What is it with French fine dining and puddings? Sorry, desserts. Are there other food writers out there properly bemoaning the complete lack of decent pastry chefs in French provincial 1 Michelin star restaurants? Or am I just dismally unlucky to have had crap desserts in the last five French provincial 1 Michelin star restaurants …
It’s always nice to pair a long weekend of wine tasting with a top-class meal, but for Rioja we decided to go totally overboard and book a gastronomic weekend at Echaurren. This involved an evening meal at 2* El Portal de Echaurren, a fine breakfast before a morning in the kitchen with chef Francis Paniego, …
Some people just want to watch the world burn. Why else would you start the name of your restaurant with a piece of punctuation? There’s a word for that, and it begins with “pre-” and ends in “-tentious”. I was actually amazed that websites like Google Maps and Trip Advisor were quite happy with the …
Kondo is a Michelin 2-star tempura restaurant in Tokyo. We all know tempura – a plate of veggies and/or prawns in a crisply light batter, to be enjoyed as part of any Japanese meal in the UK. Well, in Japan there are dedicated tempura restaurants and at those the whole deal is tempura. The head …
Japan is the trickiest country for dining I’ve ever visited. With a cuisine so different from our own, and menus written in an alien alphabet, it would be so easy to order the boiled pig’s rectum without ever realising it! Of course, on the other hand, said rectum would probably taste delicious and leave you …