that”.
After a much-needed trip to a Chinese supermarket (helped by Dunlop’s guide to Chinese characters) Jay cooked three dishes from the book – all “dishes I know well from my eating adventures in restaurants. It gives me something to benchmark my efforts against”.
Many of the recipes use “the language of the subjective. The meat must be fried until it smells “delicious”; livid-red Sichuan chilli paste must be cooked out in oil until it smells “wonderful”.”
“The washing up may be copious. The work surfaces may be splattered. But this belly says, “Thank you Fuchsia. You took me somewhere else.””
*****
The Mail on Sunday
“Over a month into lockdown 3, and the ingenuity of this country’s restaurants never ceases to impress. Beautifully packaged boxes, filled with the fruits of many a fine kitchen, fly across the land, delivering cardboard-clad succour and delight.”
Tom Parker Bowles for You Magazine ordered a series of meal kits from across Asia, starting with Taiwan and the Classic Pork Bao Made-By-You from Bao (available for pickup or nationwide delivery – the website is worth a visit for their saucy Valentine’s special, sadly sold out at time of writing). “Pure Bao brilliance.”
Next up on his virtual travels was Singapore and beef rendang “as good as I’ve tasted” from “the marvellous Mei Mei” (hot food delivered locally, meal kits dispatched on overnight courier).
Finally, a dish of Shoryu’s piri piri tonkotsu ramen, which originates from “from the Hakata district of Fukuoka City on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu”; “restaurant quality food, easily prepared, and delivered direct to your door”.
“While nothing will replace the clatter of knives and forks, the buzz of a busy service and the fundamental pleasures of a good restaurant, these cook-at-home box kits offer shafts of sunlight in this most gloomy of times.”
*****
The Scotsman
While we don’t want to discourage the widespread ordering of takeaways, this article from Rosalind Erskine on the “fees of big delivery firms” such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber, is recommended reading.
It’s not just the fees; the “self employment status” of most drivers “has thrown up questions on staff conditions and rights as well as tax issues”.
*****
Also in The Scotsman, Catriona Thomson tracked down Underdog, a takeaway delivering moveable feasts (from a repurposed horsebox) around the Peebles area. Her “cardboard takeaway box of delights” included soup, foccacia rolls and hearty cakes.
*****
The Sunday Times
Marina O’Loughlin turned up the nostalgia again, recalling teenage holidays in Liguria, and meals in an “ancient dive” called Caran. There she discovered the “fabulously cheap” and “hyper-regional” cucina povera, including pesto (which “wasn’t ubiquitous then”).
“Menus were like dialects, changing from town to town, village to village. Caran gave me my first insights into the unknowable vastness of Italian culinary differences, that Italian restaurants back home owed much to British tastes.”
She went back to Caran later on, but it had smartened up and now served the lasagne, pizza and tiramisu she’d looked for on her first visit. “Ironically, Antica Osteria da Caran’s menu is now more like the Brit versions: crowd-pleasing, less rigid about regionality.”
*****
And also…
Manchester Evening News reported on the late May bank holiday event being planned, in aid of Eat Well MCR, which has supported vulnerable people through the pandemic. “Some of Manchester’s leading chefs and restaurants will join forces for a huge bank holiday food festival.” Chefs signed up for the Kantina Weekender include “Simon Martin of Mana – Manchester’s only Michelin-starred restaurant – Gary Usher of Elite Bistros, and Mary-Ellen McTague of The Creameries”, while restaurants such as “Dishoom, The Jane Eyre, Higher Ground and Tast” will also appear.
*****
