Funny Book About a Man With a Beard Who Keeps Food for Later

For Spasia Dinkovski, the early on days of lockdown were a time of opportunity. Having worked for xv years in other people's food businesses, including OFM-favourite Bodega Rita'due south, she decided to focus on her ain, based around perfecting her favourite care for made by her Macedonian grandmother. In August 2020 she launched Mystic Börek: customers would guild her golden, flaky pies, both layered and spiral, over Instagram, so collect from her and her trolley at designated points around London.

By March 2021 Dinkovski had moved into a professional person kitchen and was delivering across London. Nationwide commitment is a piddling mode off, but she has restaurant pop-ups planned outside the capital letter. In the meantime, collaborations with other chefs allow her to twist her Balkan flavours with other cuisines and have some company in the kitchen. "I've been working alone for so long; it's prissy to build a community," she says. Dinkovski continually draws inspiration from how she likes to eat, which means that the Mystic Börek bakes have never been entirely accurate, but earlier this month she went dorsum to her grandmother'southward recipe book for her starting time totally traditional dinner. Called Doma, which ways "abode" in many Slavic languages, the dinner was the first in a series that will celebrate eating seasonally. "I have and then many Balkan customers now," she says. "I really wanted to treat them to a proper slice of domicile." Holly O'Neill

Concluding year, the New York Times published a dumpling recipe by Tony Tan, adapted from his book Hong Kong Nutrient City. Standing in his pantry in rural Victoria, Australia, sorting through vinegars, the chef still seems a little overwhelmed. "I couldn't believe it." To those in the know in his adopted country, Tan is an potency on Chinese and Malaysian food in particular; in contempo years, his reputation has spread and he has plenty of fans among his international peers. "His supper-club at Embla, dorsum when Melbourne hosted the World's 50 All-time Restaurants in 2017, drew all the chefs from around the world to his thunder-tea rice," says Pat Nourse, artistic director of the Melbourne food and wine festival and Tan's friend and champion of many years.

Tony Tan, whose cooking schoolhouse is now open up. Photo: Mario Schembri

Tan was born in Malaysia to a Chinese family who owned restaurants. In the 1970s, he moved to Melbourne to study history, but instead became involved in its food scene. He endemic restaurants, a cooking school, led food tours, appeared on Tv and wrote. In 2019, he moved to Trentham, a 90-minute bulldoze north-west of the city.

His dwelling house is besides the Tony Tan Cooking School, envisaged as a centre for Asian food excellence. The primal space is a low-cal-filled kitchen with a 5-metre island counter that Tan teaches from. The school has only only opened properly and Tan welcomes cooks of all abilities. "Yesterday I had a group of people here who were a bit gung ho, slapping the dumplings effectually," he says. He may encounter people who want help deciphering and refining family recipes, or teach chefs looking to further their skills. "As long as people go home and feel happy and empowered well-nigh what they have learned, and then I've achieved something."

Tan is especially proud of his kitchen garden, especially his ballerina apple tree. The fruit will be used in his classes, mayhap in a Chinese soup. "I want to teach people that Asian food has seasonality, that's close to my centre." For that thunder-tea rice Tan explains that his greenhouse tin't yet tin't grow enough of the tea he needs, so he'll teach his students information technology's OK to use silverbeet or kale.

"I'thou fifty-fifty mad enough to run into if I can abound sesame, but it'south a plant that needs very long summers and I'k 700 metres above bounding main level here – information technology snows," says Tan, laughing at the challenges and possibilities. Holly O'Neill

"Had I washed it as a younger man, it would be a different story," says Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, recalling his contempo experiences as tour director for musicians. "Working with food is more wholesome."

Akwasi Brenya-Mensa's restaurant, Tatale, opens in London in spring. Photograph: Amit Lennon for Observer Nutrient Monthly

Soon to plow forty, Brenya-Mensa spent years on the road with his task, eating his way around the globe from Seoul to Soweto: "Nutrient is an integral part of people's culture and I'd immerse myself. Initially, I'd go on my own, to smaller chef-endemic places and so I'd be able to speak to people. But it became a grouping effort. People would say: 'I looked this up or saw this on Anthony Bourdain.'"

Those adventures fed into the 2019 launch of supperclub Mensa, Plates & Friends. Previously, while running a club and event product company from Sheffield, he launched burger make Juicy Kitchen, which graduated from street food markets to catering at big events. In spring, Brenya-Mensa will launch his offset eating place, Tatale, at London's Africa Eye.

Brenya-Mensa stresses that he is not a chef. Instead, he is a cracking cook and diligent researcher. Juicy Kitchen, he explains, was an exercise in curiosity. "I took a scientific approach experimenting with buns, beef cuts, blends and sauces." Lately, he has worked at Seven Sisters takeaway Waakye Articulation, and James Cochran's 12:51 eatery to proceeds kitchen feel. Brenya-Mensa plans to appoint a head chef while managing the space and overseeing dish and menu evolution.

The London son of Ghanaian parents, Brenya-Mensa's menus will initially focus on contemporary versions of west African dishes, including "red reddish" stew; black-eyed edible bean hummus with cherry-red palm oil and dukkah; and mashed omo tuo rice cakes in peanut nkatenkwan soup. Merely past gradually expanding its menu and hosting themed events and guest chef collaborations linked to the Africa Centre'southward exhibitions, Brenya-Mensa wants Tatale (named after a Ghanaian plantain pancake), to have an ultimately pan-African scope.

"Sometimes I'chiliad awake at night thinking, 'don't fuck this up', just I've been in high-pressure situations most of my professional life," says Brenya-Mensa. "I've got time to make it really skillful." Tony Naylor

Tatale

Later his first taste of a custard apple tree Peigh Asante was so smitten he made everyone try. "I fell in love with them on a trip to Jamaica," Asante says. "Back in London I found some. They cost a fiver each simply I notwithstanding bought them, by and large giving them away. I even took one on a first date, thinking I was being so romantic. I didn't hear from her again."

