Plus we pick out two recipes to cook this weekend
It's been a good week for quiche fans who also relish the royals. The King and Queen Consort have unveiled a recipe for a "coronation quiche" that is the suggested centrepiece for menus at big lunches, street parties and other community events on 6 May. The big question is whether this "Quiche Le Reign" will prove a match for the coronation chicken created for Queen Elizabeth's crowning in 1953, said the Daily Mail's royal editor Rebecca English.
It was a bad week for hopes of an end to the cost-of-living crisis, with latest figures showing that food inflation hit 17.2% on average in March. The price of cheese and bread has gone up by as much as 80% in a year, analysis by Which? found.
Read on for a review of Legacy restaurant at The Grand hotel in York and tastemaker tips from beer sommelier Annabel Smith.
Mike Starling
Digital features editor |
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| | For budget-conscious food fans who want to dine well without spending a fortune, here's a selection of restaurants newly awarded a Bib Gourmand – given to establishments offering excellent, good-value cooking – in the 2023 Michelin Guide:
The Pelican: 45 All Saints Road, London W11
The "gutsy food" at this Victorian boozer in London's Notting Hill has "a British heart", says the Guide. The flexible, well-priced menu includes "hard to resist" classics as faggots with peas and carrots, as well as a signature dish of mince on toast. With a varied events programme as well – from a book club and movie afternoons to Pilates classes – The Pelican is the kind of pub "we'd all like to have at the end of our street".
Blaise Inn Bristol: 260 Henbury Road, City of Bristol
This "simply decorated village inn" – not far from Blaise Castle – serves traditional British dishes, many cooked with a modern twist, with an emphasis on seasonality. Be sure to leave room for the "terrific" desserts: perhaps rhubarb and ginger whim wham, or Turkish spiced mocha pots with whipped cream. Service is "personable", and there's a "pleasant rear courtyard".
EDŌ: 3 Capital House, Unit 2, Upper Queen Street, Belfast
Edo is "I eat" in Latin, and the food at this "smart, modish brasserie" makes you want to do just that. The menu is international in flavour and the dishes are designed for sharing – three to four per person is perfect. Many are cooked over apple or pear wood in the kitchen's Bertha oven. Take your pick from offerings including roast scallops, lardo and hazelnut, and a flat-iron steak with a bone marrow jus. |
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palate cleanser | The Tea Recipe Book by Nicole Wilson | Get the kettle on, it's National Tea Day on Friday. Tea expert Nicole Wilson has written a book that celebrates the beautiful beverage and features more than 50 recipes for tea drinks and tea-infused snacks. You can also learn about the fundamentals of optimal tea brewing and how to prepare the ideal cuppa. £12.91; amazon.co.uk | |
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DRINK OF THE WEEK | | Launched in the UK in the summer of 2022, Romania's first single malt whisky, Carpathian, now has 13 expressions in its wine cask collection. The latest is the "Amarone" Italian wine cask – a single malt that was matured initially in select Kentucky bourbon barrels, before being transferred and finished for a year in Amarone casks of European oak. Sourced from a family winery in the Valpolicella region of Italy, the casks previously held Amarone wine for five to six years. The result is a whisky with a sweet candy taste with spicy notes coming through. From £50; carpathian-singlemalt.com |
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| A confession. I visited The Grand, York hotel's new restaurant Legacy late last year, not long after it had opened, and held off on this review, says Neil Davey on TheWeek.co.uk. Why? Because rather than take my word for the quality of the cooking, or the obvious potential, I wanted to give it the chance to bed-in a little, and fully expected Michelin to back up my vaguely inevitable gushing. And it has.
Well, the Michelin Guide has given Legacy a mention which, for a restaurant less than a year old, is quite an achievement. But I thought it may have received the higher praise of a star – which head chef Ahmed Abdalla happily admits is the ultimate aim – or, at the very least, a Bib Gourmand. Because when Legacy is good, it really is that good. |
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What to cook this weekend | Looking for some dinnerspiration? Here are two recipes from our archive: | |
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Specials board | | There can be few tastier ways to help with conservation in Botswana than a trip to the Okavango Craft Brewery, says Sue Watt in The Telegraph. Located in Maun, the "sleepy" gateway town to the Okavango Delta, the brewery works in partnership with a local NGO, Ecoexist, that aims to minimise the sometimes deadly encounters between elephants and farmers in the area. With names linked to the area and its inhabitants (such as Old Bull Stout, and the non-alcoholic Mock Charge), the beers are remarkably good, and are increasingly found at safari camps across the Okavango.
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| | Annabel Smith has worked in the beer industry for almost 30 years as a licensee, educator, beer inspector, beer sommelier, public speaker and author. Her previous roles include training manager at Diageo and head of training at The Cask Marque Trust. She is a founding member of Dea Latis, a group formed to change women's perceptions about beer and encourage more women to consider beer as a drink of choice. She also works closely with brands including Birrificio Angelo Poretti.
Beer has a huge array of flavours which are food friendly: the sweet breadiness of the malt, the citric zestiness of hops, the creaminess of wheat, the fruity esters which come from ale yeast, and most of all, carbonation –beer's secret weapon – which acts as a palate cleanser. One of the brands I work with, Birrificio Angelo Poretti, is a good example of a beer that was made to elevate food.
Beer and food just doesn't get the exposure. Look at every cooking programme on TV: there's always a wine expert on hand to recommend a match for the dishes being cooked. Look at every newspaper supplement and foodie magazine – pages devoted to wine pairings with the recipes and rarely a nod to beer! So, people just don't associate beer with food.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that all beer is "brown, bitter and bloating". It's not. There are thousands of colours, aromas and flavours in beer, and you just have to find one that matches your palate. When people say to me "oh, I don't like beer", it's usually because they've tasted one or two, had a poor experience and decided they all taste the same. It's like saying you don't like Italian food because you've had a strand of spaghetti.
The biggest misconception about beer drinkers is that they're all male, overweight and old. Take a look around at the drinkers in a pub next time you go out. You might be surprised to see quite a lot of young, stylish, sophisticated women drinking beer. |
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