[slider_pro id="53"] These are the most viewed young&foodish posts of 2013. Click on the slides to link to the respective posts.
London
James Hoffmann Preaches New Gospel at Ace Hotel Coffee Shop
News that the new Ace Hotel in London's Shoreditch would be setting up its resident coffee shop in collaboration with Square Mile Coffee Roasters brought expectations of groundbreaking brewing techniques, cutting-edge gadgetry and barista performance art. But...
#LondonBurgerBash 3: The Movie
#LondonBurgerBash 3 The Movie is a Paul Winch-Furness production shot by Jacob Milligan and Amy Miller at Camden Town Brewery, 28-29 July 2013. The featured competitors were: Paul Clark, The Troll's Pantry James De Jong, Drapers Arms Chris Golding, Apero Zan Kaufman,...
Meet the Burgers – #LondonBurgerBash 4
The six competitors and I are working together at cross purposes in our designs for the November 3-4 @BurgerMonday #LondonBurgerBash at Camden Town Brewery. One look at the menu below and it's pretty clear each chef wants you to love his burger so much that...
Titanic Iceberg sinks MASH Burger
If you told me you were planning to open a swank restaurant two stories below ground level, in a luxury liner of a subterranean space occupied by the ghost of a sunken, 220-seat London restaurant known as Titanic, my response would be: Look out for iceberg! ...
Soho Diner Patties Too Thin to Cook Med-Rare
I ordered my Soho Diner "single" burger with cheese, bacon and egg and asked that it be cooked medium rare. I've put "single" in quotes, as it is technically a double with twin patties. One minute later the waitress returned. The chef had told her the patties were too...
Stracciatella is Burrata Let Loose
There are four states of matter: gas, liquid, solid and stracciatella. I refer not to stracciatella the chocolate-speckled gelato variety, though that too can melt into a border region distinct from the liquid and solid states, but stracciatella the cheese....
#LondonBurgerBash 2: The Movie
Don't be fooled by the footage in Paul Winch-Furness' video of the second @BurgerMonday #LondonBurgerBash, held 7-8 April 2013 at Camden Town Brewery. I suspect Paul edited the video so that amongst 500 participants you see only the ones who don't look too stressed....
BurgerTuesday, not Monday, at Locanda Locatelli
[slider_pro id="49"] At my BurgerMonday pop-up dinners the guest chefs usually prepare up to 20 burgers at a time, no more. Giorgio Locatelli is more demanding. BurgerTuesdays at Locanda Locatelli require more hands and greater concentration: 55 burgers are first...
Fortnum & Mason Online Food Writer of 2013
The messsage engraved under the lid of the silver hamper made it official: I'd been named Online Food Writer of the Year at the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards 2013. I accepted congratulations from television presenter Claudia Winkleman, who was hosting...
Espresso Salvation, 443 FT from British Museum
With a gleaming white La Marzocco FB80 espresso machine for an altar and a pop-up tent for a canopy, barista Gennaro Di Mattia presides on hallowed ground. When the clouds open a path for the sun into the narrow churchyard beside St George's Bloomsbury, his humble...
I’d Rather Wait for My Fish than Have My Fish Wait for Me
I fancy Poppies and it isn't only because of the Collectif retro dress uniforms modelled by the Popettes, as owner Pops Newland calls his fetching, hard-working servers. I have full confidence in how Poppies chooses, batters and deep-fries its fish, both at the...
Top 5 Burger Car Crashes
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Top 10 Fish and Chips in London
When the batter coats a fresh cod fillet in a single layer and the frying time, temperature and oil are right, the fish effectively steams within its crisp golden shell. The hidden treasure – firm, glistening flakes of pearly white cod – distinguishes my picks for Top...
The Best Fish and Chips in London
My quest for the 10 top fish and chip shops in London was initially guided by a host of objective factors: Origin, handling, freshness and shape of the fillets. Cleanliness and temperature of frying fat. Composition and consistency of batter. Cooking time. Draining...