Peigh Asante and Baff Addae, founders of Trap Fruits. Photo: Pål Hansen for Observer Nutrient Monthly

The fruit didn't lead to love but it did lead to Trap Fruits, a business Asante and his friend Baff Addae founded in early 2020 that delivers fruits such as mangoes, soursop and plantain, aslope "staples" including banana and grapes.

"Information technology wasn't near being an alienating, sectional exotic fruit company but about being inclusive, opening the door," says Asante. "For a lot of people it was their starting time time trying a custard apple or dragon fruit. That was a beautiful feeling."

In 2019 a friend took Asante to a wholesaler to satisfy his fruit cravings more affordably. Their parents made requests for fruit and vegetables, then neighbours and so friends-of-friends. Addae saw the potential and built a website and social media.

Initially they operated from Asante'southward i-bedroom apartment, where he was "climbing over fruit boxes to get to my desk" earlier they took on a storage unit of measurement. At their peak in lockdown they were delivering virtually 100 boxes a calendar week beyond London.

For customers, the draw is convenience. Anyone who'southward spent hours trawling various shops looking for perfectly ripe mangoes, plantain and pineapple volition appreciate the value of someone else doing the legwork and delivering to your front door. Now the business has expanded to catering movie and music sets, but the sense of community on which Trap Fruits was founded remains key, with them donating fruit to struggling families.

Asante says: "Growing up on an estate was my first introduction to customs. People from all backgrounds looking out for ane another. And it's stayed with me." Melissa Thompson

Trap Fruits

George Jephson is, he admits, obsessive about charcuterie. The cheesemonger-turned-fishmonger-turned-butcher developed the passion when he lived in France, trying to perfect techniques shrouded in secrecy to people who weren't French. "It felt similar a finishing school for a butcher," he says. "It encompasses so many of the things I beloved – it practises cypher waste and whole animate being butchery, and you work with incredible ingredients to bring it all together."

George Jephson perfected his technique in France.

In 2018 Jephson started making his ain patés, terrines and cured meats. From butchery to cooking and besides packing, it's laborious work. In line with the products that inspired him, he keeps things traditional. His liver patés are topped with translucent jellies; jambon persille is grass-greenish, with a wobble that melts into toast; terrines balance refined flavours of pistachio and cognac with the funk of pork liver.

Until recently, Jephson delivered his products weekly to homes and some shops, but he volition presently have a new kitchen in London. Once installed, his adjacent projection is mastering saucisson sec, but until then he thinks the product he most enjoys making is paté en croute, while to swallow, information technology's fromage de tete: a terrine fabricated from various parts of the grunter'south head that is complex in texture and season and encapsulates everything he values. "It takes something with footling value to virtually people," he says. "Then enriches it with amazing ingredients, process and technique." Holly O'Neill

Meat Fish Cheese

Built-in and raised in Freetown, Sierra Leone, chef Maria Bradford now lives and works in Kent, where Shwen Shwen, her catering company and food concern selling chilli sauces and a range of traditional Sierra Leonean drinks via mail order is based. Bradford uses social media to highlight her dwelling country'southward food history and civilization. "Sierra Leone's very cadre and nature is fusion. It is a land of many sensations, colours and flavours," she says. "A land of mountains rising from the sea, beautiful beaches, rainforests, mangrove swamps, savanna grasslands, and rivers." Bradford's cooking reflects this.

Maria Bradford: 'Fusion is the core of Sierra Leone.' Photo: Antonio Olmos for Observer Food Monthly

Posts about bittas, egusi, ogirie and gambay bologie served with Eba, her bottled drinkable that blends coconut h2o with Kent lavender and is inspired past the jelly sellers on the streets of Freetown, and how to use black tomblah (AKA blackness velvet tamarind, indigenous to Westward Africa) are evocatively written, fusing modernity and tradition. "Shwen Shwen means fancy, and I decided to take the proper name on every bit information technology's how many of my swain Sierra Leoneans have described my food. I'chiliad keen to show that this food can exist delivered in a fine dining style and still be proudly West African. I certainly feel there is an undeniable warmth from this kind of representation, specially when y'all are so far from home." Her get-go cookbook, Sweet Salone, will be published by Quadrille in 2023. Says Bradford: "The book will encompass everything, from traditional Sierra Leonean cuisine to my Signature Afro-fusion dishes, the country's history, my family's journeying to and from Sierra Leone." Nicola Miller

Shwen Shwen

The pandemic delayed Thomas Straker'south first restaurant, Acre, by two years. Just, in that menstruation, the 31-year-old chef has congenital such an online following (156,000 followers on Instagram, near 200,000 on TikTok) that – judging by how quickly his popular-ups sell-out – information technology could well wing.

Thomas Straker: 'I'm not overcomplicating it.' Photograph: @thomas_straker/Instagram

A chef with a hitherto standard CV – the Dorchester, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Elystan Street – Straker began posting online cooking videos during lockdown, to amuse himself and his 900-ish followers. Momentum built quickly after a friend at online food platform Mob Kitchen helped promote his content and – fast-frontward 20 months – Straker is now writing his commencement cookbook and making, "more than than I could earn as a head chef", from brand partnership work, such as his new gig with Whole Foods.

Straker has obvious amuse and an ability in his brusque, tightly edited reels (miso cabbage, 670,000 views on TikTok; whipped brown butter, ane.2m) to pause heady foods downwardly into quick, key steps and directions. Prior cooking knowledge is assumed (he goes deeper into the recipes and technique on YouTube), simply he says: "It's approachable. I'm non overcomplicating it."

