The Globe Troffers

On a recent two day trip to London I experienced a real mix bag of food and drink.

Not for me the heady pleasures of the high roller in the West End of London or Knightsbridge. Oh no. I left the chrome finish S5 back in Leeds and headed for the big city. This time it was two days spent in Canary Wharf where practicalities meant a local hotel was easiest. Fortunately there’s some good restaurants in Canary Wharf servicing the business crowd meaning there’s not too much travel to the centre, which is a good job as it’s a fair old journey by cab and even the underground is tiresome.

We stayed at the Britannia International Hotel which is literally five minutes walk from the heart of the business district of Canary Wharf. My colleague described the hotel as shabby chic but without the chic. It looked tired and in need of some TLC with the only saving grace being that we didn’t have to eat there apart from breakfast, although that was bad enough.

What is it about hotel breakfasts these days? It seems we have to pay a kings ransom just to get a freshly cooked affair. Is there anything sadder than the ubiquitous hot hotel buffet?  With it’s rock hard fried bread, appalling quality of sausage, frankly disgusting bacon and fried eggs only the starving would touch. But still I ate it, albeit with plenty of tabasco.

On a more positive note, we had dinner at Jamie’s Italian in Canary Wharf. I can report that there are some very, very good people working under Mr Oliver delivering consistently great food across multiple sites. This is the third of the Italian chain I’ve eaten in and I can report that the attention to detail is off the scale. I’m loving his work and the work of I’m sure hundreds of people behind Jamie.

After a full day it was dinner for one as I’d opted stay over for another day of meetings whilst my colleagues headed back North. Always a tricky choice when you’re dining by oneself - do I admit defeat and go sit in the hotel restaurant with a book of iPhone? Or do I venture out and see what I can be bothered with?

The malls underneath Canary Wharf also contain a lot of ‘light’ eateries - Pizza Express, Leon, Nando’s etc -so there’s plenty of choice. These places offer a single diner a relatively speedy dining option too, which I preferred on this occasion.

I opted for a new ‘gourmet burger’ place called Byron. I’ve noticed the proliferation of these gourmet burger gaffs and I did wonder whether it’s a thinly veiled excuse to sell you something ordinary at an extraordinary price. Not so on this occasion. The quality of the simple, but delicious food was a real surprise and it was a pleasurable diversion for billy no mates. Bright, breezy and recommended.

London is a hard place to eat out because the choice is sooo huge. It’s doubly hard when you’re there on business, on your own and because after a hard day working for the man, sometimes all you’d like to do is chill out with a bottle of wine and eat something comforting. It also helps to have a dining partner who knows the lie of the land and the local places, but they’re not always around.

Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about a website/blog where you put in where you’re staying and there’s recommendations by local foodies on where to go for food and drink, each categorised by what kind of mood you’re in and how much cash you want to spend. Just a thought.

Last weekend J and I went to Swinton Park, just outside Masham in North Yorkshire. We had been bought a ‘Wine Appreciation Lunch’ as a gift and  booked a weekend away around it. We’ve not been to many wine tasting events, but those we had been to tended to be carnage (in a good way, obviously) so we didn’t know what to expect really.

We’d not been to Swinton Park before but it’s spoken of very highly so we were looking forward to a weekend of foodie appreciation and luxury. We weren’t disappointed. The lunch was great fun - informative and enetertaining with Graham, Swinton’s Sommelier, taking us through a delicious range of summer wines from Prosecco to Sancerre and Chilean Rose to Dessert wines. Following the tasting was a light lunch to accompany the light headedness I was feeling after tasting on an empty stomach.

I would highly recommend the wine appreciation lunch largely because I probably learnt more about wine in a couple of hours than I’ve learnt in the last two years. It covered the basics well and answered a lot of the questions that you daren’t ask like why is Rose pink when it’s made out of red grapes?

The answer, if you don’t already know, is that the red grape skins are left in the juice for a fraction of the time than in the making of red wine.

The rest of the day at Swinton was spent enjoying the fabulous country house surrounding and quite frankly having a bit of a lie down after the boozy lunch (although curiously we actually felt relatively sober). By the way, there ’s a fully fledged cookery school at Swinton with Rosemary Schrager teaching alongside Swinton’s own head chef. So there’s another reason to come back.

