Folk Art Painting Country Kitchen Illustration Cooking Baking Pie China Cupboard

For Spasia Dinkovski, the early days of lockdown were a time of opportunity. Having worked for fifteen years in other people'southward food businesses, including OFM-favourite Bodega Rita's, she decided to focus on her own, based around perfecting her favourite treat made by her Macedonian grandmother. In Baronial 2020 she launched Mystic Börek: customers would lodge her golden, flaky pies, both layered and spiral, over Instagram, and 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 delivery is a little fashion off, simply she has restaurant pop-ups planned outside the upper-case 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 and so long; it's overnice 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 authentic, merely earlier this month she went back to her grandmother'south recipe book for her first totally traditional dinner. Called Doma, which ways "habitation" in many Slavic languages, the dinner was the first in a series that will gloat eating seasonally. "I have and then many Balkan customers now," she says. "I really wanted to treat them to a proper piece of abode." Holly O'Neill

Last year, the New York Times published a dumpling recipe by Tony Tan, adapted from his book Hong Kong Nutrient City. Continuing in his pantry in rural Victoria, Australia, sorting through vinegars, the chef still seems a fiddling overwhelmed. "I couldn't believe it." To those in the know in his adopted land, Tan is an authority on Chinese and Malaysian food in item; in recent years, his reputation has spread and he has enough of fans among his international peers. "His supper-social club at Embla, dorsum when Melbourne hosted the World's l Best Restaurants in 2017, drew all the chefs from around the world to his thunder-tea rice," says Pat Nourse, creative director of the Melbourne food and wine festival and Tan's friend and champion of many years.

Tony Tan, whose cooking school is at present open up. Photo: Mario Schembri

Tan was born in Malaysia to a Chinese family unit who owned restaurants. In the 1970s, he moved to Melbourne to written report history, but instead became involved in its food scene. He owned restaurants, a cooking school, led nutrient tours, appeared on TV and wrote. In 2019, he moved to Trentham, a 90-minute drive n-due west of the metropolis.

His home is also the Tony Tan Cooking School, envisaged every bit a center for Asian food excellence. The central infinite is a lite-filled kitchen with a 5-metre island counter that Tan teaches from. The school has only just opened properly and Tan welcomes cooks of all abilities. "Yesterday I had a group of people hither who were a chip gung ho, slapping the dumplings around," he says. He may see people who want help deciphering and refining family recipes, or teach chefs looking to further their skills. "Every bit long as people go home and feel happy and empowered nearly what they take learned, then I've achieved something."

Tan is especially proud of his kitchen garden, specially his ballerina apple. The fruit volition exist used in his classes, possibly in a Chinese soup. "I desire to teach people that Asian food has seasonality, that's shut to my heart." For that thunder-tea rice Tan explains that his greenhouse can't yet can't abound enough of the tea he needs, and so he'll teach his students it's OK to apply silverbeet or kale.

"I'thou even mad enough to see if I can grow sesame, simply it's a plant that needs very long summers and I'm 700 metres higher up sea level hither – information technology snows," says Tan, laughing at the challenges and possibilities. Holly O'Neill

"Had I done it equally a younger homo, it would be a unlike story," says Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, recalling his recent experiences equally tour director for musicians. "Working with nutrient is more wholesome."

Akwasi Brenya-Mensa's restaurant, Tatale, opens in London in jump. Photo: Amit Lennon for Observer Food Monthly

Shortly to plow 40, Brenya-Mensa spent years on the road with his chore, eating his way effectually the world from Seoul to Soweto: "Food is an integral part of people's culture and I'd immerse myself. Initially, I'd get on my ain, to smaller chef-owned places so I'd be able to speak to people. Merely it became a grouping try. 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 production visitor from Sheffield, he launched burger brand Juicy Kitchen, which graduated from street food markets to catering at big events. In spring, Brenya-Mensa will launch his kickoff restaurant, Tatale, at London's Africa Centre.

Brenya-Mensa stresses that he is non a chef. Instead, he is a keen melt and diligent researcher. Juicy Kitchen, he explains, was an exercise in curiosity. "I took a scientific approach experimenting with buns, beefiness cuts, blends and sauces." Lately, he has worked at Seven Sisters takeaway Waakye Articulation, and James Cochran's 12:51 eating place to gain kitchen experience. Brenya-Mensa plans to engage a caput chef while managing the infinite and overseeing dish and card development.