Raised on a smallholding in Herefordshire, Straker'south medium might be modern but his "sustainability, seasonality" mantra is traditional. Stylistically, Acre will deal in modish Italian-inspired dishes: "It's not going to exist a Top-x-hits-of-Thomas-Straker'southward-Instagram. I want information technology to have the credentials of the River Cafe or a Noble Rot; known for its food, not who I am." Tony Naylor

Acre

It is easy to miss Maureen Tyne's kitchen. Information technology operates from her sister's firm, on a south London route connecting Brixton and Herne Hill.

The wiggle pans and coal burners in the yard are a giveaway, but you've got to peek over the brick wall to see them. Unless you're there early enough to catch them in activeness; the smell of jerk chicken stopping yous in your tracks and making you lot long for lunchtime when it's merely 9am. "I'm not a social media person and I don't have a website," says Tyne. "And so it's always been about discussion of oral fissure."

Taught to cook by her grandmother in St Thomas, Jamaica, Tyne moved to Great britain in the 1990s. Her friends loved her cooking and asked if she'd cater for them. She wondered if she could make a living from it and approached businesses in Brixton to see if staff wanted food. "Hairdressers, manor agents, travel agents, you proper noun it. Then other people smelled the food and asked where information technology came from. I'd end up running more food over."

Tyne sells curry chicken, oxtail, back-scratch caprine animal and jerk chicken, plus soups, with cow human foot and jerk pork on Fridays. Her client base is still generally local workers, so she feels the bear upon of economic changes. Customers can merely plough up – if they know where to go. Only await out for the jerk pans. Melissa Thompson

Melek Erdal: 'What's important is the stories behind food.' Photograph: @mels_place_east/Instagram

"If food is a language, you learn how to speak it your own fashion," Melek Erdal says of how she cooks, exploring not only her Kurdish heritage but food from the Middle East and broader Mediterranean. Due north London-based Erdal is a chef and cookery teacher who during the first lockdown shared Instagram recipes to show how to minimise waste matter and gloat staple ingredients. Her lockdown beans continue to get a lot of love. Her baklava racks up the most likes, and occasionally makes appearances at London's Jikoni and Goad, and charity bake sales. The easy recipe saved in her Instagram came virtually when Erdal, who has a groundwork in documentary-making, turned her cameraphone on the adult female who founded Dalston's first 24-hr canteen. That video led to some other "auntie" sharing an even easier recipe. "I realised for me what was important was the stories behind food – that context and provenance fabricated everything tastier," Erdal says, adding that it results in more engagement from her followers, fuelling her want to create a community and share knowledge. "Accessibility is the affair that'due south become most of import to me. I've constitute my vox in what I want to do in nutrient, and my learning ground has been wise women who know the food of the world they come from." Holly O'Neill

Mel's Place East

Think of Yakumama every bit offering respite from the restaurant industry'south frothiest excesses. Function crowdfunded, it opened in Todmorden in 2019 on a budget of simply £30,000 with owners, ex-street-nutrient traders Hannah Lovett and Marcelo Sandoval, pledging to go entirely meat-costless. In spite of, or mayhap because of, those restrictions this Latin American-inspired cantina has found an enthusiastic audience in this increasingly bohemian corner of West Yorkshire.

Hannah Lovett and Marcelo Sandoval at Yakumama. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for Observer Food Monthly

Beyond its ornate 19th-century frontage the blusterous dining room is adequately evidently. In that location are plants. Fine art. Nil showy. It is left to a short, affordable carte (seven or viii sharing plates, £v-£viii) to deliver colour. The Andean-way crisp potatoes with kalamata olive sauce, smoked paprika oil and pickled peppers, topped with a boiled egg, embodies Yakumama'due south imaginative utilise of vibrant sauces and pickles to create astonishing nutrient. An example of what is possible without meat or lots of money. Tony Naylor

Yakumama

A pub that makes you want to live within walking distance. The Bridge Arms, in Bridge outside Canterbury (newly awarded a Michelin star), is the 2d venture of Daniel and Natasha Smith of the splendid Fordwich Arms, who first moved to the village and so took over the inn.

The Bridge Artillery, Canterbury. 'A pub that makes you want to live within walking distance.'

The dining room is busy on a dreich January afternoon, the service is smart and attentive, the decor modern enough to not upset locals. Much of the cooking is washed over Kentish charcoal in a josper oven. From grilled whole monkfish with seaweed butter a chocolate mousse with Snickers ice-cream, this is food to travel for, an hour from London on an away-twenty-four hours train. We'll render in bound, sit exterior. Allan Jenkins

The Bridge Artillery

When the first Carousel closed in September, information technology was the end of seven years of brilliant experimentation in Marylebone, central London. Founded in 2014 past brothers Ollie and Ed Templeton, the "artistic hub" hosted an expertly selected rotating cast of more than 150 chefs including Selin Kiazam, Santiago Lastra, Niklas Ekstedt, Leonardo Pereira, Nuno Mendes, Jeremy Chan, Ravinder Bhogal and Angie Mar. It had been a showcase for chefs who would keep to be stars, and a rare take a chance to sample some of the best restaurants from around the world only a cab ride from abode. Either way, if a dish has been worth eating the chances are it has been on the menu at Carousel.

'If a dish has been worth eating the chances are information technology has been on the carte du jour hither.' Photograph: Carousel

Fans demand not fear. The Templetons have now moved to a new site a mile downwards the road in Charlotte Street. Invitee chefs this year include Rimpei Yoshikawa from Tokyo, Sho Miyashita from Paris, and Pablo Díaz from Guatemala City. They've added a wine bar, also. Carousel is dead; long live Carousel! Ed Cumming

Carousel

Two Viii Seven is a small bakery and neighbourhood hub in Govanhill, Glasgow, set last leap by Sam and Anna Luntley. On offer are iv types of bread baked by Sam (table bread, rye, oat porridge, baguettes) too as sourdough rolls (Anna creates the fillings), plus delicious laminated pastries such equally cardamom and bergamot morning time buns. Anna fills the glass display cabinet and back tables with 25 of her sweet and savoury bakes: from macaroni manus-pies to beremeal brownies, and her ain creations such every bit "lunar cookies" fabricated with locally produced Barebones chocolate and buckwheat flour, topped with chocolate ganache and vanilla buttercream. The shelves are stocked with homemade provisions, locally produced jams, honeys, kombuchas and more.

