Real ale is really different. Following on from our visit to the Fullers Brewery last week, we settle down for a glass and a chat with their head brewer John Keeling
Down in Balham SW12, where cool young professionals are now outnumbering the original old locals, Sam Harrison co owns and runs Harrison’s, a smart restaurant and bar that shows his gift for giving the people exactly what they want and for doing it well.
Richard Bigg, 46, has been described as ‘the grand druid of hip hangouts’. He founded Shoreditch’s ‘Cantaloupe’ bar in 1995 followed by ‘Cargo’, ‘Market Place’, ‘The Big Chill’ and ‘Camino’. He lives in Sussex with his wife and two young children. Douglas Blyde meets him at Camino in Kings Cross, London, in his Observer Food Monthly’s Bar of the Year 2008, over silken octopus, gooey croquettas and succulent veal belly…
The giant sunglasses of the cool clientele are rotated like satellite dishes to the TV screen showing ten-foot tall tennis players. It's not Wimbledon but maybe somewher better, the forecourt of the Bluebird café. Nick Harman asks Chef Mathew Burgess about his service at this Chelsea icon.
Glance left as you drive down the A4 out of London and you can’t help but notice the landmark Fuller's brewing complex. Proving that he can indeed organise something in a brewery, Nick Harman went inside for a better drink, err..look
Our man with a taste for wine Douglas Blyde looks beyond the bubbles in the land of Prosecco. A cheap alternative to champagne? Maybe we've been drinking the wrong stuff