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

"Sometimes I'g awake at night thinking, 'don't fuck this up', but I've been in high-pressure situations nearly of my professional person life," says Brenya-Mensa. "I've got fourth dimension to make it really good." Tony Naylor

Tatale

After his get-go taste of a custard apple Peigh Asante was so smitten he fabricated everyone try. "I brutal in dear with them on a trip to Jamaica," Asante says. "Back in London I found some. They cost a fiver each but I nevertheless bought them, by and large giving them abroad. I even took one on a first engagement, thinking I was beingness so romantic. I didn't hear from her over again."

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

The fruit didn't lead to dear but information technology did atomic number 82 to Trap Fruits, a business Asante and his friend Baff Addae founded in early 2020 that delivers fruits such every bit mangoes, soursop and plantain, alongside "staples" including banana and grapes.

"Information technology wasn't nearly existence an alienating, exclusive exotic fruit visitor only about beingness 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 cute 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 then friends-of-friends. Addae saw the potential and built a website and social media.

Initially they operated from Asante's ane-sleeping accommodation flat, where he was "climbing over fruit boxes to get to my desk-bound" before they took on a storage unit. At their tiptop in lockdown they were delivering almost 100 boxes a calendar week across London.

For customers, the draw is convenience. Anyone who's spent hours trawling various shops looking for perfectly ripe mangoes, plantain and pineapple will appreciate the value of someone else doing the legwork and delivering to your front door. At present the concern has expanded to catering flick and music sets, but the sense of customs on which Trap Fruits was founded remains central, with them altruistic 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'southward stayed with me." Melissa Thompson

Trap Fruits

George Jephson is, he admits, obsessive about charcuterie. The cheesemonger-turned-fishmonger-turned-butcher adult 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 love – it practises zero waste material and whole creature 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 own patés, terrines and cured meats. From butchery to cooking and besides packing, it'due south 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 residuum refined flavours of pistachio and cognac with the funk of pork liver.

Until recently, Jephson delivered his products weekly to homes and some shops, merely he will presently have a new kitchen in London. One time installed, his next projection is mastering saucisson sec, but until and then he thinks the product he most enjoys making is paté en croute, while to eat, it's fromage de tete: a terrine made from diverse parts of the pig'south head that is complex in texture and flavour and encapsulates everything he values. "It takes something with little value to almost people," he says. "Then enriches it with astonishing 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 nutrient business organisation selling chilli sauces and a range of traditional Sierra Leonean drinks via postal service club is based. Bradford uses social media to highlight her habitation state's food history and civilization. "Sierra Leone'southward very cadre and nature is fusion. It is a land of many sensations, colours and flavours," she says. "A country of mountains ascension from the sea, cute beaches, rainforests, mangrove swamps, savanna grasslands, and rivers." Bradford'southward cooking reflects this.

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

Posts about bittas, egusi, ogirie and gambay bologie served with Eba, her bottled drink that blends coconut water with Kent lavander and is inspired by the jelly sellers on the streets of Freetown, and how to use black tomblah (AKA blackness velvet tamarind, ethnic to West Africa) are evocatively written, fusing modernity and tradition. "Shwen Shwen means fancy, and I decided to take the proper noun on as it's how many of my fellow Sierra Leoneans have described my nutrient. I'm slap-up to show that this nutrient can be delivered in a fine dining style and nevertheless exist proudly West African. I certainly feel there is an undeniable warmth from this kind of representation, especially when you are so far from habitation." Her first cookbook, Sweet Salone, will be published by Quadrille in 2023. Says Bradford: "The volume will cover everything, from traditional Sierra Leonean cuisine to my Signature Afro-fusion dishes, the land's history, my family'southward journeying to and from Sierra Leone." Nicola Miller

Shwen Shwen

The pandemic delayed Thomas Straker's first eatery, Acre, by two years. But, in that period, the 31-year-quondam chef has built such an online following (156,000 followers on Instagram, almost 200,000 on TikTok) that – judging by how apace his pop-ups sell-out – it could well fly.

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 congenital quickly later on a friend at online food platform Mob Kitchen helped promote his content and – fast-forward 20 months – Straker is at present writing his start cookbook and making, "more than than I could earn as a caput chef", from brand partnership work, such as his new gig with Whole Foods.

Straker has obvious charm and an power in his short, tightly edited reels (miso cabbage, 670,000 views on TikTok; whipped chocolate-brown butter, 1.2m) to intermission exciting foods downwards into quick, key steps and directions. Prior cooking knowledge is assumed (he goes deeper into the recipes and technique on YouTube), only he says: "It's approachable. I'm non overcomplicating it."

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

Acre

It is easy to miss Maureen Tyne's kitchen. It operates from her sis's house, on a s London road connecting Brixton and Herne Hill.