Dinner we had booked in the main restaurant and the high quality of the service and the food continued. We had the tasting menu which consisted of 3 main dishes, with a seemingly endless raft of Amous Bouches, which were all superb. Essentially the dishes were pork, fish and lamb with each dish served up in true modern cuisine style with foams and trickery that were of the highest order. Good job I’m not a restaurant reviewer as I’d get the sack for not taking notes. The sommelier provided a couple of well chosen wines to accompany the meal - both Italian and excellent.

It was typical country house ambience - quiet and subdued, but in a good way - and there were a good number of people dining and I suspect this is to do with the dinner bed and breakfast rate on offer. The kitchen was clearly efficient and the restaurant staff were well drilled and very hard working (one girl working dinner service who had been on breakfast).

Swinton Park is a short distance from Leeds, around an hour and a half by car, and you really do feel like you’re in the lap of luxury. The old style country house vibe makes you feel like you’re a Victorian philanthropist on a shooting weekend at the country pile. The enormous gardens are super cool two with the four acres walled garden well worth a pootle around - apparently there’s a victorian druids circle on the state too, so yet another reason to return.

A wonderful place to go if you’re looking for a treat and a pampering weekend with great food, attentive service and terrific ambience. I’d say Swinton Park is definitely not a budget weekend - DB&B in a superior room is £350 for two - but it is the perfect location for an anniversary or special birthday.

Rather than a full blown review of every place that we ate at on our  recent visit to Andalucia, I thought it would be more interesting to talk about more generally about the food that we encountered.

Our holiday was all about escape and relaxation and the location in the mountains near Comares was absolutely perfect and although the roads were pretty hairy, it was well worth being off the beaten track, away from the tourists.

First things first - this is meat country. The Spanish have mastered how to eat an entire pig without it getting boring and very menu proudly displays the evidence. Suffice to say my vegetarian sister struggled somewhat when eating out. Combined with the fact that we were eating essentilly in the countryside, it meant the food was simple, traditional and rustic.

In the mountains the food is probably just as it was fifty years ago, if not more, and that’s just how the local like it. Down nearer the coast - where all the tourists are - then it’s way more accessible with English food (and language on the menus) and lot more seafood. Personally I quite liked the rustic nature of the food on offer in the local places and we ate very well in the villa with fantastic Jamon packed with flavour, amazingly vibrant fresh salad and super local cheeses.

Given we had to drive 15 minutes to the nearest supermarket and restaurant, we minimised our time on the hairpin bends and rationed our drive times. The local food and drink was cheap and very plentiful. The non-tourist nature of the area was borne out with great local vino on sale for around 2 Euro (and it wasn’t vinegar either although it did benefit from a chill).

Special mention has to go to the Padron Pepper - the vegetable I ate every single day. Man, I need to get some of these in the UK, even if every fifth one turns out to be a full blown chilli and kicks you right in the tastebuds.

On the last day of the holiday, heading back to the airport we happened upon a very cool and down to earth resort just outside Malaga that was full of Spanish day trippers eating fantastic looking seafood. The ubiquitous sardines were cooked right there on the beach over embers and it would have been both rude and ridiculous not to try some (they were sublime and very, very good value at 3 Euro for a bundle).

From a food perspective, I think this part of Spain struggles to compete with the choice and sophistication of some of the more cosmopolitan cities or the Michelin littered Northern areas. What it is though, is unpretentious and down to earth food, that’s easy to get on with and all about the ingredients.

I don’t think we fully explored it by any means, and I’m only offering a snapshot of a couple of weeks’ eating, but I definitely would recommend it unless you’re a vegetarian.

Been a tad engrossed by the new job, hence the lack of posts so apologies for that. Normal service will, I hope, be resumed with this post.

Last week saw me doing a fair bit bit of UK-wide travelling and the most noteworthy was a trip to the glorious South coast. In particular, Poole in Dorset. The occasion was a long overdue client lunch and his suggestion that we take a trip down to cafe Shore in Poole was an inspired one.