Anna and Sam Luntley, arts school graduates and bakers. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for Observer Food Monthly

Sam and Anna, both art school graduates, have led collaborations with nearly a dozen artists residing within a ii-mile radius of the baker (their work as well lines the shelves). They also run a popular pay-information technology-frontward scheme, providing dozens of loaves for the nearby People's Pantry and tending to several vegetable grow boxes outside that will end upward supplying customs dinners. Ben Mervis

Two Eight Seven

Fringe & Ginge: 'serene merely friendly.'

In Feb 2020, Olivia Walsh (has a fringe) and Alfie Edwards (red beard) looked around a corner shop behind Canterbury'southward cathedral. Information technology was common cold, the wintertime lord's day beamed through the window, footfall was heavy and the couple from London knew information technology would the perfect site for their first cafe. "I could almost see the counter," Walsh says. They picked upwardly the keys on one March. Three weeks subsequently: lockdown. They roped in a friend to help do their interiors, opened in July, and quickly became part of the neighbourhood. "When nosotros opened, information technology was only locals – no tourists or students," says Walsh, "then we really got to know people." Customers come for the serene only friendly temper, the java – business firm blend from Campbell and Symes and fortnightly rotating filter/retail invitee roasts – Bare Bones chocolate, and a simple menu. "We do all the baking apart from the plain banana bread and the brownies," says Walsh. Swerve those cafe staples and you'll exist rewarded with her more interesting chocolate-tahini banana bread, modish Basque cheesecake and an excellent ginger loaf. Holly O'Neill

Fringe and Ginge

In Venice, chef Bruno Gavagnin spends early mornings inspecting the day'southward grab as it is offloaded at the Rialto market. It is a path well-trodden by this native of Venice who, since 1993, has been proprietor of Osteria Alle Testiere aslope sommelier Luca di Vita. "When people talk of 'market-to-tabular array' restaurants, I take it with a pinch of salt. But Alle Testiere made me feel like I was eating directly from the Venetian lagoon," says restaurateur Russell Norman, co-founder of the Venice-inspired Polpo, almost his first visit. "It was so memorable I went for the post-obit three nights in a row."

Housed in a tiny edifice with infinite for only a few tables, its influence is even so huge. Service is a masterclass in grace under pressure as clattering heaps of razor clams, gnocchi in squid ink, and a sweetly saline ricotta and pumpkin pasta with prawns emerge from a galley kitchen. "It'due south the place I would rather consume and drink than anywhere else in Italy," says Norman who brought Gavagnin and Di Vita to London in 2017. "Or, for that thing, the world." Nicola Miller

Osteria Alle Testiere

Large Counter in Glasgow, named for its lengthy pass, bills itself as a "dinner house", offering a no-frills approach to condolement eating. Chefs John Dawson and Claire Johnston cook their take on the sort of hearty quondam-schoolhouse favourites that would make Keith Floyd or even Ambrose Heath smile with pleasure. "Butter, foam and cheese are our holy trinity," Dawson says.

Good sense of humor and personality is also on the bill of fare: Dawson cooks a glammed-upwards version of his granddad Henry's cocky-dubbed "Steak Henrí" with fantastic thin-cut chips, and the chefs' shared love for choucroute garnie has led to its regular reappearance – it'southward hard to call up of another place to detect this dish outside of an Alsatian dwelling house kitchen. Other recent standouts include a serving of roast mallard with pease pudding and crisps, rarebit gratin and beef and onions with a cheesy aligot mash. It merely opened last summer but Big Counter has already earned a loyal following. Ben Mervis

Big Counter

A few years agone, Sam Buckley, chef-owner at Stockport'southward Where The Light Gets In, rented land on the rural border with Cheshire where his team could grow heritage vegetables. Buckley was living the bucolic dream: "getting your hands in the soil is good."

Or it was until Buckley realised what foes slugs, badgers and foxes could be. Plus there were the hours he lost driving to Marple to weed. A holistic sabbatical from kitchen life became "stressful".

In dissimilarity, WTLGI's latest kitchen garden, the Landing, is a breeze. It's adjacent to the rooftop auto park above Stockport'south Merseyway shopping centre, a short walk from the eating place and a relatively pest-complimentary, stable environs. Here, grower Nick Harlow cultivates, for example, numerous chillies, Andean tubers oca and mashua and "the sweetest" poona kheera cucumbers. "It's 100% exposed, so it's scarlet hot up there," says Buckley. "The greenhouse was 20C [in December]."

The Landing was originally inspired by a 2011 urban farming lecture at Manchester international festival. Recent closures in hospitality and the open up-mindedness of Stockport Council, which owns this 1960s precinct, allowed Buckley time to realise the projection assisted by community gardeners Manchester Urban Diggers.

"In summertime, it's a nightmare," he says, describing the manner the Landing requires the WTLGI team to respond daily to a wealth of produce, with the constantly changing "Landing Plate" or i-offs such as a "Stockport saag" made almost entirely from Landing produce (shisho, spinach, curry leaves). "It was banging simply a huge effort for one night. That's how it changes the cooking."

