Networking

RECENT NETWORKING EVENT WHICH TOOK PLACE AT THE HERITAGE, CASTLE ST, LIVERPOOL.

Here are some of the biggest advantages of networking:

• Strengthen business connections.

Networking is about sharing, not taking • Get fresh ideas • Raise your profile • Advance your career • Get access to job opportunities • Gain more knowledge • Get career advice and support • Build confidence

HERITAGE - Liverpool

Review by Amanda Moss

Heritage is a little gem in he heart of the city and is an eatery you can’t afford to miss. Run by Louise Turner and her partner Terry, who is the head chef, they have succeeded in creating a trendy, chilled out hub offering gorgeous, healthy fresh food platters alongside fantastic company with glamorous hostess and entertainer Cherry Lane. The restaurant is open everyday except Mondays and everyone is made to feel welcome, whether you’re seeking shelter from the cold and are sitting inside on your laptop, or

you’re visiting the city and need a pitstop to fill up on tasty delights. It’s a lovely, friendly vibe and even walking past a few days later to go to meeting, Terry waved and called me over to say hi. I feasted on a generous platter of home made hummus, olive bread, pate, cherry tomato and halloumi skewers and salmon and dill fishcakes. All exceptional. And the platters kept coming! I absolutely must recommend the cured meats with teriyaki greens. Absolutely delicious!! And the pan friend seabags, oh my goodness, it hardly stayed in the platter once served! The juicy sirloin was also a big hit, in fact the whole experience was faultless. Check it out and support a local independent family run business in the heart of the city.

HERITAGE

40 Castle St, Liverpool L2 7LA www.eatarhertiage.co.uk 0151 236 8554

Côte, the UK’s favourite French restaurant today launches its new menu – the biggest evolution of its food in its 15-year history. Designed for guests to discover the excitement and vitality of today’s French cuisine, the menu includes a wider range of exciting vegetarian and vegan options with modern and indulgent spins on classic dishes, alongside new must-try items like the Espresso Martini Crêpe that offer fresh twists on much-loved Côte favourites. The menu created by Côte’s new Executive Head Chef, Steve Allen, previously Head Chef at Gordon Ramsey at Claridge’s, has a firm focus on high quality sourcing and provenance. The signature Côte de Boeuf, hand cut in Côte’s own in-house butchery, will now be seasoned for 30 days in a specially built Himalayan rock-salt ageing room. This new process gives the grass-fed British and Irish beef a deeper, more intense flavour by allowing it to dry slowly and naturally for improved taste and caramelisation during the cooking process. It is served with a decadent, creamy truffle hollandaise sauce, which the restaurant chefs make daily from scratch and a choice of two sides, as well as a ramekin of pink salt for guests to season their meat to perfection. Available now, the menu also includes indulgent vegetarian and vegan dishes, including Côte’s

Celeriac Fricassée. This modern take on a classic French cooking style is firmly rooted in Nouveau

Cuisine and packs a punch of pure flavour. Golden-baked celeriac is paired with creamy haricot blanc purée, sweet, crunchy white grapes, salty mushroom granola – and finished off with braised baby gem, drizzled with a tangy sun-dried tomato paste for maximum impact.

Visit Cote at 51 Paradise St, Liverpool L1 3EU or call 0151 709 8487

GIN

Old Tom Cats ‘n’ Gin

Amongst the many types of gin currently being drunk today, lies Old Tom. There are many explanations for the name but the name probably comes from the wooden ‘Tom Cat’ plaques that used to hang outside public houses and drink houses in 18th Century England. As the government tried to control the excessive flow of gin with strict licensing and high taxes, pubs tried their best ways to avoid them, and there was often a slot under the cat’s paw, to put money in, and as the customer cupped his mouth over the paws, a leadtube would then spout a measure of gin. This old-timey ‘mother’s ruin’, known for its sweeter side, dates to the beginning of the 1800s, when gin drinking and making was rampant in England. There are no real rules to its making although it must include juniper, like any other gin. However, Old Tom gin can be aged—or not. It can have added sugar—or not. And it can use a neutral base spirit—or not. What is understood is that the distilled result falls somewhere between a maltheavy sweet genever and today’s London dry gin. Inspired by the botanical rich and lightly sweetened Old Tom Gins of yesteryear, the House of Botanicals Classic Old Tom Gin was the first spirit from The HoB brand. The gin is sourced from a base gin produced in London; a subtle reference to the history of Old Tom Gin. Its base is a British grain spirit with juniper berries, angelica root, orris root, coriander seed, cassia bark, almond, orange peel and lemon peel creating a truly outstanding dry gin in its own right; rich in piney juniper, citrus and elegant spice. To create the Old Tom style, the gin is then shipped to The House of Botanicals in Aberdeen and macerated with delicate Moroccan saffron and chamomile flowers, as well as a hint of muscovado sugar, before bottling at 47% abv. This is a mighty powerful gin. It has a lovely golden yellow hue, with complex Stanna Wieclawska Kyriakou