Renowned for being one of the wealthiest places in the country (more millionaires per square foot than anywhere else etc) it’s a lovely spot. The restaurant overlooks the recently refurbished marina and being seated by the windows, we were treated to a spectacular view of the bay. For starter I had half a dozen Colchester oysters and my fellow luncher had the tomato salad. The native oysters were creamy and delicious - a real treat to taste shellfish of such quality.

Service was brisk as it was a fairly quiet midweek day and mains followed on pretty quickly. I went for the special - Sea Bass to complete the fishy theme and Paul had the lamb. Both were declared a triumph. The bass was lovely - really well seasoned and delicately cooked on a bed of  noodly vegetables type stuff (apologies for the lack of info).

The bill including a glass of wine apiece and some rather nice coffees came to around £60 - so not cheap - but the view alone is worth the  price and in truth the food was very, very good. The only letdown was the weather - a gloomy overcast day didn’t show off the splendour of the bay - but that was the only bum note in an otherwise perfect lunch. Whilst Poole is quite some way from Leeds, I would certainly recommend that you pay Cafe Shore a visit if you’re in the vicinity, it’s definitely worth the effort.

That’s all I have to say.

Except that if you’re not from round these parts, it’s important that you know that The Wardrobe is a bar/restaurant and not a thing for hanging jackets, made of wood, from Ikea.

Having read Phil’s post we decided to give La Grillade a visit as it must be over 10 years since we last visited La Grillade at it’s original site. The place has been done up since it’s return which one would expect and is very much low key French brasserie. It was a Wed evening so the place was quiet, we started off with a couple of glasses of champagne and D’s second glass was flat but when this was mentioned it was replaced.  Strangely instead of seating everyone in the same room  for atmosphere we were shown to a separate room but we didn’t mind too much as it was nice to have a quiet meal together.

We had starters of black pudding(G) and mussels(D) which were very good. For mains lamb cutlets (D) were superb and Toulouse sausage (G) very tasty, french fries were thin and crispy and the green salad was dressed simply with an oil vinegarette. All accompanied by a bottle of Perrier and a nice Rose.

Despite the stereotypical surly laissez faire French service (don’t know if this is on purpose for effect…..) we decided to try a shared desert of something that looked like messy chocolate mousse but tasted fantastic and of course we had to try the cheese board(gluttony….) which was just smelly and as good as a French restaurant should be in this area!

We took coffee and cognac in the bar and the all that for about £70 per head………

Worth it? Well yes but we’d both like to feel welcomed next time.

D&G

The Milestone is a very cool gastro pub tucked away in an old heavy industry district in Sheffield called Kelham Island. Home to a brewery and few cool old style boozers, this part of Sheffield is not quite city centre and it’s all the more pleasurable for it. Parking is easy and it’s just a stone’s throw from my sisters house, where we stayed last weekend.

After reading Jay Raynor’s very positive review of The Milestone in The Observer, we decided to give it a try for dinner last weekend. I’d describe the ambience as laid back, cool and industrial modern chic. Not dissimilar in many ways to eateries in our very own Holbeck.

As they don’t take bookings (odd,I know) we chanced our arm with a Sunday late afternoon and as it turned it out, it was perfect. The in between lunch and dinner service meant the place was only half full but as we were leaving it was rapidly filling up.

We kicked off with cocktails (like you do) and my Kelham Island Iced Tea was a blast of summer. I was the only one who fancied a starter and the cured breast of partridge with juniper was delicate and fabulously gamey. I couldn’t resist the rib eye for main, whilst J had the Croque Madame with G and G opting for the pea and broad bean risotto.

Check out that bad boy!

My steak was historically good - on the bone and it was a real Fred Flintstone cut of meat. Perfectly cooked medium rare - as rib should be - it presented a challenge to eat I can tell you. J was slightly disappointed with the dryness of her Croque, but it was a very generous portion nonetheless. Risottos were declared spot on too.

Desserts looked interesting so G went for the chocolate brownie (very chocolatey), I had the rhubarb three ways (an homage to West Yorkshire) and J had a huge slice of textured cake which I can’t quite recall!