The jerk pans and coal burners in the g are a giveaway, but you've got to peek over the brick wall to run into them. Unless you're there early enough to take hold of them in activeness; the smell of jerk chicken stopping y'all in your tracks and making you long for lunchtime when it's only 9am. "I'thousand not a social media person and I don't take a website," says Tyne. "So it's always been nearly word of mouth."

Taught to melt past her grandmother in St Thomas, Jamaica, Tyne moved to Uk in the 1990s. Her friends loved her cooking and asked if she'd cater for them. She wondered if she could brand 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 upward running more food over."

Tyne sells back-scratch craven, oxtail, curry caprine animal and jerk craven, plus soups, with cow foot and jerk pork on Fridays. Her customer base is notwithstanding mostly local workers, so she feels the impact of economical changes. Customers can just plough up – if they know where to go. Simply look out for the wiggle pans. Melissa Thompson

Melek Erdal: 'What'southward of import is the stories backside food.' Photograph: @mels_place_east/Instagram

"If food is a language, yous learn how to speak it your ain way," Melek Erdal says of how she cooks, exploring non only her Kurdish heritage merely food from the Middle East and broader Mediterranean. North London-based Erdal is a chef and cookery instructor who during the first lockdown shared Instagram recipes to evidence how to minimise waste and celebrate staple ingredients. Her lockdown beans proceed to get a lot of love. Her baklava racks upward the most likes, and occasionally makes appearances at London's Jikoni and Catalyst, and charity broil sales. The easy recipe saved in her Instagram came most when Erdal, who has a background in documentary-making, turned her cameraphone on the woman who founded Dalston'south first 24-hr bottle. That video led to another "auntie" sharing an fifty-fifty easier recipe. "I realised for me what was important was the stories behind food – that context and provenance made everything tastier," Erdal says, calculation that it results in more than engagement from her followers, fuelling her want to create a community and share knowledge. "Accessibility is the thing that's go most important to me. I've plant my voice in what I want to do in food, and my learning ground has been wise women who know the food of the earth they come from." Holly O'Neill

Mel'southward Place East

Think of Yakumama as offering respite from the eating house industry's frothiest excesses. Part crowdfunded, it opened in Todmorden in 2019 on a upkeep of just £30,000 with owners, ex-street-nutrient traders Hannah Lovett and Marcelo Sandoval, pledging to go entirely meat-free. In spite of, or perhaps because of, those restrictions this Latin American-inspired cantina has plant an enthusiastic audience in this increasingly bohemian corner of West Yorkshire.

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

Across its ornate 19th-century frontage the airy dining room is fairly plain. There are plants. Art. Zip showy. It is left to a short, affordable bill of fare (seven or eight sharing plates, £5-£eight) to evangelize colour. The Andean-style crisp potatoes with kalamata olive sauce, smoked paprika oil and pickled peppers, topped with a boiled egg, embodies Yakumama's imaginative utilise of vibrant sauces and pickles to create astonishing food. 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 second venture of Daniel and Natasha Smith of the excellent Fordwich Artillery, who first moved to the village and and so took over the inn.

The Span Arms, Canterbury. 'A pub that makes y'all want to live within walking distance.'

The dining room is busy on a dreich Jan afternoon, the service is smart and circumspect, the decor modern enough to not upset locals. Much of the cooking is done over Kentish charcoal in a josper oven. From grilled whole monkfish with seaweed butter a chocolate mousse with Snickers ice-foam, this is food to travel for, an hour from London on an away-day train. We'll return in leap, sit outside. Allan Jenkins

The Bridge Arms

When the outset Carousel closed in September, information technology was the stop of seven years of brilliant experimentation in Marylebone, central London. Founded in 2014 by 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 go on to exist stars, and a rare chance to sample some of the best restaurants from around the earth only a cab ride from home. Either style, if a dish has been worth eating the chances are information technology has been on the menu at Carousel.

'If a dish has been worth eating the chances are it has been on the menu here.' Photo: Carousel

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

Carousel

Two Eight Vii is a small baker and neighbourhood hub in Govanhill, Glasgow, prepare upwardly last spring by Sam and Anna Luntley. On offering are four types of staff of life broiled by Sam (table staff of life, rye, oat porridge, baguettes) as well as sourdough rolls (Anna creates the fillings), plus delicious laminated pastries such as cardamom and bergamot morning buns. Anna fills the glass display cabinet and dorsum tables with 25 of her sugariness and savoury bakes: from macaroni hand-pies to beremeal brownies, and her ain creations such as "lunar cookies" made 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 Nutrient Monthly

Sam and Anna, both fine art schoolhouse graduates, have led collaborations with near a dozen artists residing within a 2-mile radius of the bakery (their work also lines the shelves). They also run a pop pay-information technology-frontward scheme, providing dozens of loaves for the nearby People'southward Pantry and disposed to several vegetable grow boxes outside that will end up supplying community dinners. Ben Mervis

Two Eight 7

Fringe & Ginge: 'serene simply friendly.'

