Category Archives: Restaurants

Food, beer, toys, medical kit. Why is Britain running out of everything?

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Poor pay and conditions for HGV drivers and the loss of many thousands of EU workers are plunging the UKs supply chain into crisis

Gaps on supermarket shelves. Fast food outlets pulling milkshakes and bottled drinks from their menus. Restaurants running out of chicken and closing. Empty vending machines. Online grocery orders full of substitutions. Fruit and vegetables rotting in the fields.

These are just some of the most visible signs of Britain’s deepening supply chain crisis, which has seen stocks in shops and warehouses slump to their lowest levels since the Confederation of British Industry began surveying in 1983.

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‘We need to stop talking about jollof rice’: Lagos chef aims to ‘conjure pride’ in Nigerian food

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Michael Elégbèdé doesn’t just break from western ideas of fine dining, but aims to revive a deeper appreciation of Nigerian food among Nigerians, too

After wine and canapes on a patio overlooking high-rises and greenery in an affluent part of Lagos, 15 guests assemble inside. They sit facing one another across a long dining table, brightly lit by a steel row of low-hanging lights. Nigerian cultural masks and artworks adorn the walls of the restaurant, which evokes a Nigerian home.

The dishes emerge: traditional egusi soup, but with the efo (spinach) crisp amaranth leaves. Grains of gari, or cassava root, typically pounded to make a kind of dough called eba, is instead lightly dusted over it. Unusually, there are croutons. “An egusi crouton,” a guest nods approvingly.

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London’s cafe culture has left a sour taste for stressed residents

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Licensing outdoor seats saved countless jobs but brings noise and antisocial behaviour

Continental Europe has come to the UK – at least when the sun shines. In towns and cities all over the country, alfresco dining has exploded, with thousands of extra outdoor seats being licensed.

Many in the hospitality industry say the move has saved their business from bankruptcy after catastrophic losses during the pandemic. Now, although Covid restrictions have been lifted, the government is considering making outdoor dining a permanent feature rather than a short-term response to a crisis.

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On my radar: Domhnall Gleeson’s cultural highlights

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The actor on an exhibition that’s like a rave, the best crispy chicken and why he’s having to take a break from Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest

Domhnall Gleeson was born in Dublin in 1983. Following his father, Brendan, into acting, he broke through in 2010 with small but memorable roles in Never Let Me Go, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (as Bill Weasley) and True Grit. He played the lead in Frank and a romantic interest in Brooklyn, though he is probably best known as General Hux in the latest Star Wars trilogy. From 4 to 29 August, Gleeson stars in Enda Walsh’s new play, Medicine, at the Traverse theatre as part of the Edinburgh fnternational festival. He lives in Dublin.

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Meals by wheels: UK drive-through booms as brands invest in new sites

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Social distancing is feeding an appetite for a new generation of US-style drive-through restaurants

Drive-through restaurants used to be a US-inspired novelty but a big increase in custom during the pandemic means money is pouring into new UK sites, with even upmarket names looking to serve food through car windows for the first time.

New property research suggests that demand for drive-throughs has increased by 25% post-Covid with restaurant chains looking to open a total of 200 sites a year. The clamour comes as established names such as McDonald’s and Burger King face competition from North American brands such as Tim Hortons, famous for its coffee and doughnuts, and burger chain Wendy’s.

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I fled Syria with just £12 … now I have my own restaurant in Soho

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Imad Alarnab lost everything to the war. He never dreamed he could rebuild his restaurants in the UK

When Imad Alarnab, a Syrian chef, arrived in the UK as a refugee five years ago, he could barely afford to eat. Meals were regularly skipped and a Snickers bar could be eked out over a whole day to help him survive. On Monday, the 43-year-old father of three will be celebrating lockdown rules easing with a fairytale twist: Alarnab will be opening the doors to his very own central London restaurant.

“This is not because I am strong or brave,” says Alarnab, who begins to well up as staff scurry through the restaurant, prepping for their first service. “I am proof that if you try to do something good for people, something good will happen to you. This is a fact.”

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Top New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park goes vegan

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Daniel Humm, owner of foodie haven with three Michelin stars, says modern food system ‘simply not sustainable’

One of New York’s top fine dining restaurants is abandoning meat and going for a plant-based menu after its chef and owner posted a message on its website saying the modern food system was “simply not sustainable”.

Daniel Humm is the driving force behind Eleven Madison Park, which has won three Michelin stars and is one of the top names in Manhattan’s elite foodie scene.

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‘They’re stealing our customers and we’ve had enough’: is Deliveroo killing restaurant culture?

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The takeaway service may have felt like a lifeline during lockdown, but its ambitious vision will dramatically change the way we eat

Shukran Best Kebab – the finest Turkish restaurant in the Seven Sisters area of north London, according to some people (although it is surrounded by fierce rivals to the throne) – joined Deliveroo two years ago, and back then it seemed like a no-brainer. “Life as a small, independent restaurant is hard and the profit margins are slim,” says Hüseyin Kurt, Shukran’s owner. “We wanted more customers and money coming in and Deliveroo seemed to offer that. I didn’t think there was a downside.” Within a few days of signing a contract with the company, a shiny new tablet computer arrived on which orders placed via Deliveroo appeared out of the ether with a satisfying ping.