This is probably the first time we’ve eaten out in Sheffield and I have to say that it was very enjoyable. I can highly recommend The Milestone - the food, service and prices were spot on. If you’re looking for casual dining with serious food, then look no further.

A work/social meeting last week in York was made all the more pleasurable by lunch at J Bakers. This fabulous York restaurant has been well documented in this blog, but I really do feel it’s worth another mention.

Tucked away on Fossgate, it really is one of those places that the locals know all about and the visitors only happen upon if they’re lucky or they’ve done their research beforehand. On this particular lunchtime it wasn’t jam packed like last time, but I did overhear a couple of japanese tourists trying to get a table for a weekend evening and the head waiter patiently explaining that wasn’t a table to be had for weeks due to York Races.

Although I foolishly forgot to pick up a menu, I’ll try and remember the quirkily complex lunch through the medium of photography:

We started with the little freebie amouse bouche brown paper bag of new potatoes with a very garlicky dip quickly followed ion by a couple of very accomplished starters. I went for the venison tartare with a soft quail’s egg and my guest opted for the potted parmesan custard (I think). Both spectacular and presentation has to get a special mention, with my dessert looking like a work of neon art from 1987, but in a good way.

Mains were out of the top drawer too. I chose the special halibut and my fellow diner couldn’t resist the steak (with a crispy duck’s egg, no less). My fish was meaty and delicate and the wild asparagus that came with it were exquisite. The steak was ‘hanger’ cut which I’ve heard of but never seen served before, anyway it was declared perfectly cooked and full of meaty specialness (my words, by the way).

The accompanying side dishes deserve a mention too and in the interests of research, we felt we should try the chips (of course), which were twice cooked, the ‘unusual carrots (which were purple with aniseed) and the greens. We thought we were being greedy when ordering these, but trust me, there was no waste as they were so goooood!

As if we weren’t quite full enough, we gave desserts a fair crack of the whip ( I know), unusually for me I quite fancied a little hit of something sweet before I headed back to Leeds. I had the Seaside Special - lemon curd mousse and popping candy (and yes, it did) and Nick had chocolate tart with peanut butter sorbet. We will return another time to sample the knickerbocker glory!

It was completely satisfying and the end to a perfect lunch. Washed down with a cheeky Spanish Rosado (sensibly priced at £15), topped off with very good coffee, it was lunch of the finest order.

Superstar foodie chef Jamie Oliver finally has a presence in Leeds. The most northerly outpost of his Italian restaurant chain has finally opened in Leeds, with surprisingly little fanfair. There has been a lot of buzz in the foodie blogs about when it might open and after a week of ’soft launch’ to get things up to speed, it was officially opened last week.

I’ve eaten at the Brighton restaurant earlier this year and very good it was too, so expectations are high for the Leeds operation. And after the disappointment of the failure to open Fifteen in the city, Jamie’s Italian has a great opportunity to firmly establish itself as a major player on the Leeds restaurant scene.

First things first - this is essentially a high class chain restaurant and although at times it’s easy to forget this, as everything is so well done, a chain it is - and all the more impressive for that. The second thing that hits you is the size of the place and the investment - the budget for the fit out alone is probably more than most restaurants make in a year. It’s a joy to behold from a design perspective with the interior stripped right back to the bare walls - very cool, modern and funky. First impressions are very good indeed.

We decided to eat early after a few drinks in Bar & Grill and sat down around 5pm. Top tip: to avoid the queues - and there are lots of people wanting to eat here - aim to eat between 5-6.30. I realise that’s early, but if not you’re in for a long wait and as we left at 7pm, the line was ten deep outside the door.

The atmosphere is lively, laid back and very much of the moment. The waitress knew her stuff and recounted in detail the exact nature of the specials (Porchetta and Pollock respectively) so we opted for those and ordered the cured meat and cheese platter for two. Drinks took a little bit too long to arrive and considering the place was half empty, that wasn’t really good enough. As the restaurant filled up, people all around us were having to wait a little bit too long in between drinks and courses - it seemed like the staff were experiencing a few teething problems.

