You need Flash Player 8 or higher to view video content with the ROO Flash Player.
Click here to download and install it.
Iconic Films
2 for 1 tickets to Singin' In The Rain, this coming Monday. Book now
Navigation - link to other main sections from here
From Times Online
April 18, 2008
Is this England's best restaurant?
The two finalists in the Taste of England awards are in Cornwall and Lincoln. And the winner is.....
Update: the winner of the Taste of England award, announced tonight (Apr 23) is Fifteen, Cornwall (see full list of awards, below left)
The rise and rise of the restaurant scene in London has been well-documented - probably over-documented.
But are we now in danger of being over-run by countryside imitations of these hip capital tratts?
The answer looks very much like yes, if the short-list of restaurants in this year’s Taste of England Awards (known as ‘the Oscars of tourism’) are any indication (the awards are run by the tourist authority Enjoy England).
Related Internet Links
Related Links
Multimedia
For this relatively new category in the nineteen year old awards, the restaurants were judged not only on excellence of service and customer care, but on their food sourcing and environmental policies.
As it turns out, their degrees of commitment in sourcing local, seasonal produce, lowering carbon emissions and reducing waste puts our capital’s glamorous restaurants to shame.
London-based restaurant critics can hype up the city’s pitifully few ‘eco-restaurants’ as much as they like, but media attention in the country, where the real progress is being made, is still as rare as spotted flycatchers.
Take the family-run Strattons Hotel in Norfolk, for instance, where the rare spotted flycatcher really does nest every spring in the rambling rose bushes of the bird-friendly gardens; a lovely thing to spot as you down your breakfast kedgeree of locally smoked fish with poached bantam egg.
Or dine in a majestic 30-bedroom castle at Swinton Park near Ripon in Yorkshire, where the Cunliffe-Lister family has installed a carbon-neutral woodchip boiler and eco-friendly laundry.
More importantly (well, to me), they have restored the original 4-acre walled kitchen garden with its 62 varieties of fruit, vegetables and herbs, and all venison, rabbit, trout and game come from their own estate.
Then there is the cute-as-a-button Parrott Inn, a country pub in the Surrey hills run by Charles and Linda Gotto with lashings of humour, self-belief and wine.
Their veggie garden is pillaged for the pub kitchen and the farm shop is stocked with meats and eggs from their own farm.
Only two of the regional winners made it through to the national finals, and while both have an Italian bent, they could not be more dissimilar.
One is the glamorous media darling that is the working charity Fifteen, set up by Jamie Oliver and the Cornwall Foundation of Promise on the surf beach at Newquay; the other is a small family-run restaurant with a nice taste in folk music in an old bakery in lovely Lincoln.
I decided to find out for myself why these two made the cut out of such a strong field, and to take a stab at who will win the national.
The real winner of The Enjoy England Awards for Excellence 2008 will be announced in Liverpool on Thursday, 23 April.
THE OLD BAKERY, LINCOLN
Okay, so it is an old bakery. But I still didn’t expect the freshly baked bread to be made on the premises every day from flour milled at the local Ellis Mill, powered by wind and volunteers. And I certainly didn’t expect the smell of real espresso coffee in the air, or the sound of fresh pasta being pummelled by the chef in the kitchen.
The charming Italian/English dynamic of the Old Bakery comes from Alan and Lynn Ritson, their daughter Tracey, and her Italian husband Ivano de Serio. They run their business hands-on, doing their darnedest to use and promote local produce and producers, and to feed their lucky customers until they burst (which hasn’t happened yet apparently, but it’s been close).
Dinner in the newly installed glass-roofed, slate-floored conservatory is a friendly, well-paced affair, fuelled by good bread and robust red wine from de Serio’s native Puglia. Peter Lundgren of Branston supplies de Serio with four-month-old Gloucester Old Spot pigs that the chef slow-roasts in hay and herbs for four to five hours, or tea-smokes and turns into a rustic terrine with horseradish jelly. Veggies come from local Craig Benson and the family’s own allotment - I wanted the recipe for the sweet, buttery leeks, but I suspect it is simply to grow them yourself and cook them the day you harvest them.
Servings are generous, and the cheese list is the biggest I have seen – which isn’t necessarily a good thing – but the 18 month old Lincolnshire Poacher on plum bread was a right treat. As broadcaster Gyles Brandreth wrote in the visitors book ‘An eight week waiting list? I’m surprised its not eight years’.
Score: 7 Bulldogs (out of a possible 10 British Bulldogs)
FIFTEEN CORNWALL
Hot damn, this place is buzzing. How on earth do they maintain the air of a laid-back, all-day surfside café while packed like sardines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week?
The large open room is dazzling, with its knockout views of Watergate Bay, colourfully illustrated walls and modern low-level seating. In the open kitchen, the students (in white hats) work next to trained chefs (in black hats) but there are no tantrums and tears as there were on the telly.