and lengthy aroma notes. Gentle floral, fruity and earthy aromas combine well, with spice and juniper also making their presence known. These last two also continue to shine alongside the warm piney flavour notes. Coriander and chamomile follow, culminating in lingering sweet sugared citrus peels. This is long on the palate and fragrant. House of Botanicals Classic Old Tom is a really pleasant gin, mouth watering, with an unmistakable Old Tom sweetness and a little warmth at the end. Personally, I like it with ginger ale but a simple dry tonic also lets this gin shine. A Tom Collins or Martinez would work well as a cocktail. This has appeal to those who do lean towards fruitier sweet gins whilst still being a solid option for those who like classic gins. It’s available as a classic version, a maple and seasonal raspberry.

ENTERTAINMENT Lifestyle columnist and Liverpool Live Radio presenter CLAUDINE HOPE

Hello darlings! Being a showbiz correspondent is a role I absolutely love and whilst I report on the glitz and glamour of musicals, the artistic scripts of plays or the electric atmosphere of a concert, there is also a dark side to the world of showbiz. This is something I found out whilst at the premiere of a new movie called “Billy Smith.” This dark horror movie is the creation of script writer and actor Daniel P Lewis, directed by the talented Joshua Blewitt and Produced by Chris Parrott. The plot is gripping and twisted in all the right ways you would expect a horror movie to be. It features Sharon Byatt who plays best-selling author Elisha Stones, who decides to make a documentary about the ‘The Newton County Killer.’ feared serial killer since Richard Ramirez with close to twenty people falling victim to him, but it is the Melissa Forbes case which sees Billy Smith willingly hand himself in to the authorities.

This movie had me on the edge of my seat chewing on my newly shellac nails. The character Billy Smith is a nasty piece of work and Daniel P Lewis plays the psychopath unnervingly well. The line-up includes Zara Abraham, Keith Hyland, Christian Greenwat, Jodie Barchha Lang. Olivia Sloyan, Amanda Clapham, John May, Tosin Salako and Sean Cronin. Keep your eyes peeled for Billy Smith on your screens later in the year! #billysmith Keeping up with press nights and filming reviews is fabulous as long as I keep up the hair and makeup malarky. I turned to Glamour Dollz Aesthetics based in Mason Anthony, Hall Lane, Liverpool for a few facial tweaks. I had heard complimentary reviews about Jodie Dever from Glamour Dollz so I went to see her for a lift here and there! OMG her treatments were amazing. Jodie is lovely to her clients and listens to your needs to work her magic. I highly recommend her. Instagram: claudine_hope_ See you next month Babes!

Claudine xx

NUPTIAL GROOVES WWW.MYFUNKYWEDDINGDJ.CO.UK Supercalifragilistic Borussia Monchengladbach

Birkenhead indie legends Half Man Half Biscuit were one of two music acts whose collected works played a significant part in preserving my sanity during lockdown in the spring and summer of 2020, the other was vintage American jazz maestro, Slim Gaillard. In gratitude for the preservation of my mental health I thought that the least that I could do in return was to devote this month’s column to the Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral, and to try to bring your attention to the release of their 15th studio album ‘The Voltarol Years’, which came out at the end of February and has a vinyl release planned for July. “The Voltarol Years” is the first on HMHB’s own label, RM Qualtrough. The previous 14, going back to 1985’s “Back in the D.H.S.S” were perhaps the most famous titles to be issued on Liverpool’s own Probe Plus imprint which founder Geoff Davies has now sadly put out to pasture. HMHB are one of if not the only bands who can sell albums to the uninitiated purely on the strength of their song titles alone. Indeed Geoff Davies signed the band to Probe Plus on that very basis after being given a tape by the band. ‘I thought that if the tape was half as good as the titles then I’d want to record this group’. I am not a particular fan of the indie genre but HMHB far exceed the limits of that description. Musically they are a solid four piece unit with particularly English rock sensibilities but lyrically they are in a class all of their own. Nigel Blackwell’s writing is wonderfully witty, dry and surreal. The tone is often earthy and sardonic but always with a rich vein of humanity. They occupy a unique place in British music history and in my opinion they are indeed one of the very best bands that this sceptic isle has ever produced and I cannot recommend a thorough investigation of their wondrous back catalogue highly enough to anyone with ambitions of forming their own band.