The sense that something was wrong dawned gradually. Kurt, a gregarious, bearded man in his early 40s, who left his central Anatolian home town in 1995 and used his love of food to build a new life in the UK, ran the numbers: with Deliveroo’s commission amounting to 35% plus VAT on every order, he was forced to increase his prices to avoid losing money on each sale. It meant anyone buying his huge adana kofte or mixed shish kebabs through the Deliveroo app was in effect paying three surcharges for the convenience, as Deliveroo was also charging them a delivery and service fee. That went down badly with previously loyal customers who were presented with a vast number of often heavily discounted competitors when using the app.

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The rice of the sea: how a tiny grain could change the way humanity eats

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Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden

Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz.

It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch of tiny green grains clinging to the base of the eelgrass.

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Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery was a guide to another world

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The actor-turned-cookery writer saved us from terrible British versions of curry and taught us how to roast and grind spices

In 1982 the food writer and novelist Sue Lawrence was in the depths of early motherhood. “But on Monday nights at 7pm the baby could cry all it wanted,” she says. “I had an appointment with the TV. Everybody stopped for it.” The programme which brought a slab of Britain to the sofa was Indian Cookery, presented by the actor turned food writer Madhur Jaffrey. “The show was a revelation,” Lawrence says. “She just demystified everything. We all rushed out to buy the accompanying book.”

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Hidden joys of the UK’s holiday spots: seafood in Yorkshire and Scotland | Jay Rayner

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We’ll soon be able to venture beyond our local park … and to help us, the Observer has launched a guide to Britain’s hidden treasures, starting with Jay Rayner’s hunt for tasty morsels in unlikely places

The Oban docks on Scotland’s west coast are a functional place. Veteran CalMac ferries to the islands heave on their moorings and, from time to time, there’s a waft of diesel in the air. It’s not the first place you might think of visiting for lunch. But there, alongside the blocky, modern ferry terminal building, is the glory that is the Oban Seafood Hut. It’s in the kind of prefabricated shed only its designer could love, and emblazoned with a garish bright green signage that can doubtless be seen from a mile off shore. But oh, the food. One afternoon, beneath gunmetal skies, I feasted on scallops the size of a baby’s fist in ponds of hot garlic butter, shiny black mussels and crab sandwiches thicker than an airport bonkbuster novel.

I cannot claim that the Oban Seafood Hut is a secret, newly whispered. I’ve written about it in my column and, in any case, part of my job reviewing restaurants in normal times involves giving exposure to the relatively obscure. I have no secrets. But it is proof, if we needed it, that a very good time out is not necessarily found in all the most obvious places; those destinations weighed down by labels like “beauty spot” and “national park” and the crowds of visitors that flock to them.

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My new lockdown survival tip? Food, food and more food

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Whether it’s fish fingers or a fancy restaurant chicken salad, what we eat can help us through hard times

Lockdown 3.0. My plan, before this exciting new iteration was announced, was to write about Francis Bacon’s cooking: I’ve been reading a new biography of the artist, and on every other page is a description of the wondrous meals he would produce for friends, seemingly out of nowhere (oysters, fish, cheese, grapes). But all that will have to wait. We must be practical. I’ve had a good look around the place in which we find ourselves, and I’m pretty sure that this is it: the Slough of Despond. It is, I think we can all agree, a grim spot: not quite the bog of Bunyan’s imagining, but nevertheless somewhat dark and dank – and strangely depopulated, too, when you consider how many of us now loiter here, quietly catastrophising. On the plus side, though, it comes with a small kitchen. Will this help to see us through? Perhaps. We can only try.

It’s absolutely fine to eat a slice of toast for supper – we all of us have our picky bread-and-cheese nights

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‘Not that good’: Montreal restaurant’s brutally honest menu pulls in the customers

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Feigang Fei, who runs the Aunt Dai Chinese restaurant, says patrons appreciate his bracingly frank descriptions of the food

In the cut-throat restaurant industry, most business owners boast that their dishes are the best in town.

Feigang Fei, who runs Aunt Dai Chinese restaurant in Montreal, has taken a different approach, with a menu offering bracingly honest descriptions of the dishes on offer.

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Albert Roux’s legacy goes far beyond his food

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Impact of culinary expertise Roux bestowed upon his adopted country cannot be overestimated

Albert Roux, who has died aged 85, did more to encourage and foster Britain’s restaurant sector than any other chef working in the UK. The roll-call of names that passed through the kitchens of his Mayfair restaurant, Le Gavroche, which he opened with his late brother Michel in 1967, is the classic who’s who of the culinary cheffing firmament. It includes Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Pierre Koffmann, Phil Howard, Marcus Wareing and Rowley Leigh, each of whom in turn passed on what they had learned from Albert to so many others.

He was firmly in the business of unapologetic luxury. “We knew nothing of the British indifference to food,” he once told me, of his early years in Britain, “because we had only ever cooked for the rich.” Both brothers had arrived in the country from Paris, as private chefs for the aristocracy, Michel for the Rothschilds, Albert for the Cazalets. It was their employers’ money and contacts that enabled them to launch Le Gavroche.