In Feb 2020, Olivia Walsh (has a fringe) and Alfie Edwards (red beard) looked around a corner shop behind Canterbury's cathedral. It was cold, the wintertime sun beamed through the window, footfall was heavy and the couple from London knew it would the perfect site for their first cafe. "I could nearly see the counter," Walsh says. They picked up the keys on 1 March. Three weeks later: lockdown. They roped in a friend to help do their interiors, opened in July, and speedily became function of the neighbourhood. "When we opened, it was only locals – no tourists or students," says Walsh, "and then we really got to know people." Customers come for the serene merely friendly atmosphere, the coffee – house blend from Campbell and Symes and fortnightly rotating filter/retail guest roasts – Bare Basic chocolate, and a uncomplicated menu. "We exercise all the baking apart from the plain assistant staff of life and the brownies," says Walsh. Swerve those cafe staples and you'll be rewarded with her more interesting chocolate-tahini banana bread, modish Basque cheesecake and an splendid ginger loaf. Holly O'Neill

Fringe and Ginge

In Venice, chef Bruno Gavagnin spends early mornings inspecting the day's catch as it is offloaded at the Rialto marketplace. It is a path well-trodden by this native of Venice who, since 1993, has been proprietor of Osteria Alle Testiere alongside sommelier Luca di Vita. "When people talk of 'market-to-table' restaurants, I take it with a pinch of common 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, about his first visit. "Information technology was and so memorable I went for the post-obit 3 nights in a row."

Housed in a tiny building with space for only a few tables, its influence is nonetheless 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's the identify I would rather eat and beverage than anywhere else in Italy," says Norman who brought Gavagnin and Di Vita to London in 2017. "Or, for that matter, the world." Nicola Miller

Osteria Alle Testiere

Large Counter in Glasgow, named for its lengthy pass, bills itself as a "dinner house", offer a no-frills approach to comfort eating. Chefs John Dawson and Claire Johnston cook their have on the sort of hearty sometime-school favourites that would brand Keith Floyd or fifty-fifty Ambrose Heath grin with pleasure. "Butter, cream and cheese are our holy trinity," Dawson says.

Expert sense of humor and personality is also on the menu: Dawson cooks a glammed-up version of his grandfather Henry's self-dubbed "Steak Henrí" with fantastic thin-cut chips, and the chefs' shared beloved for choucroute garnie has led to its regular reappearance – it'due south hard to call up of another identify to find this dish outside of an Alsatian home 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. Information technology just opened last summer only Big Counter has already earned a loyal post-obit. Ben Mervis

Large Counter

A few years ago, Sam Buckley, chef-owner at Stockport's Where The Calorie-free Gets In, rented land on the rural border with Cheshire where his team could abound heritage vegetables. Buckley was living the bucolic dream: "getting your easily in the soil is expert."

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

In contrast, WTLGI'southward latest kitchen garden, the Landing, is a breeze. Information technology's adjacent to the rooftop motorcar park above Stockport'due south Merseyway shopping eye, a curt walk from the eatery and a relatively pest-free, stable environs. Hither, 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 cherry hot up at that place," says Buckley. "The greenhouse was 20C [in December]."

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

"In summer, it'southward a nightmare," he says, describing the way the Landing requires the WTLGI team to respond daily to a wealth of produce, with the constantly changing "Landing Plate" or ane-offs such as a "Stockport saag" made most entirely from Landing produce (shisho, spinach, curry leaves). "It was banging but a huge endeavor for one dark. That's how it changes the cooking."

Much as Buckley sometimes finds all this amusing ("Nosotros're growing lemongrass above Ann Summers. That's my punchline to guests."), he wants the Landing, which hosts craft workshops and gardening days, to illustrate what is possible in urban environments. "Await what we're feeding people, what you can do on a roof and how many abandoned spaces at that place are," he says. "That's the serious role." Tony Naylor

The Landing

BiBi in Mayfair's North Audley Street is an unusual Indian eating place, fifty-fifty one backed by the JKS group behind Brigadiers and Gymkhana. Chefs at the pass, banging hip-hop, startling flavours. But 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 two Michelin-starred kitchens, including Mugaritz in San Sebastián, the Ledbury and Moor Hall. He was brought upwards 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 eating house "stages" [internships] throughout his studies, including at Sketch and Locanda Locatelli.