The £50 per person dinner tasting menu changes daily, often at the very last minute. There are loads of highlights, among them featherlight potato gnocchi in a glorious Angus oxtail ragu and fresh Cornish brill, pan-fried and served with baby springtime peas and broadbeans in a rich, buttery broth.
According to exec chef Neil Haydock, the restaurant sources 80% of all produce in the south west, spending £500,000 with local food and drink suppliers in their first year alone. ‘We buy whole carcasses of meat’ he says, ‘not only to reduce packaging and food miles, but because the students learn more that way’.
Provenance is not just listed on the menu, but is drilled into the waitstaff. My waiter, Danny, tells me everything but the fish’s shoe size, and that only because I didn’t ask. ‘Your salad was put together by Andrew, one of our trainees’ he says. I wave to Andrew in the kitchen, who blushes. The leaves are beautiful, but Andrew has yet to learn to pinch off the brown stalk ends.
Fifteen has energy, style, self-confidence, great food, wine, cocktails and coffee, and an unbeatable location, even in gale-force winds. It sells itself relentlessly, but how can you take umbrage when it succeeds in its aim to give young people from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance to turn their lives around? Every staff member and student I met sparkled with pride in what they were doing. The place is irresistible.
Score: 8 Bulldogs out of 10.
Fact box:
The Old Bakery, 26 Burton Road, Lincoln Tel 01522 576057, www.theold-bakery.co.uk
Fifteen Cornwall, On The Beach, Watergate Bay, Cornwall Tel: 01637 861000, www.fifteencornwall.co.uk
The Hotel & Extreme Academy in Watergate Bay has a special offer of three nights D, B & B including one dinner at Fifteen from £185 per night. For reservations, tel 01637860543.
ENJOY ENGLAND AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE REGIONAL WINNERS IN THE TASTE OF ENGLAND CATEGORY:
East of England:
Strattons Hotel, Norfolk
South East:
The Parrott Inn, Surrey
West Midlands:
The Bridge @Wilton, Ross on Wye
South West:
Fifteen Cornwall, Watergate Bay, Cornwall
East Midlands:
The Old Bakery, Lincoln
North West:
London Carriageworks, Liverpool
North East:
Oldfields Restaurants, Jesmond
Yorkshire:
Swinton Park, Ripon
The internet lied. Thought we were visiting a gastro delight in Lincoln. Visited a half-baked b&b - noisy IKEA bedroom, with a bathroom in a louvred cupboard, packed with leftover Boots samples. Food: overdone, overmuch. Tick on paper, total disappointment in reality. Visited late March 2008.
Vic, London, United Kingdom
David Cunard, Los Angeles
It is called seasonal produce.
Abby, London, UK
Stunned about the Old Bakery even being shortlisted. My stay yielded indifferent & overly swift service (all 3 courses in under an hour) and a strange habit of serving tonnes of overcooked seasonal veg with everything ordered. And the supermarket smoked Mackerel for breakfast made me sick all day.
Tom, London, United Kingdom
Yes Geoff. England's Best Restaurant in the Taste of England awards. That would be in England.
Michael, London,
Why do the scots always have such a chip on their shoulder? This is the umpteenth time I have seen a scot complaining about an article referring to Britain when it should have referred only to England. Most of the time, as in this case, the Article clearly refers to England in its title...
andrew, bristol, uk
Geoff Lake:
Why not consider reading the title of the article before shouting the odds about Scots inclusion? It is an ENGLISH award. Called the TASTE OF ENGLAND award. Created by VISIT ENGLAND. Cop on, mate. We are allowed some things of our own.
Dan, Aspley Guise, England
Best restaurant in the UK is The Thai Village in Deanshanger, it is fantastic!!!
Adam Webb, Mk, UK
Frankly I would not eat where the vegetables are selected by the chef; for a $100 dinner I expect to be able to chose what I want; £50 should secure an a la carte menu, not table d'hote!
David Cunard, Los Angeles, United States
In Lincoln for a niece's wedding, we needed somewhere near the cathedral and were horrified at the prices charged by the local hotels. Priced for German, American and Japanese tourists apparently. But we did The Old Bakery a restaurent with rooms. What a find!
Lovely people, though we only met Alan, the pleasant but business like owner, and the absolutely charming chef, Ivano. My God can he cook. He's even there for breakfast
Our first night we supped there, not knowing what was to come. We only booked a table because we didn't know Lincoln. As far as I remember: wood pigeon and fillet were my choices; my Hunk had a veggie tart followed by brisket. Nothing could be faulted. A luscious Puglia red helped it all go down. We skipped puddings and concentrated on the port menu.
O and the overnight bit was comfort itself and breakfast was a feast of homemade marmalade, luscious mueslis, porridge, old spot bacon, buttery scrambled eggs and many other wondrous treats.
D Shackell, Newquay,
Britain's best restaurant? The award is clearly restricted to England.
Geoff Lake, Carbost, Skye