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Chef and Le Gavroche restaurateur Albert Roux dies aged 85

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Member of Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness, his family has said

The chef and restaurateur Albert Roux has died at the age of 85.

The founder of the Michelin-starred Le Gavroche and member of the Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness.

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Rats besiege New York Chipotle, eating avocados and attacking staff

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Rodents were so brazen that the Upper West Side location closed after the wiring systems were chewed through

As columnist Mary Schmich once said, in life, there are certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, and – I’m going to add one – you can always count on New York for a good old rat story.

Today that story is of the Upper Manhattan Chipotle food chain rats, who have been feasting on avocados and burritos – and, by the sounds of it – disturbed staff.

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The only thing most of us will be wearing this party season is slightly smarter pyjamas | Grace Dent

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‘I’ve given up trying to control anything now,’ I announced last Tuesday while breakfasting on a packet of jelly babies

Food has lost much of its meaning for me. Well, its meanings, to be more accurate. A typical late autumn of eating has its rhythms: shortly after decorative gourd season and past toffee apple weekend (both cancelled due to lurgy), many of us move seamlessly into pre-Christmas hoarding and restraint mode. The hoarding begins with a casually snaffled box of stollen slices or a little bag of Lindt chocolate Christmas tree decorations, chucked into the shopping basket “just to get things started”. Then a shufti around Marks & Spencer’s food hall, where the displays of shortbread in commemorative tin boxes (those nice ones your mother used for her sewing kit) always bring a sense of minor panic that holidays are comin’ and I am unprepared. Begin the lists, open the iCal, commence the slightly terse intra-family emails. Panic!

I do not have a yuletide shopping delivery slot. That dodgy shelf in my chiller will not survive a fortnight of festive season fridge Jenga, and a better woman than me would have made her own figgy pudding by now. But, as I say, the hoarding won’t happen this year. The big Dent jamboree is cancelled. And the restraint – which runs in parallel from about now to late December – is off, too. About now, I generally have in the diary at least two festive gatherings where I envision myself slinking in wearing some frock that will require me to be a bit hungry for at least 22 days and say things like, “No, I love running five miles pre-dawn dodging flashers – it centres me”, and, “Toast is too filling and carby. I’m so happy with this bircher muesli.” The only thing most of us will be wearing this party season is slightly smarter pyjamas.

Life is quite bizarre now that the usual run-up to New Year has been steam-rollered. How empty does late November feel without a low, bubbling, passive-aggressive email chain between siblings about how much room a nut roast takes up in an oven? I feel oddly bereft without any invites to a mock-Bavarian Christmas market where I can drink £8 glasses of glühwein and eat a reheated wurst on the waltzer while listening to David Guetta. This week I noticed the first of the “What to do with Christmas day leftovers” tips and tricks in the papers. The notion of having so many visitors that you might be caught with a glut of food already seems oddly archaic.

Buying, planning and hoping for things to run like clockwork is a mug’s game. The rules are that there are no rules. “I’ve given up trying to control anything now,” I announced last Tuesday while breakfasting on a packet of jelly babies. I think it was Tuesday. It may have been Thursday. The Gregorian calendar feels so meaningless these days. Anyway, each baby was so chunkily delicious, and their pudgy little lightly frosted bellies slid so soothingly down my throat, that they felt momentarily like love and order. This one lemon, yum yum. This one raspberry, schlurp. I rarely ate sweets before the pandemic, but now, in the blur of news about possible vaccines, permanent restaurant closures and the millions of wonderful hospitality workers who will no doubt need to retrain in cyber, they’re the only thing that piques my attention some days.

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Hold the 18-course dinners: Noma’s chef opens up a burger joint

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The team behind the feted restaurant found Danes queued around the block for their pandemic pop-up

It is one of the best restaurants in the world, known for its 18-course tasting menus costing north of £300 per person and for spawning a culinary movement based on foraging for ingredients.

Now the two Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant Noma, run by feted chef René Redzepi, is preparing to open the doors of a new venture: a burger-and-chips joint.

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New furlough scheme may not be enough, say north of England firms

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Covid measures are designed to help businesses forced to close their doors over the winter

Hospitality businesses in the north of England have said they will struggle to survive on the new support package unveiled by the chancellor if they are forced into weeks of local lockdowns.

Carol Ross, the landlady of the Roscoe Head pub in Liverpool, said the new jobs support package- which includes the government paying 67% of employee salaries if businesses are forced to shut down and a further £3,000 a month in cash grants towards other costs – was not enough.

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From cool beans to has-beens? The Covid threat to Britain’s coffee shops

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Why the chains and independents at the heart of Britain’s high streets are in deep trouble

It’s the multibillion-pound industry that kept on growing, based on a bean that Britons couldn’t seem to get enough of: coffee.

Until, that is, the pandemic struck. As is the case with many businesses hit hard by coronavirus, the ubiquitous coffee chains that have powered city centres and high streets across the UK are in deep trouble.

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