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

The Damascene moment, though, was after four months of brutal hours at Fera, Simon Rogan'south eating house in Claridge'southward, which closed in 2018. Exhausted, he fled to his grandmother's where she cooked him a chutney and sabji from squash. The dish made him cry. He was finally freed from any clumsiness about Indian nutrient. Now, later on simply a few months, BiBi's a blast. There'due south serious talk of moving to a larger site. Thoughts of other cities, other countries. The Roka/Zuma model. After a deadening expect to observe his voice, chef Sharma'due south in a hurry. Allan Jenkins

BiBi

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

Cecilia, Deco, Lighthaus, Norman'southward: four of London's near stylish, newish restaurants, all of them cafes. Something about the pandemic seems to have encouraged this nomenclature. A cafe is relaxed. You will not be nudged towards a 7-class tasting carte du jour, and there volition be unfussy, un-cheffy dishes to adjust your level of hunger. Norman's, in Kentish Town, has gone one further and elevated the humble caff – not cafe – bill of fare, with fries, beans, sausages, eggs. A cafe sounds similar an all-day place, where you tin cease in for java as well as a decent dinner. It's helpful for proprietors trying to maximise revenue, and unthreatening for customers whose wallets have been stretched by the past two years. Ed Cumming

Opened in 1877, the indoor market at Pontypridd was once considered to be the UK'south most profitable marketplace space for traders. The Pontypridd Market Company has been Nigel John's family business organization for years and to a not bad extent, individual ownership has saved the place. John has a vision: that Pontypridd Market take its rightful place among the noted markets of Europe.

The original Victorian market hall is at present the Food Hall, dwelling house to many businesses selling traditional Welsh nutrient: there are stake 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. Just that's not all. Janet's Chinese is regionally famous for its food from the Chinese-Korean autonomous province in northern China; Soul Spice's plant-based card attracts locals and students; and I especially beloved The Copper Kettle Caff, which kept me fed dorsum in the early 1980s when I was a student in nearby Cardiff. Possessor Christine Tranter'south corned beefiness plate pie remains peerless. Nicola Miller

By the belatedly 19th century, Porlock Weir in Somerset had get famous for its oysters, farmed in the rich tidal waters at the border of the Bristol Aqueduct. When the train line from Minehead opened in 1874, they could be sped to London'south all-time restaurants to be eaten on the same 24-hour interval.

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. After 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, firm, clean-tasting oysters, the only Pacifics in the UK given a grade A status, meaning they can be eaten straight from the bounding main.

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

George, who was working as a lawyer in London but relocated with his young family unit to take on the project. "We love it hither," he says. "The embankment is on the doorstep, and every day we're doing the kinds of things that in London would have been a special occasion. Business-wise the first lockdown was tricky, but we used it equally an opportunity to build up the online business. Information technology's been going well. I think one of the reasons the oysters taste then skilful is because it'due south a very low-intensity agriculture effectually hither, so there isn't much runoff."

The next project is converting an erstwhile stable into a shop-cum-oyster bar. "I'grand excited about it," he adds. "If we can do a practiced chore information technology volition be a real positive for Porlock." The dredgers won't be able to get at it, either. Ed Cumming

Porlock Bay Oysters

During 2020's first lockdown Josh Overington, chef-owner at York'due south Le Cochon Aveugle, realised that afterward several years of compromising there were a lot of things near his eatery that he hated.

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

Cochon is now a smaller 14-comprehend restaurant where all guests are simultaneously served a blind menu. The price rose by £x a head and Overington no longer accommodates any dietary changes. "I thought: 'If it doesn't piece of work, I can arraign the pandemic.'"

In fact, Cochon is reassuringly busy. Overington has greater licence to cook freely (increased use of rare, short-flavor produce, be information technology sea urchins or walnut vino; more than cooking of large meat cuts and fish on the os, for case whole skate poached in smoked lardo). Fewer seats per service has boosted midweek bookings.

Such a reset is not unique. In Chester, establish-based Hypha swapped small plates for a tasting menu format and a 4-day week for staff. In Manchester, bar-diner Common dropped its complex menus and brunch and re-emerged afterward lockdown equally a sustainable pizza joint. Many owners took stock mid-pandemic and to ease workloads, increase inventiveness or remain viable, reopened in means which offering customers less choice, including streamlined menus and shorter hours. The days of being all things to all people are over, says Overington. "We tin't exist on our knees for the client. If restaurants don't work for owners, there's no future." Tony Naylor

Not long earlier Christmas, in the midst of frantic meal planning and nutrient shopping, I ordered a box from Wild Radish which promised me a Michelin-star cooking and dining feel with minimum fuss. The box independent the ingredients for a two-person dish created by meridian chef Alyn Williams, along with a detailed recipe and a paired canteen of wine. A QR lawmaking linked me to a video of Williams introducing the dish – braised sticky pork abdomen with puréed and pickled celeriac, walnuts and herbs – which I would exist cooking from scratch.

