Matthew

Author's details

Date registered: 11 September 2011

Latest posts

  1. Review: The Garden Cafe, Waterloo — 29 October 2025
  2. Review: The Barbary Next Door, Covent Garden — 29 October 2025
  3. Review: Rockfish, Brixham — 16 August 2025
  4. Review: The Club House, West Bexington — 16 August 2025
  5. Review: Da Mario, Kensington — 16 August 2025

Most commented posts

  1. TripAdvisor gives me indigestion — 13 comments
  2. Spicy beetroot soup — 11 comments
  3. Review: Noma, Copenhagen — 10 comments
  4. Spaghetti alla carbonara, essentially — 10 comments
  5. A gourmet and his gout — 9 comments

Author's posts listings

Review: The Lion, Leintwardine

Categories:

Fine dining, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

31 August 2012

Why do so many restaurants and cafes insist on putting cappuccino on their menu then serving up a huge cup of hot milk with a mouse’s bladder of coffee squirted into it and a spoonful of phlegm on top? Is it the misguided belief that bigger is always better? Is there a quiet majority of …

Continue reading »

Tags: ,

4 comments

Bilberry Tart, Tarte aux Myrtilles

Categories:

Baking, Desserts, Pastry, Recipes, Wild Food

24 August 2012

If you’re familiar with the French bakery-cafe chain Paul then you’ll know they do a mean Tarte aux Myrtilles, so deeply purple as to be almost black and utterly loaded with the tiny berries. For me, Paul are one of the few places helping to rescue the word “chain” from being shorthand for “crap”. I’ve …

Continue reading »

Tags: , , ,

8 comments

Bilberry picking

Categories:

Preserves, Recipes, Wild Food

19 August 2012

Bilberries are one of my favourite wild foods, right up there with wild garlic and parasol mushrooms. They start to appear in August and can be got into September, it all seems to depend on where exactly they’re growing. You’d also be well advised to look for them somewhere that sheep aren’t grazing, as the …

Continue reading »

Tags: ,

5 comments

Review: Ceviche, Soho

Categories:

London, Restaurant Reviews

9 August 2012

My experience of South American food from the three months we spent there at the end of our year around the world was generally poor. How could a continent that provided us with so many of the most brilliant staple ingredients have such rubbish cuisine? And I don’t just mean the roasted guinea pigs. South …

Continue reading »

Tags: , , ,

Leave comment

Review: The Checkers, Montgomery

Categories:

Fine dining, Michelin, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

3 August 2012

One thing a restaurant really can’t be blamed for is having to share a dining room with a big party of cheerfully noisy people. Indeed, as they’re likely to have a storming drinks bill it’s only to be expected that restaurants would actively court such parties. The Checkers is a cosy, friendly restaurant in the …

Continue reading »

Tags: , , ,

2 comments