Our food arrived in fairly good time and the meats et al arrived on a rustic plank, supported by two tins of italian tomatoes - which was a nice touch and a little bit of theatre. The mains arrived and Julie’s porchetta was spot on although lacked the crispy crackling advertised and my pollock was nicely cooked although not quite the ‘chunky portion of white fish’ she promised. Well priced at £13.50 too. Washed down with a bottle of Venetian Pino Grigio, we were very happy indeed. I did take some pics of the food but the lighting was modishly low where we were sat and they are just too dark. These pics from the website perfectly represent what to expect:

By now the restaurant was jumping and the early evening dinner crowd were in full swing. This would be a great, lively destination for a group of diners although the expected wait in the bar (if you’re lucky) might put a lot of people off. If you don’t mind a few beers before you eat, I suspect it would add to the evening. If you like to get seated as soon as you arrive (like me), then you’ll be frustrated.

We finished with a quite acceptable but quite orangey Tiramisu to share and the bill finally came to £70 including tip. Nice also to see that the practice of sticking 10% automatically on to the bill is not practiced at Jamie’s Italian.

Jamie’s Italian is a welcome addition to the Leeds restaurant scene - a big, hairy commercial set up that is completely in keeping with the city’s stature (some would say fur coat no knickers outlook, but not me) . I think it will have the knock on effect of boosting restaurant trade across the city too will be considerable, as people who can’t be bothered to wait or can’t get in, go elsewhere.

All in all, we felt it was pretty good value for the food and dining experience, although it seems that they’re still finding their way a little bit and I expect these minor details will get ironed out in the coming weeks. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the attention to detail right across the restaurant is terrific in terms of ‘brand Jamie’ - it all works and feels right. If you’re a fan of Jamie and his cooking, then a visit to this restaurant won’t disappoint.

As a long standing customer of Virgin Wines, we’d got some tickets for their first tasting event in Leeds. I’ve long been a fan of Virgin Wines and I love the different wines and hard to find vintages they have on offer. So we planned a full Troffers outing (apart from Jill who was in London seeing Julie Andrews, don’t ask) to give them all a try.

We knew it was going to get messy. A full afternoon, tasting the very best Virgin Wines had to offer?? We needed sustenance before we headed down to The Loft, where it was all happening.

So proceedings kicked off at The Reliance, which proved to the perfect place to fill up on great food (and beer, rather ominously). As you know, Reliance is one of my staple restaurants in Leeds and most of the Troffers hadn’t been before, so I was very pleased to introduce them to its chilled out pleasures.

Saturday lunchtime is as good as time as any to eat at Reliance (is there a bad time?) and we all got stuck in. Fish & chips, chicken livers, ploughman’s, gammon & eggs and welsh rarebit all delivered in terms of taste and were as ever, generously portioned.

The Reliance won many more converts that afternoon - the food was excellent - simple and well cooked. The service was attentive and considerate and the Reliance Bitter was on top form.

The wine tasting was a pretty impressive affair and much bigger than we were all expecting. The Loft is a bar/club space that’s pretty sizeable and the place was packed to the rafters with a huge cross section of wine slurpers - from  in the know foodie types to gaggles of women hell bent on a great afternoon out. There were literally hundreds of wines on offer and it would have been impossible to try them all, so we all pursued the tables where our favourites were on tasting.

Complete with glass, pen and booklet we set about the wide selection of vino with missionary zeal. The Chilean section was of particular interest to me and it seemed that they had cornered the market in massive reds, toothsome roses and spanking fresh whites. The girls hunted down the prosecco table and hogged the rose wines until they were satisfied they had tasted them all. After a while it all predictably became a bit of a blur (literally) and the afternoon ended most satisfyingly with the announcement via mobile that Leeds United had gained promotion. More wine drunk in celebration!

To cap things off, we adjourned to Anthony’s for a glass of wine (I kid you not!) and to stock up on cheese and delicious goodies for an outdoor supper around the fire in D&G’s garden. The evening carried on back in New Farnley and the treats purchased from Anthony’s were of the highest quality - the Epoisses cheese was monumental, as were the cured meats. Special mention has to go to the posh version of the old sweet shop favourites: cinder toffee and snowballs. Amazing both!