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

Wild Radish was co-founded past Anthea Stephenson, who had been six years at the River Cafe and headed the kitchen at Polpetto. She began working on the idea earlier the first lockdown, when chefs everywhere scrambled to reimagine their restaurants as delivery services. For Stephenson, accessing diners at home was "an opportunity to achieve more people with amazing food, phenomenal ingredients, and to tell a story". Google saw promise in her idea: last yr, Wild Radish was chosen as ane 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 about paying £77 (or £55 without vino) for the pleasance of cooking my own dinner melted away when I started on Williams's recipe, which was extremely convenient, with the ingredients all weighed out in accelerate, allowing me to indulge my MasterChef fantasies for an evening. The result was succulent enough to have me looking up other dishes by Wild Radish regulars such equally Phil Howard and Anna Hansen. Every bit for Stephenson, it'southward opened upwardly a world beyond restaurant kitchens, though she is nonetheless doing some private cheffing. "That'south it," she says. "Not going back to kitchens for the time being." Killian Pull a fast one on

Wild Radish

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

Dorset bluish vinny: crumbly and tasty.

In the 1980s, farmer Mike Davies came across a 300-year-old recipe. He experimented at the family's Woodbridge Farm in Dorset'southward stunning Blackmore Vale, and demand grew. Today Mike's daughter Emily runs the functioning. The cheese has protected geographical indication status, meaning it can only be made 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 machine. Melissa Thompson

Woodbridge Farm

Congenital to withstand nuclear warfare, the concrete walls of the former RAF Treleaver in Cornwall are a metre thick. They also help maintain a steady temperature, ideal for the base's current purpose: making and storing malt vinegar for the Artisan Vinegar Company. A family operation run by Mark and Geoff Nattrass, the company uses Cornish jump water and Maris Otter malt (known as the "Rolls Royce" of malts and offset bred in England more than 50 years ago) to make live vinegar which is left to ferment and mature in oak barrels. It makes fish and chips taste like they did in the day 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 piece of work. A meaning fashion station on that journey is on the A6 in Levenshulme: Trove, the original branch of a small-scale chain of high-quality Manchester bakery-cafes. Opened in 2011, Trove continues to provide moments of revelation, the latest being its chorizo sausage rolls. Bakery Ruth Gwillim has created a sausage roll for the ages (without revealing too much: 33% chorizo to 67% sausage meat; French butter pastry; the filling peppered with fennel seeds).

Where most sausage rolls cool and congeal into a stodgy lump, this sings even at room temperature. Is it the extra fatty? Chorizo'south smoky depth? The clever fennel distribution? Why would anyone ever make a plain sausage coil again? Tony Naylor

Trove

For years, this prized byproduct of the jamón industry was rarely seen outside Kingdom of spain. Now information technology'due south flashing up on menus at London's Sabor and Camino, Porta in Chester, Altrincham and Salford and at José Pizarro's restaurants. A tender shoulder cutting 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 ordinarily comes from free-ranging blackness Iberian pigs, but, in York, Skosh chef-owner Neil Bentinck sources a more affordable version from large white Barnsley-bred pigs. Recently, he has been marinating and barbecuing it and serving it with a Thai curry-inspired satay sauce and pickled carrots. Tony Naylor

Called "Old Sober" in its New Orleans home, Miss Linda Green's ya-ka-mein is rightly famous. Greenish is known to ladle noodles and a spicy soy-rich broth into a to-go-loving cup from the back of a pickup, before crowning it with beefiness, a hard-boiled egg, and concentric rings of green onions and hot sauce. Sometimes the beef is replaced with shrimp, oysters, vegetables or duck. Just don't inquire for extras; ya-ka-mein is perfect every bit it is, and Greenish holds little truck with those who want to mess with it. "People from all over the world, they exist coming to me," said Light-green in a video well-nigh her own recipe, which was passed down orally and has spawned copies all over the metropolis. "Anthony Bourdain, he told me I would be able to practise something with it …– he loved my one-time school flavour. I'one thousand the only ane with that." Nicola Miller

Chef Linda Green

"I retrieve you lot'll like this," said a message from a friend, "it's like Nigella's Marmite spaghetti but even ameliorate – creamy, salty, biscuit carb sky." There followed a link to Alexa Weibel's five-ingredient miso pasta in the New York Times. It comes together in minutes and is a sure-fire (have the pan off the heat before adding the cheese to brand things even easier; vegans should check out Weibel's cashew cacio e pepe on the same site). And information technology is as rich in savoury rewards equally Nigella's pasta, or cacio e pepe, but thanks to the triple hit of miso, parmesan and seaweed it delivers even more than 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 exist exactly what was needed. Holly O'Neill

