Red, white or green with your meal?

If Chile is still keeping the best wines for themselves, they must be very good indeed because Cono Sur are making some remarkable bottles at a sensible price point. For the money the ones we tried trashed same price wines from other New World producers.

Hooray for the Upper Glasses

Traiteur and chef Franck Pontais won last year’s UK Iron Chef contest, although presumably not with verrines which are not exactly hunky He loves verrines, he even has a book about them, and has popped up with his pop-up Glass Kitchen, as part of Harvey Nicks Taste Lab project.

Butchery in the city

With news of the fourth National Butcher’s Week (13-20th March) arriving in Qin Xie’s Inbox, she had an epiphany. She should, and need to, learn about those cuts of meat by exploring some of the best butchery classes right on her doorstep. After one or two train/tube/bus rides, that is.

Boundary Restaurant, Shoreditch

There’s a fine line, a boundary if you like, between cool and kitsch and in Shoreditch that line is a tightrope. Terence Conran’s Boundary escapes the issue by almost ignoring the Shoreditch vibe altogether. Rather than try and dance with the young ‘uns, TC has created a place that is all him and nothing else.

Chilango!

This busy eat in/takeaway café on Fleet Street belongs to a small chain of four regional restaurants serving up a tasty range of the best Mexican street food. There aren’t many places in the UK where real Mexican food joints like this can be found. Everything is freshly prepared in front of the customers and the chefs are consistently grilling and chopping away in the open view kitchen.

The Great British Food Revival or Dead Air Time?

The latest episode in a show that attempts to resuscitate the lacklustre British palate started with restaurateur and part-time Frenchman Michel Roux exclaiming: ‘I’m Michel Roux and I’m passionate about bread.” From these unpromising beginnings you wonder how Roux is going to make a 30 min programme on bread interesting, and to give him credit, he tries.