Much as Buckley sometimes finds all this amusing ("Nosotros're growing lemongrass to a higher place Ann Summers. That'south my punchline to guests."), he wants the Landing, which hosts arts and crafts workshops and gardening days, to illustrate what is possible in urban environments. "Expect what we're feeding people, what you tin can do on a roof and how many abandoned spaces there are," he says. "That'due south the serious function." Tony Naylor

The Landing

BiBi in Mayfair's N Audley Street is an unusual Indian restaurant, even ane backed by the JKS group behind Brigadiers and Gymkhana. Chefs at the pass, banging hip-hop, startling flavours. Simply then Chet Sharma is an unusual chef. A teenage member of Mensa, he has an Oxford PhD in physics and a CV long on thoughtful ii Michelin-starred kitchens, including Mugaritz in San Sebastián, the Ledbury and Moor Hall. He was brought up in Berkshire where his family made their own ghee and yoghurt, and visits to his grandmothers' farms in India taught him to "respect every grain of rice". He did restaurant "stages" [internships] throughout his studies, including at Sketch and Locanda Locatelli.

Chet Sharma, chef-patron at BiBi, London. Photo: Pål Hansen

The Damascene moment, though, was afterward four months of brutal hours at Fera, Simon Rogan'southward eating house in Claridge'south, which airtight in 2018. Exhausted, he fled to his grandmother'south where she cooked him a chutney and sabji from squash. The dish fabricated him weep. He was finally freed from any clumsiness about Indian food. Now, after simply a few months, BiBi'due south a smash. At that place's serious talk of moving to a larger site. Thoughts of other cities, other countries. The Roka/Zuma model. After a slow wait to detect his phonation, chef Sharma's in a hurry. Allan Jenkins

BiBi

Cafe Cecilia: 'Cafes are relaxed and un-cheffy.' Photograph: Ola O Smit

Cecilia, Deco, Lighthaus, Norman's: four of London's most stylish, newish restaurants, all of them cafes. Something about the pandemic seems to take encouraged this nomenclature. A buffet is relaxed. Yous will not be nudged towards a seven-course tasting bill of fare, and at that place volition exist unfussy, un-cheffy dishes to arrange your level of hunger. Norman'south, in Kentish Town, has gone 1 farther and elevated the humble caff – non buffet – menu, with chips, beans, sausages, eggs. A cafe sounds like an all-twenty-four hour period place, where you can finish in for coffee equally well as a decent dinner. It'due south helpful for proprietors trying to maximise revenue, and unthreatening for customers whose wallets have been stretched past the past two years. Ed Cumming

Opened in 1877, the indoor market at Pontypridd was once considered to exist the Great britain'southward nearly profitable market infinite for traders. The Pontypridd Market Company has been Nigel John'southward family business for years and to a not bad extent, private ownership has saved the place. John has a vision: that Pontypridd Market take its rightful place amidst the noted markets of Europe.

The original Victorian market hall is now the Food Hall, home to many businesses selling traditional Welsh food: there are pale wheels of perl wen and caerffili, local butter, Welsh lamb. Handmade faggots and the counter at the Welsh Block Shop is piled high with fat stacks of bara brith. Simply that's not all. Janet's Chinese is regionally famous for its food from the Chinese-Korean democratic province in northern China; Soul Spice'south plant-based carte attracts locals and students; and I particularly beloved The Copper Kettle Caff, which kept me fed dorsum in the early on 1980s when I was a student in nearby Cardiff. Owner Christine Tranter'due south corned beef plate pie remains peerless. Nicola Miller

Past the belatedly 19th century, Porlock Weir in Somerset had become famous for its oysters, farmed in the rich tidal waters at the edge of the Bristol Channel. When the train line from Minehead opened in 1874, they could be sped to London's all-time restaurants to be eaten on the same day.

Oyster farmer Ian Kershaw at Porlock Bay. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt for Observer Food Monthly

In 1890, or so the story goes, jealous fishermen from Colchester and Whitstable sent dredgers round to destroy the Porlock Weir beds. Later on that, there were no more oysters until 2013 when enterprising locals reintroduced them for the first time in a century. The results were spectacular: large, business firm, clean-tasting oysters, the only Pacifics in the UK given a grade A status, meaning they tin exist eaten straight from the sea.

But the business organization ran into trouble. In 2019, an oyster-loving local businessman, Marking Pendarves, and his son George, stepped in. They now sell online all effectually the country, to restaurants and the public.

George, who was working every bit a lawyer in London just relocated with his young family to have on the project. "We love it here," he says. "The beach is on the doorstep, and every day we're doing the kinds of things that in London would have been a special occasion. Business concern-wise the first lockdown was catchy, but nosotros used it as an opportunity to build upward the online concern. It's been going well. I think one of the reasons the oysters taste so good is because information technology's a very depression-intensity agriculture around here, so there isn't much runoff."

The adjacent project is converting an old stable into a store-cum-oyster bar. "I'm excited virtually it," he adds. "If nosotros tin do a adept job it will be a real positive for Porlock." The dredgers won't be able to get at it, either. Ed Cumming

Porlock Bay Oysters

During 2020'south start lockdown Josh Overington, chef-owner at York's Le Cochon Aveugle, realised that afterwards several years of compromising at that place were a lot of things most his restaurant that he hated.

Skate with morel, wild garlic and oxidised wine sauce at Le Cochon Aveugle. Photograph: Esme Mai Photography

Cochon is now a smaller xiv-cover eating house where all guests are simultaneously served a bullheaded menu. The price rose by £10 a head and Overington no longer accommodates any dietary changes. "I idea: 'If it doesn't work, I tin can arraign the pandemic.'"

In fact, Cochon is reassuringly busy. Overington has greater licence to cook freely (increased utilize of rare, short-season produce, exist it sea urchins or walnut wine; more cooking of large meat cuts and fish on the os, for instance whole skate poached in smoked lardo). Fewer seats per service has additional midweek bookings.

