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      ‘Neighbourhood restaurants’ – really? These Instagrammable imposters are nothing of the sort | Lauren O'Neill

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 09:00

    The term evokes cosiness, affordability and community. But it’s being used as a cynical marketing ploy

    What makes a neighbourhood restaurant? The phrase itself is evocative, bringing to mind the types of local trattorias or ocakbaşları or tavernas that punters return to regularly. The definition might vary from person to person, but surely a neighbourhood restaurant is defined by some combination of its longevity in the community, an accessible feel and affordable prices.

    Over the past six months, though, I have seen the “neighbourhood restaurant” label deployed constantly in PR emails previewing a very different sort of establishment. The aim, I imagine, is to evoke a sense of cosiness and community – but there’s something off about it.

    Lauren O’Neill is a culture writer

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      Buried under chicken wings and with cholesterol soaring, I knew I’d had my fill of reviewing restaurants | Corin Hirsch

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 14:00 · 1 minute

    ‘Wait,’ people would say. ‘You get paid to eat?’ Yes, and dining out five times a day was joyful – for a while, at least

    Could I eat another bite? I turned this over in my head as I scanned the passenger seat of my car, piled high with takeaway containers of chicken wings. Being overfull was a familiar feeling in my work as a food critic. That crisp October day, the question was also existential – I had simply reached the end of the road.

    I’d been thrilled to land my job nearly six years earlier at a newspaper covering the 3 million people and 10,000+ restaurants of New York City’s eastern suburbs. I’d grown up on Long Island reading Newsday , an award-winning powerhouse in the 80s and 90s, and years later had returned home for a job I initially loved. Driving hundreds of miles a week, I sometimes ate out four or five times a day as I pursued stories. Ribeye, oysters, cumin lamb, birria tacos – much of it went on my corporate credit card. The hustle was constant but the reward was unearthing under-the-radar places, dishes and people. I also wrote about wine, beer, coffee, and cocktails, which meant rubbing elbows with talented brewers and bartenders.

    Corin Hirsch is a writer who covers food, drink, and travel

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      Not waiting around: Paris’s servers battle it out in revived Course des Cafés

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 5 days ago - 14:53


    Waiters carried in one hand a tray holding a coffee, croissant and glass of water during the 2km race

    Ever complained about the slow service in a Paris cafe or restaurant? Your server may be able to get to your table quicker than they are letting on.

    On Sunday, about 200 of the city’s serving staff donned traditional aprons and white shirts to take part in the revived Course des Cafés (cafe race).

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      Josephine Bouchon, London: ‘Beautifully executed’ – restaurant review

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 5 days ago - 06:00

    They are putting the world to rights here on the Fulham Road, with every classic Lyonnais dish they serve

    Josephine Bouchon , 315 Fulham Road, London SW10 9QH. Starters £8.50-£19, mains £21-£44, desserts £8-£12, three-course menu £29.50, wines from £27

    It starts with a terracotta bowl filled with salty nuggets of deep-fried pork fat. We are in a French bistro, so naturally they have a mellifluous name. They’re called grattons Lyonnais, which sounds like a grade three piano piece, but in truth describes scratchings without the tooth-threatening crunch. Regard them as a culinary declaration of intent. As their name suggests, we are in a restaurant celebrating the cheek-smearing, cellulite-encouraging, winter-challenging dishes of Lyon, where even the local salad comes with a poached egg and thick pieces of fried bacon. Perhaps none of this sounds like your thing. What a shame. I thought we were friends.

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      Pearly Queen, London E1: ‘There will be things you’ve never eaten elsewhere’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 12:00 · 1 minute

    There is two Michelin star-level ingenuity going on here, even when they’re only slinging oysters in the deep-fat fryer or doling out bread

    Pearly Queen , a newish seafood restaurant in east London, refers to the majesty of oysters, though there will be readers, older ones especially, who associate the phrase with those pearly queens (and kings) in suits and dresses festooned with mother-of-pearl buttons. They were always on the telly back in the 1970s, on shows such as That’s Life! and The Good Old Days , belting out Knees up Mother Brown and offering a route back to a golden time when all of London loved jellied eels and the pavements were clogged with folk doing the Lambeth Walk . Pearly Queen, the restaurant, instead takes a regal attitude to the likes of Carlingford Lough and Gallagher Atlantics , and serves them with scotch bonnet hot sauce and lime. It also serves crisp buffalo oysters, which involve dredging Carlingford number twos in panko breadcrumbs, deep-frying them at 190C, then drizzling them with a sauce made with sriracha and clarified butter, and finishing the whole, crisp, jammy, hot, salty mess with ranch dressing.

    Pearly Queen isn’t slap-bang in the middle of Shoreditch’s head-thumping epicentre, but is instead, and rather wisely, down the quieter end, between Aldgate and Spitalfields, and opposite the fantastic pulled noodle spot Xian Biang Biang Noodles and the ever-reliable Sunday lunch spot The Culpeper . Just like chef Tom Brown’s first solo restaurant, Cornerstone , his new place isn’t terribly formal, even if the food is certainly serious. There are no strings of pearls or cummerbunds required, but you’ll definitely need the capacity to eat Cornish brill poached in squid stock and butter, with a potato velouté and white asparagus and dotted with squid ink, or cuttlefish lasagne topped with a 36-month aged parmesan-enriched bechamel.

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      Radical pay-what-you-can restaurant faces eviction from mill it refurbished

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 07:00

    The Long Table says it took thousands of hours of work to turn derelict site into a community space, but landlord has now sold it

    A Gloucestershire restaurant with a radical business model, in that it feeds all comers regardless of their ability to pay, is losing its premises after the owner sold the property.

    The community around The Long Table, featured in the Guardian earlier this month , has been left reeling after it was ordered to move out of the mill it occupies in Stroud – even as it sought to engage with the landlord to buy the building.

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      Michelin hails ‘cultural dynamism’ as 52 French restaurants earn their first stars

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 18 March - 19:42

    One chef receives three stars at first attempt in 115th edition of the French foodies’ bible

    A record 52 restaurants in France – including 23 that only opened in the past year – have been awarded one or more Michelin stars for the first time, which the French foodies’ bible said reflected the “cultural dynamism” of a new generation of innovative young chefs.

    “This year’s is a generous vintage, and also true to our values,” said Gwendal Poullennec, the director of the Michelin Guide , at the launch of its 115th edition on Monday. Well over half of the new laureates were under the age of 40, he said.

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      Right place, long time: what are the secret ingredients that help a restaurant last for years?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 17 March - 13:00


    The Sportsman, Melton’s and Prashad have thrived for two decades or longer. We meet the teams behind these evergreen favourites

    Opened in 1999

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      Richard Corrigan: ‘St Patrick’s is a get together day for humanity. We Irish know how to celebrate’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 17 March - 09:00

    The chef on his childhood on a farm, why his restaurant’s oysters are the best, and how to do St Patrick’s Day properly

    You must – must! – stay inquisitive. It is probably the most important thing: stay inquisitive, like people, and keep knowledge flowing through your ears and your eyes. Listen, read and taste. Keep all that going and And don’t become old, fight ageing.

    I was brought up in a farmhouse in the Irish countryside where there were rabbits, pheasants, butter-making, it was all going on. There was always a wild salmon coming and going into our house. But nobody intellectualised food: it was just food for the table. The smell of bread is the overriding memory: that’s why we make bread for all our restaurants. There’s something about the smell of freshly baked bread in a kitchen: it’s magic.

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