British charcuterie has undergone a renaissance just older, lesser-known standards deserve their time in the sun likewise. Enter hand-slapped haslet, a speciality of Lincolnshire. It is slapped to remove the air before roasting and resembles a solid little knoll of pork. "Information technology may not look pretty, only information technology tastes lovely," says Jane Tomlinson, founder of Redhill Farm in Lincolnshire, where free-range pork from their pigs is used to make their award-winning haslet, cut by hand.

Haslet from Redhill Farm, Lincolnshire. 'Information technology may not look pretty, but it tastes lovely.'

What should customers new to haslet look for? "Information technology should be a good, uneven, handmade-looking meatloaf. Nicely browned all over – and firm." Tomlinson tells me queues form when their haslet is on auction at local farmers' markets. "Information technology's such an exciting world to be involved in. Haslet is a fabulous celebration of the old and the new." Nicola Miller

Redhill Farm

We've fallen in love with sedimenty chilli oil of late but sometimes a less confrontational additive is needed, one piece of cake to make at home. Enter spring onion oil, used in many Asian countries to add season to meat, soup, noodle and rice dishes. It'south a classic accompaniment to Cantonese poached chicken and at Koya Ko in Hackney "negi" bound onion sauce is served with crisp karaage (fried) chicken, as well as spooned over some of London'due south best noodles. You tin find many recipes online, just our favourite method is to very finely slice some spring onions, add a picayune minced ginger, soy and white pepper, and place in a heatproof jar. Heat neutral oil, and then when it'southward hot, pour over the bound onion mixture. It'll keep in the refrigerator for a few days, and improves nearly any simple meal. Holly O'Neill

Harry's Nut Butter: spicy, salty, sweetness – and popular.

When Covid striking, turning his day job every bit a chef on its head, Dubliner Harry Colley found an unusual outlet for his pent-up inventiveness: his own line of nut butter. It grew out of a succulent concoction he'd devised while working at the Fumbally Cafe, a spicy-salty-sweet peanut butter with paprika, garlic, sesame oil, carbohydrate and a pinch of salt. Sold in a squat jar with a sunny label (featuring a shades-wearing elephant), it was hugely popular from the commencement. Now Colley has expanded the range to include cocoa, extra spicy and pure peanut options. Demand has grown too – Harry's Nut Butter is stocked all over Republic of ireland and much of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, as well equally in Belgium, French republic and Spain. It's non the only success story to have emerged from the Fumbally in recent years: the couple behind White Mausua, range of addictive rayu sauces widely available across the UK, met while working at the cafe; it also nurtured the talent backside ane of Ireland's best bakeries, Scéal. Dublin's pocket-sized-batch producer scene is in rude health at the moment, and the Fumbally is at the heart of the action. Killian Fox

Harry'southward Nut Butter

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

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

"I thought to myself, if we get some other degree of temperature per year, I'll be able to grow wine at abode," 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, red and rosé from vi varieties of vines, as well equally cider from an orchard of 3,200 apple copse. It's one of a minor number of vineyards in the region: there's besides Gwinllan Conwy by Colwyn Bay, and Red Wharf Bay over on Anglesey.

The effects of climatic change on viticulture are being felt all over the earth. For historic vino areas it presents a long-term threat only it has provided opportunities in surprising places, too. The ascent of sparkling wine from Hampshire, Sussex and Kent has been well documented. Peradventure 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-built-in owners Marko Husak and Mayur Patel start bonded over the emerging craft beer scene of the early on 2010s. Its IPAs and sours became the ideal foil for Patel's nutrient – meat-free Gujarati family recipes updated for the street-food generation – as the duo opened much-loved bar-restaurants in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.

The unveiling last September of a Bundobust brewery-eating house in a grade Two-listed Edwardian building on Manchester's Oxford Road, a place to pair your okra chips and vada pav with Bundobust'due south own beers, brings that journeying full circle. Pandemic delays to this 3,500-pints-a-week production line provided breathing room to hone recipes with brewer Dan Hocking. Exercise not wait whatsoever "comical Indian-related beers", says Patel. Bundobust's cadre 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, different more flamboyant flavoured stouts, Bundobust's Chaitro porter uses chai spices with restraint. "White pepper and prickly ginger piece of work," says Patel. "It's obvious to lob Indian spices into beer. Doing it make clean and balanced is the claiming." Tony Naylor

Bundobust Brewery

Mode conscious and happy to spend a few quid enjoying itself, trends often flourish in Leeds. But for Dave Olejnik, possessor of Sarto eating place, the number of local bar-restaurants that have embraced natural wine – from pioneering Swallow Your Greens to supporters Ox Gild, Dwelling or Friends of Ham – reflects something deeper: the manner the metropolis'south tight-knit nutrient scene fosters adventurous tastes.