Such a reset is not unique. In Chester, plant-based Hypha swapped small plates for a tasting menu format and a four-day week for staff. In Manchester, bar-diner Common dropped its complex menus and brunch and re-emerged later on lockdown as a sustainable pizza joint. Many owners took stock mid-pandemic and to ease workloads, increment creativity or remain feasible, reopened in means which offer customers less choice, including streamlined menus and shorter hours. The days of beingness all things to all people are over, says Overington. "We tin can't be on our knees for the customer. If restaurants don't piece of work for owners, there'due south no future." Tony Naylor

Not long before Christmas, in the midst of frantic meal planning and food shopping, I ordered a box from Wild Radish which promised me a Michelin-star cooking and dining experience with minimum fuss. The box independent the ingredients for a ii-person dish created by top chef Alyn Williams, along with a detailed recipe and a paired bottle of wine. A QR lawmaking linked me to a video of Williams introducing the dish – braised viscid pork belly with puréed and pickled celeriac, walnuts and herbs – which I would be cooking from scratch.

Wild garlic chicken from Wild Radish: 'Allows me to indulge my MasterChef fantasies.' Photograph: Wild Radish

Wild Radish was co-founded by Anthea Stephenson, who had been six years at the River Buffet and headed the kitchen at Polpetto. She began working on the thought before the first lockdown, when chefs everywhere scrambled to reimagine their restaurants equally commitment services. For Stephenson, accessing diners at home was "an opportunity to reach more than people with amazing food, phenomenal ingredients, and to tell a story". Google saw promise in her idea: last year, Wild Radish was chosen as one of 30 Black-led tech startups across Europe to receive money and mentorship from the company's $2m Black Founders Fund.

Any scepticism I had well-nigh paying £77 (or £55 without wine) for the pleasure of cooking my own dinner melted away when I started on Williams's recipe, which was extremely user-friendly, with the ingredients all weighed out in advance, assuasive me to indulge my MasterChef fantasies for an evening. The result was delicious enough to have me looking up other dishes past Wild Radish regulars such every bit Phil Howard and Anna Hansen. As for Stephenson, information technology'due south opened up a world beyond eating place kitchens, though she is still doing some individual cheffing. "That's it," she says. "Non going back to kitchens for the fourth dimension beingness." Killian Play tricks

Wild Radish

Dorset Bluish Vinny was once a staple of West State farmhouses. For centuries, the crumbly blue cheese was made from milk left over once the cream had been skimmed. According to fable, farmers stored their mouldy equus caballus gear nearby to inoculate the milk. But the introduction of the Milk Marketing Board in 1933 meant milk was nerveless and sold wholesale, leaving no leftover skimmed milk.

Dorset blue vinny: crumbly and tasty.

In the 1980s, farmer Mike Davies came across a 300-yr-quondam recipe. He experimented at the family'southward Woodbridge Farm in Dorset'southward stunning Blackmore Vale, and need grew. Today Mike'south girl Emily runs the operation. The cheese has protected geographical indication status, significant it can only exist fabricated there, with milk from their 250 holstein friesians. They don't supply supermarkets, preferring independent shops and selling direct through their website or an on-site vending automobile. Melissa Thompson

Woodbridge Farm

Built to withstand nuclear warfare, the concrete walls of the former RAF Treleaver in Cornwall are a metre thick. They also assist maintain a steady temperature, platonic for the base of operations'southward current purpose: making and storing malt vinegar for the Artisan Vinegar Company. A family unit performance run by Marker and Geoff Nattrass, the company uses Cornish spring h2o and Maris Otter malt (known as the "Rolls Royce" of malts and outset bred in England more 50 years agone) to brand live vinegar which is left to ferment and mature in oak barrels. Information technology makes fish and chips taste like they did in the 24-hour interval when your fish supper came wrapped in paper – total nostalgia. Nicola Miller

Artisan Vinegar Company

Searching for the definitive sausage roll is a life's work. A meaning style station on that journey is on the A6 in Levenshulme: Trove, the original branch of a small concatenation of high-quality Manchester baker-cafes. Opened in 2011, Trove continues to provide moments of revelation, the latest beingness its chorizo sausage rolls. Baker Ruth Gwillim has created a sausage whorl for the ages (without revealing too much: 33% chorizo to 67% sausage meat; French butter pastry; the filling brindled with fennel seeds).

Where most sausage rolls cool and congeal into a stodgy lump, this sings even at room temperature. Is information technology the extra fat? Chorizo's smoky depth? The clever fennel distribution? Why would anyone ever make a plain sausage curlicue once more? Tony Naylor

Trove

For years, this prized byproduct of the jamón industry was rarely seen outside Spain. Now it's flashing up on menus at London's Sabor and Camino, Porta in Chester, Altrincham and Salford and at José Pizarro'due south restaurants. A tender shoulder cut marbled with fat, presa cannot be cured, but flash-grilled to retain its distinctive pinkness it delivers fathoms of flavour. "Better than wagyu and a quarter of the price," declares Porta chef Jose Garzón, who serves presa with mojo verde.

