The last two weeks have seen the dreaded lumbering EU creature of darkness shake off its sloth and remind us how it can suddenly change our little lives for the worse. It reared its head and sniffed the air, desperate to source a little fresh meat and settled on frightening the bejesus out of restaurateurs, chefs and olive oil producers alike. Read full post

Veering away from restaurant news this time (woah!) and we thought we’d have a muse on the icon that is Delia Smith and her (most) recent announcement that she’s quitting TV for good (this time. Really truly. She’s gone. See ya). She claims – not without foundation – that much of the cooking on TV these days is about entertainment, rather than education. She is looking to the future by continuing to educate via her website and online videos (although one could argue that these days it’s all one and the same, TV and online, but she is nothing if not a visionary). Read full post

This time of year is all about The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards, so naturally all foodies are breathlessly anticipating the crowning of Rene Redzepi’s Noma for the 4th year running – or not, given his bad luck with that food poisoning outbreak a little while back. If he gets it, he will have equalled El Bulli’s record; if he doesn’t, then frankly your guess is as good as ours and did you put any money on it? Read full post

Balthazar – if you look it up on wiki – has a number of different meanings: the name of the god of fire and war; one of the three wise men; a character in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, all of which are hummingly apposite in this week’s latest episode of Restaurant vs Critic. Read full post

The best person for the job is clearly the person who knows most about the subject, no? You wouldn’t necessarily want a baker unblocking your U-bend or an electrician trading on the stock market (although many might think “Hey – let’s give that a whirl”); you would naturally turn to those whose expertise naturally defined them for the role. Given that, it’s therefore been rather interesting watching Waitrose take quite a lot of flack on social media websites for their recent ‘expert’ appointments. Read full post

The (very long) brass neck of it… In a move calculated to strike fear into the heart of middle-class parents everywhere, Tesco has bought the child-friendly, eye-searing restaurant chain Giraffe for a shade under £50m. Reasons include the ongoing shake-up of supermarkets in general and Tesco in particular to appeal once again to a certain type of consumer, as well as its own personal crusade to ‘supermarket-ise’ seemingly uniquely-branded products. Those with a finger on the pulse will remember the outcry earlier this year when the oh-so-trendy coffee shop Harris & Hoole in North London turned out to be a wholly Tesco-owned enterprise and it will come as no surprise to find the coffee shops in store shortly, as if Tesco can no longer be bothered to keep up the pretence. Apparently trendy bakery chain Euphorium is now also backed by the supermarket. Read full post

What do all the following restaurants have in common? Khublai Khan, Glasgow; L’Escargot Bleu, Edinburgh; Host, Bishops Stortford; King of Prussia, Abergavenny; Oliver Peyton’s pop-up, London… Because there’s a word count, we’ll just tell you: they all serve legitimate, legal horse and apparently sales are soaring. So what’s up with the Dobby love? Read full post