Ah, Brighton’s Lanes! There’s the North Laine, north of the main street, and the Lanes, between the main street and the seafront. Both of them full-to-the-brim with independent eating and shopping, much of it quirky and left-field, many of them doomed to fail within a year or two, to be replaced by a fresh bunch …
We ate at Kota on the day after Boxing Day, as we’d gone down to spend Christmas week in Cornwall. I feel it’s worth saying this as I’ve had a few meals around the holiday season that haven’t turned out as excellently as reviews of the restaurant would suggest… and I wonder if it’s that …
Coombeshead Farm make their own superb piggy products from their herds of Mangalitza and Middle-White pigs. There is a rustic Italian boiled sausage called “cotechino” that they make which is absolutely the best thing ever done with a pig’s spare parts. They also have a little restaurant and rooms on the farm, which is where …
So we took a last-minute weekend down in the New Forest. There was literally one place on booking.com available, The East End Inn, pretty much middle of nowhere. We got there and discovered that slightly bizarrely it was owned by the bass guitarist of Dire Straits and had a (kinda average) seafood restaurant attached. Apparently …
I know what kind of cuisine I like. I like powerful flavours. I like them sharp, sour, bitter, umami. Ferments and pickles. Charring and smoking. Herb and spice. I’m not so bothered by delicacy and cream, butter and elegant simplicity. I think this explains why sometimes my lukewarm reviews of places like Five Fields and …