Presa Iberica from José Pizarro the Swan Inn, Esher. Photograph: Adele Audisio

The cut normally comes from free-ranging black Iberian pigs, simply, in York, Skosh chef-possessor Neil Bentinck sources a more affordable version from big white Barnsley-bred pigs. Recently, he has been marinating and barbecuing it and serving information technology with a Thai curry-inspired satay sauce and pickled carrots. Tony Naylor

Called "Old Sober" in its New Orleans habitation, Miss Linda Green'southward ya-ka-mein is rightly famous. Green is known to ladle noodles and a spicy soy-rich broth into a to-go-cup from the back of a pickup, before crowning it with beef, a hard-boiled egg, and concentric rings of greenish onions and hot sauce. Sometimes the beef is replaced with shrimp, oysters, vegetables or duck. Merely don't enquire for extras; ya-ka-mein is perfect every bit information technology is, and Green holds petty truck with those who want to mess with it. "People from all over the globe, they be coming to me," said Greenish in a video nearly her own recipe, which was passed downward orally and has spawned copies all over the urban center. "Anthony Bourdain, he told me I would be able to do something with it …– he loved my old school season. I'm the only ane with that." Nicola Miller

Chef Linda Light-green

"I think you'll like this," said a message from a friend, "it's similar Nigella'southward Marmite spaghetti but even better – creamy, salty, beige carb heaven." There followed a link to Alexa Weibel'southward five-ingredient miso pasta in the New York Times. It comes together in minutes and is a cinch (take the pan off the heat before adding the cheese to make things fifty-fifty easier; vegans should check out Weibel's cashew cacio e pepe on the same site). And it is as rich in savoury rewards as Nigella'due south pasta, or cacio e pepe, but thanks to the triple hit of miso, parmesan and seaweed it delivers even more comforting umami. I've cooked it for people on rainy nights, bare-cupboard nights , in times of heartbreak and spiritual malaise, and for unexpected celebrations. It has never failed to be exactly what was needed. Holly O'Neill

British charcuterie has undergone a renaissance merely older, lesser-known standards deserve their time in the sun besides. Enter manus-slapped haslet, a speciality of Lincolnshire. It is slapped to remove the air before roasting and resembles a solid piddling knoll of pork. "It may not look pretty, but it tastes lovely," says Jane Tomlinson, founder of Redhill Subcontract in Lincolnshire, where gratuitous-range pork from their pigs is used to make their award-winning haslet, cut past mitt.

Haslet from Redhill Farm, Lincolnshire. 'It may not wait pretty, but information technology tastes lovely.'

What should customers new to haslet look for? "It should be a skillful, uneven, handmade-looking meatloaf. Nicely browned all over – and firm." Tomlinson tells me queues form when their haslet is on sale at local farmers' markets. "It'due south such an heady globe to be involved in. Haslet is a fabulous celebration of the old and the new." Nicola Miller

Redhill Subcontract

Nosotros've fallen in love with sedimenty chilli oil of late merely sometimes a less confrontational condiment is needed, one easy to make at dwelling. Enter jump onion oil, used in many Asian countries to add together flavour to meat, soup, noodle and rice dishes. It's a archetype accompaniment to Cantonese poached chicken and at Koya Ko in Hackney "negi" bound onion sauce is served with crisp karaage (fried) chicken, as well every bit spooned over some of London's best noodles. You can observe many recipes online, merely our favourite method is to very finely slice some spring onions, add a piddling minced ginger, soy and white pepper, and place in a heatproof jar. Heat neutral oil, then when it'due south hot, pour over the spring onion mixture. It'll continue in the fridge for a few days, and improves almost whatsoever unproblematic repast. Holly O'Neill

Harry'southward Nut Butter: spicy, salty, sweet – and popular.

When Covid striking, turning his day task as a chef on its caput, Dubliner Harry Colley found an unusual outlet for his pent-upwardly creativity: his ain line of nut butter. It grew out of a delicious batter he'd devised while working at the Fumbally Cafe, a spicy-salty-sweetness peanut butter with paprika, garlic, sesame oil, sugar and a pinch of salt. Sold in a squat jar with a sunny label (featuring a shades-wearing elephant), information technology was hugely popular from the showtime. Now Colley has expanded the range to include cocoa, actress spicy and pure peanut options. Demand has grown too – Harry'due south Nut Butter is stocked all over Ireland and much of the UK, as well every bit in Belgium, France and Spain. Information technology'due south non the only success story to accept emerged from the Fumbally in recent years: the couple behind White Mausua, range of addictive rayu sauces widely available across the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, met while working at the cafe; it also nurtured the talent behind one of Ireland'south best bakeries, Scéal. Dublin's small-batch producer scene is in rude wellness at the moment, and the Fumbally is at the heart of the action. Killian Fox

Harry's Nut Butter

In the early 2000s, Richard Huws was working as a director of photography. On a trip to New Zealand'southward South Island, he was struck by the similarity of the rolling, hilly landscape to his native north Wales. This was one of the most famous wine growing areas in the world; perhaps in that location could be like opportunities at home.

Pant Du Vineyard in the Nantlle Valley has six varieties of vine.

"I thought to myself, if we become another degree of temperature per year, I'll be able to grow wine at home," he says. In 2007 he founded a vineyard on nine acres in the Nantlle Valley, with views of Snowdon. Fifteen years later, Pant Du is thriving; making white, crimson and rosé from six varieties of vines, as well as cider from an orchard of 3,200 apple copse. It'southward 1 of a small number of vineyards in the region: there's also Gwinllan Conwy by Colwyn Bay, and Reddish Wharf Bay over on Anglesey.

The effects of climate change on viticulture are being felt all over the world. For celebrated wine areas it presents a long-term threat only it has provided opportunities in surprising places, too. The rise of sparkling wine from Hampshire, Sussex and Kent has been well documented. Perhaps in time drinkers will refer to the white wines of Snowdonia with the same reverence as meursault. Lloniannau! Ed Cumming

Good beer is essential to Bundobust: Bradford-born owners Marko Husak and Mayur Patel starting time bonded over the emerging craft beer scene of the early 2010s. Its IPAs and sours became the ideal foil for Patel'south food – meat-free Gujarati family unit recipes updated for the street-food generation – equally the duo opened much-loved bar-restaurants in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.

