Food 2018 – FIAT, Copenhagen

Tuesday, 30th October 2018 – FIAT, Copenhagen On the middle of three nights in Copenhagen I’d arranged to have dinner with a friend who I had only ever met online, Maria. Although she’s Swedish, she works in Copenhagen (we know each other through the online community based around a weight loss website weightlossresources.co.uk, that we…

Food 2018 – White Horse, Kings Sutton

Saturday, October 20th 2018 – The White Horse, Kings Sutton With the increasing shortage of quality restaurants in our area, every so often we strike it lucky, and find a gem. Now that the Roade House, the Vine House and Cameron’s Kitchen are all gone, we need a high-ish end establishment for the more special…

Food 2018 – Hibiscus, Northampton

Saturday, October 13th 2018 – Hibiscus, The Derngate Theatre, Northampton It’s true – if unkind – that when thinking of Northampton the last thing that comes to mind is fine dining, but with the county’s annual food and drink awards coming up in a couple of weeks, and the announcement of the Restaurant of the…

Food 2018 – Game Dinner, Le Gavroche, London

Monday, 8th October 2018 – Game Dinner, Le Gavroche, London I’m a massive fan of Michel Roux Jr and his cooking style, which is basically proper French cooking taken to the extremes of refinement, nothing flash, nothing “molecular”, nothing outré or extreme, just the best possible ingredients, cooked to perfection. However, as a consequence, it’s…

Food 2018 – The Hopping Hare, Duston

Tuesday, 11th September 2018 – The Hopping Hare, Duston This was one we’d been meaning to try for a while, having heard good things about it on the grapevine. There was a rumour the chef had once worked at the late lamented Roade House, and that he was in good form here. We were keen…

Travel 2018 – Hotel Shiskinn, Snovjanka, Ukraine

Tuesday, 28th August/Friday, 31st August 2018 – Hotel Shiskinn, Snovjanka, Ukraine Having spent four days at the hotel, I’m more than a little amused by some of its claims to “Western” service levels and such like, so I’ll try and be fair because if you do find yourself in this part of Ukraine, I suspect…

Food 2018 – The Butcher’s Arms, Greens Norton

Saturday, 18th August 2018 – The Butcher’s Arms, Greens Norton Greens Norton is probably the nearest village to where we live, and the local pub seems to have gone through some interesting times of late, changing hands more than once, before finally being bought by a consortium of villagers, who are now running it as…

Food 2018 – The Crown Inn, Weston

Saturday, August 11th 2018 – The Crown Inn, Weston On a cold, damp Saturday evening (and wasn’t that a shock after the summer it’s been so far) we found our way to the Crown Inn in the tiny, tiny village of Weston, just north of Silverstone. Weston is not exactly famous, with the extent of…

Food 2018 – The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Little Bedwyn

Saturday, August 4th 2018 – The Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire Little Bedwyn is a very tiny village (also spelled Little Bedwin, and also known as Bedwyn Parva), with a population of 250 at the last count. It also has an Iron Age hill fort (Chisbury Camp), a decorated Gothic former chapel (St Martin’s) and…