Some venues find their ain way to biodynamic wine. For instance, the Chateau Gasqui wines served at Owt are made by French possessor Esther Miglio's dad. More than widely, says Olejnik, in Leeds the hospitality manufacture 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 urban center's geography lets people bounciness between places easily, too. New ideas are never far away."

If 1 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 list innovative wines at bar-restaurant the Reliance, before launching influential shop, distributor and importer Wayward Wines.

To Nuttall, natural vino feels established in Leeds, "beyond being this gimmicky new thing". The breezy culture effectually natural wine, how it is served and talked about, suits the metropolis's many aggressive, casual independents: "You get great food and vino with skillful provenance merely no stuffy sommelier service making you lot feel on edge. That's how y'all drink those wines in French republic. Not in gastronomic restaurants. It fits." Tony Naylor

Wayward Wines

For years, grape varieties have saturday in a rigid hierarchy. The privileged few, all French, were described equally "noble". The balance of the world's 1,400 commercial varieties may occasionally accept been able to make something "charmingly rustic" they were never allowed to aspire to truly fine wine.

There are 1,400 commercial varieties of grape for wine-making. Photograph: Alamy

But now audacious winemakers seem to be trolling the more bourgeois parts of the their world by seeking out grapes with the everyman reputation – in some cases actively despised – to bear witness they tin make skillful wines.

This includes Chilean país, Argentinian criolla, Spanish airén, the complete reinvention of carignan and cinsault both in their southern French domicile and in Due south Africa and Chile. There are even good to very practiced wines made from what were considered the everyman of the depression, hybrid varieties, crossings of European and American grapes such as chambourcin, seyval blanc vidal blanc and others in eastern Usa, Canada and the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. David Williams

In the land of dark-roast coffee and inky-blackness espressos, it's unusual, to say the to the lowest degree, to find someone producing lighter roasts that emphasise acidity, fruitiness, and other qualities associated with so-chosen speciality coffee. Simply that'due south exactly what Rubens Gardelli has been doing from his roastery in Forli, in northern Italy, with peachy success – he was crowned earth coffee roasting champion in 2017. Gardelli sources coffee from around the world but he maintains particularly shut links with east Africa. Try his beguiling Mzungu Project java from Uganda or – if information technology returns to the Gardelli webshop anytime soon – a stunning Rwandan coffee called Kirambo. Killian Fox

Gardelli Java

Nature wasn't kind to sauvignon blanc final year. In the spring, producers in New Zealand, the land that has done most to brand the grape variety such a hit in the UK in the by couple of decades, warned of likely shortages afterward 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 dwelling house to famous sauvignon appellations such as Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, brought in the smallest vintage in 30 years. If y'all look closely at their labels yous'll discover some of the big New Zealand brands have already constitute alternative sources of sauvignon (Chile, Southward 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. Step forward Côtes de Gascogne whites from southward-due west French republic, verdejo from Rueda in Spain, youthful Austrian grüner veltliner, Greek assyrtiko, perchance, even, at concluding, the long-promised new dawn of (dry) German riesling. David Williams

Afterwards 12 years in the regular army and a career in the prison service, Nigel Seaman was referred to the Combat Stress system and diagnosed with PTSD. With back up from Help 4 Heroes, he created the charity Combat2Coffee which works with men at HMP Hollesley Bay training to become baristas at Lansbury'due south Roastery, a roasting house and shop based at the prison. Cafes in Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich provide a coming together place and support 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 coffee complete with biodegradable filters. The packs are printed with the contact details of mental wellness charities.

"Every interaction is an intervention," Seaman says over a bacon roll and java made from direct merchandise Brazilian beans imported via Cal's Coffee, whose family farm is the source. The roasting team at HMP Hollesley is six-strong, including two veterans and "the end-to-finish production line enables employees to experience different aspects of the trade," in a working atmosphere designed to be as "unprison-like" as possible. "We were talking about weighing the coffee the other 24-hour interval," he says. "You've got guys at entry-level, education-wise, but it'southward not 'simply' coffee. It is numeracy and literacy and learning about the business and feeling loyalty to Cal and his family unit's business, and that's where I go a bit excited because you tin can meet someone starting to believe they could practise this as 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