The unveiling last September of a Bundobust brewery-eatery in a grade II-listed Edwardian edifice on Manchester's Oxford Road, a place to pair your okra chips and vada pav with Bundobust'southward own beers, brings that journey full circle. Pandemic delays to this three,500-pints-a-week production line provided breathing room to hone recipes with brewer Dan Hocking. Do non look whatsoever "comical Indian-related beers", says Patel. Bundobust's core range is focused on classic IPA and lager styles. Where Indian spices are used, subtlety is paramount. The coriander in its Dhania pils is a common citrusy addition to Belgian witbier and, dissimilar more flamboyant flavoured stouts, Bundobust's Chaitro porter uses chai spices with restraint. "White pepper and prickly ginger work," says Patel. "It's obvious to lob Indian spices into beer. Doing it clean and balanced is the challenge." Tony Naylor

Bundobust Brewery

Way conscious and happy to spend a few quid enjoying itself, trends often flourish in Leeds. Only for Dave Olejnik, owner of Sarto eating place, the number of local bar-restaurants that accept embraced natural wine – from pioneering Eat Your Greens to supporters Ox Club, Home or Friends of Ham – reflects something deeper: the way the city's tight-knit nutrient scene fosters audacious tastes.

Some venues notice their ain way to biodynamic wine. For instance, the Chateau Gasqui wines served at Owt are made past French owner Esther Miglio's dad. More than widely, says Olejnik, in Leeds the hospitality industry is, "full of people happy to exchange ideas and put in the legwork to present good things to the public – who are open to new takes. The city's geography lets people bounciness between places hands, as well. New ideas are never far abroad."

If one person put in the legwork Olejnik talks of (explaining why natural vino is worth "a couple of quid more"), it is Steve Nuttall. In 2014, Nuttall began listing innovative wines at bar-eating house the Reliance, before launching influential store, distributor and importer Wayward Wines.

To Nuttall, natural wine feels established in Leeds, "beyond being this gimmicky new thing". The informal culture around natural wine, how it is served and talked about, suits the metropolis'due south many ambitious, casual independents: "You go groovy food and vino with good provenance just no stuffy sommelier service making you experience on border. That's how y'all drink those wines in French republic. Non in gastronomic restaurants. It fits." Tony Naylor

Wayward Wines

For years, grape varieties have sat in a rigid bureaucracy. The privileged few, all French, were described every bit "noble". The rest of the world's 1,400 commercial varieties may occasionally take been able to make something "charmingly rustic" they were never allowed to aspire to truly fine wine.

There are ane,400 commercial varieties of grape for wine-making. Photograph: Alamy

Simply now adventurous winemakers seem to be trolling the more conservative parts of the their world by seeking out grapes with the lowest reputation – in some cases actively despised – to prove they can make skilful wines.

This includes Chilean país, Argentinian criolla, Spanish airén, the complete reinvention of carignan and cinsault both in their southern French habitation and in South Africa and Chile. There are even good to very practiced wines made from what were considered the lowest of the low, hybrid varieties, crossings of European and American grapes such as chambourcin, seyval blanc vidal blanc and others in eastern U.s.a., Canada and the Uk. David Williams

In the land of dark-roast java and inky-black espressos, information technology'southward unusual, to say the least, to observe someone producing lighter roasts that emphasise acidity, fruitiness, and other qualities associated with so-called speciality coffee. But that's exactly what Rubens Gardelli has been doing from his roastery in Forli, in northern Italia, with cracking success – he was crowned world coffee roasting champion in 2017. Gardelli sources coffee from around the earth merely he maintains peculiarly close links with east Africa. Try his beguiling Mzungu Project coffee from Uganda or – if it returns to the Gardelli webshop anytime shortly – a stunning Rwandan java chosen Kirambo. Killian Fox

Gardelli Java

Nature wasn't kind to sauvignon blanc last yr. In the spring, producers in New Zealand, the state that has washed most to make the grape variety such a striking in the UK in the past couple of decades, warned of likely shortages after bringing in a vintage that was almost 20% smaller than boilerplate. Fall was worse. Growers in the Loire Valley, the original sauvignon blanc heartland and habitation to famous sauvignon appellations such equally Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, brought in the smallest vintage in xxx years. If you look closely at their labels y'all'll discover some of the big New Zealand brands accept already found alternative sources of sauvignon (Chile, S Africa). But some merchants and supermarket buyers are seeing the shortage as an opportunity to move customers on to other styles with a similar mix of refreshment and aromatic intensity. Footstep forrad Côtes de Gascogne whites from south-west France, verdejo from Rueda in Espana, youthful Austrian grüner veltliner, Greek assyrtiko, perchance, even, at last, the long-promised new dawn of (dry) High german riesling. David Williams

Afterwards 12 years in the army and a career in the prison house service, Nigel Seaman was referred to the Combat Stress organisation and diagnosed with PTSD. With support from Help 4 Heroes, he created the charity Combat2Coffee which works with men at HMP Hollesley Bay training to go baristas at Lansbury'southward Roastery, a roasting house and shop based at the prison. Cafes in Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich provide a coming together place and back up group for veterans and people who have gone through the prison house system although everyone is welcome. Recently Combat2Coffee has begun producing "ration-style" packs of java complete with biodegradable filters. The packs are printed with the contact details of mental health charities.

"Every interaction is an intervention," Seaman says over a bacon roll and coffee fabricated from direct merchandise Brazilian beans imported via Cal's Coffee, whose family farm is the source. The roasting team at HMP Hollesley is vi-strong, including two veterans and "the end-to-end product line enables employees to experience different aspects of the trade," in a working atmosphere designed to be every bit "unprison-like" as possible. "We were talking almost weighing the coffee the other day," he says. "You've got guys at entry-level, educational activity-wise, just it'south not 'simply' coffee. It is numeracy and literacy and learning about the business concern and feeling loyalty to Cal and his family's business, and that'southward where I go a chip excited because you lot can see someone starting to believe they could do this equally a career." Nicola Miller

Combat2Coffee

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/food/ng-interactive/2022/feb/20/50-things-we-love-in-the-world-of-food-right-now

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