Pizza Good Enough for Rome but not London
What a shame Datte Foco didn't have a more central location. Or a more stylish look. Or a more hospitable welcome for the stroller mums of Stoke Newington. Or more business savvy. Or more of a story to sell to the food media. All it had was superb Roman-style pizza al...
Codsmacked by Fish Bone’s twice-cooked fillet
My punishing quest for the best fish and chips in London hit a new low on a return visit to Fish Bone, a much-praised chippie on Cleveland Street in Central London. At lunchtime there is always a queue. When the young man in a hygienic trilby hat (right) served me the...
The Times of London Names Young&foodish one of 50 Best Food Websites
The Times (of London) has named youngandfoodish as one of the 50 best food websites in a special four-page pullout section published on Wednesday January 30, 2013. Youngandfoodish.com was also singled out as one of 15 sites most loved by foodies....
Taking Your Salt Beef As It Comes
In an era when cured pig back is more chic than caviar and the once prized but hopelessly lean fillet (filet mignon) cut may soon be sold off for scrap it's hard to remember back to a time when fat was a four-letter word. Seek out any good Old English dictionary and...
My Top 10 Posts of 2012
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The Worst Fish and Chips in London
I've never had, nor do I never expect to ever have again, an order of cod and chips as sad as the one served to me today at Kennedy's on Whitecross Street. Certainly not at a London restaurant dedicated to fish and chips. Under a splatter batter the thin fillet had no...
A Pop-Up Tea as Only Nigella Could Do It
[slider_pro id="31"] My November afternoon tea with Nigella for 112 guests at Andrew's Gray's Inn greasy spoon grew out of a May breakfast for two at another caff of sorts, The Wolseley, Piccadilly. Nigella liked my suggestion to do a pop-up, perhaps a...
London Gastropub Bakes Own Bagel, er, Beigel
The eyes of this New York Jew in London didn't make it very far down the dinner specials board at the Canton Arms, a gastropub with serious chops in the Stockwell district, south of the Thames. They read the top line, doubled back and read it again: Smoked Salmon,...
Top 10 Restaurants in London *
* Only-in-London dining destinations recommended to foreign visitors in response to their requests leading up to the Olympics: Dear Daniel, Can you recommend a Michelin-multistarred restaurant in tune with what's exciting in the world of contemporary...
Why a New Yorker Moved to London for Pizza
Why would a leading restaurant critic from New York, a town with outstanding pizza and an ingrained pizza culture dating back over 100 years, move to London, a town with neither, for the pizza? The short answer? I was misinformed. Happily, pizza in London keeps...
Don’t-Miss Tastes of Taste of London 2012
If you wish to give this year's Taste of London restaurant festival a miss rather than pay £24 for the right to pay top £ for small plates of food you eat standing up that's your business. Sorry, complaints about the high admission price are now so old and...
Is The Sea Shell London Legend or London Myth?
Search online for the best fish and chips in London and you're sure to find several first-page references to The Sea Shell of Lisson Grove. Rarely is the praise on review sites so unanimous. Just look at the intros from the toptable.co.uk and timeout.com reviews:...
What’s Better than Toast & Jam?
On a Sunday? Nothing. Nothing is better than toast and jam, if it's slices of the hand-mixed pain de compagne from Ben Mackinnon's E5 Bakehouse that go in the toaster and nearly any combo from Lillie O'Brien's London Borough of Jam spread over 'em. It goes without...
Evening Standard on Days of Young&Foodish
The days of the young&foodish week were the subject of a feature written by Victoria Stewart for the TRENDS section of the London Evening Standard on March 26th. BurgerMonday and SpagWednesday are apparently as fashionable as Mad Men-era plaid jackets;...
Is it Kosher for Mishkin’s Not To Be Kosher?
Most of the grievances from the kibbitzers of Covent Garden boil down to Mishkin's authenticity deficit. The latest theme restaurant to get the Russell Norman touch (think da Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino) is less the great Jewish deli they wished it to be than the...