Crumbs Bath & Bristol - Issue 98

CRUMBS NO.98 FEBRUARY 2020

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From the kitchens of our favourite foodies

spleNDid btaonish recipES cthhilel

A little slice of foodie heaven CRUMBSMAG.COM

N o.9 8 F ebruary 20 20

What do you get if you cross a duck with some grain?

Quacker oats!

FaiRTraDE OR Fair TraDE?

FORwARd

DrINkINg WHAt

WHAt IT REaLLy mEAns

wiLL be 2020’s TOp TIPPLE? BOOze pros teLL aLL

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(ANd how IT aFFects OUr EATIng)

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EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO OAT

THIS WINTER

Melissa Hemsley Gives our kitchen habits an eco-overhaul

Frome

INDEpENDENT Plus!

Dos Dedos Grey’s Brasserie New Moon on the Quay

TakES us INsiDE THe wORkshops OF local fOOdie makERs

ROCK THE OAT It’s been refreshing, in 2020, to see less of the usual focus on punishing diets and gym regimes that tend to permeate the media and online space at the start of each year.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’ve just developed some form of selective awareness as, for me, January and February are all about comfort food and finishing off the Baileys that I over-stocked on for Christmas. But I’m not convinced that’s entirely the case.

Yes, I’m acutely aware of the need to nudge myself back onto the culinary straight and narrow, but I concluded a long time ago that the already arduous trudge through the end of winter is made even more miserable by denying myself joy – of which food a key bearer.

Of course, Dry January and Veganuary are bigger than ever (previous Veganuary records have been smashed, with more of us signing up in the first week of January than have ever done so in the entire month), but it seems as if we’re coming at these New Year oaths from a more considered angle, and making them more achievable and sustainable for our shivery, daylight-deprived selves.

Our Hero Ingredient this month, then, is all about keeping full and satisfied, getting plenty of good stuff on board and maintaining serious levels of comfort. Whether you like oats in your porridge, bread or crumble topping, they’ll see you right this February.

Get your oat, you’ve hulled

Jessica Carter, Editor jessica.carter@mediaclash.co.uk

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Available at selected Butcombe pubs throughout January and February.

Explore our pubs and book a table now: www.butcombe.com/pubs

TA B LE O F CO NTE NTS

WHAT SUP? 33 THE DRIP FEED New low-booze sips 34 TRENDSHIP What will we be drinking in 2020? We ask the experts...

KITCHEN ARMOURY 40 IN THE STUDIO Behind the scenes with local foodie artisans 47 THE WANT LIST Handmade must-haves

ISSUE 98 FEBRUARY 2020

MAINS

EDITOR

JESSICA CARTER jessica.carter@mediaclash.co.uk

STARTERS

DEVELOPMENT EDITOR

08 HERO Oat meals 12 OPENINGS ETC News from the local food scene

MATT BIELBY matt.bielby@mediaclash.co.uk ONLINE EDITOR

DAN IZZARD dan.izzard@mediaclash.co.uk

CHEF!

ART DIRECTOR

TREVOR GILHAM

20 Kid meat tagine,

by James Whetlor 22 Salmon rillettes,

by Rob Clayton 24 Crab with apple,

by Mitch Tonks 26 Almond and lemon cake,

by Elly Curshen

ADVERTISING MANAGER

CLAIRE HAWKINS claire.hawkins@mediaclash.co.uk ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE

LOUIS GREY louis.grey@mediaclash.co.uk PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGER

SARAH KINGSTON sarah.kingston@mediaclash.co.uk PRODUCTION DESIGNER

GEMMA SCRINE gemma.scrine@mediaclash.co.uk

ADDITIONAL RECIPES

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

JANE INGHAM jane.ingham@mediaclash.co.uk CHIEF EXECUTIVE

GREG INGHAM greg.ingham@mediaclash.co.uk large version

MediaClash, Circus Mews House, Circus Mews, Bath BA1 2PW 01225 475800 mediaclash.co.uk

50 FAIR CONDITIONING What does ‘fair trade’ mean, and why should we be looking for it?

54 GRILLED We quiz Melissa Hemsley on running a greener kitchen

large version

AFTERS 60 Dos Dedos 62 New Moon on the Quay 64 Grey’s Brasserie

66 LITTLE BLACK BOOK Pat Powell, co-founder of Swoon, shares her favourite food and drink haunts

11 Oat and coconut granola,

by Freddy Bird 11 Proper porridge,

by Freddy Bird 17 Creamed corn with naan,

by Jessica Elliott Dennison 57 Spicy sprout noodles,

by Melissa Hemsley

© All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without written permission of MediaClash.

MediaClash reserves the right to reject any material and to edit such prior to publication. Opinions are those of individual authors.

Printed on paper from a wellmanaged source; printer is certified to ISO 14001 environmental management.

This month we cooked up Anna Shepherd’s pea and mint samosas – and would urge you to do the same (recipe on the Crumbs website). We also had a team outing to The Mint Room in Bath, where we put good manners aside and fought over the last hunk of seabass in the sharing feast.

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Lighter styles of red are going to have their moment this year, say the experts

STA RT ERS

INNOVATIONS, REVELATIONS AND TASTY AMUSE-BOUCHES

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AN EVENING WITH MARTYN WILLIAMS MBE

YOGA BRUNCH CLUB

Rugby-loving food fans, do we have the event for you.

International player-turnednational team manager Martyn Williams will be in Bath hosting a fine-dining evening in the Dower House Restaurant at The Royal Crescent Hotel and Spa on the eve of the 2020 Six Nations.

Tickets are £125 and include Champagne, canapés and a wine flight. royalcrescent.co.uk

Because you’re worth it

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FLAVOURS OF NOYA’S KITCHEN Noya Pawlyn of Bath’s Noya’s Kitchen will be cooking up a special four-course Vietnamese menu at Harvey Nichols in Bristol. After cocktails and nibbles, guests will tuck into authentic South East Asian dishes like beef broth with brisket, lemongrass, beef balls and rice noodles, spiked with lemongrass and chilli oil. Tickets £35 – contact the Second Floor Restaurant to book. harveynichols.com

Now we’re in the depths of winter, we could do with a little pick-me-up. Whether for you that’s about culinary indulgence, foodie inspiration, or physical activity (followed by a feed, of course), there are plenty of events to treat yourself to this month

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BEER AND CHEESE TASTING EVENING Bristol Brewery School will be celebrating the match made in heaven that is beer and cheese on this special tasting evening at New Bristol Brewery. Five craft beers will be selected to match five French Alpine cheeses from Slate and Wedge. Tickets £30. bristolbreweryschool.co.uk

Take some cheese, add some beer, et voila! There you have the perfect February evening 7 CRUMBSMAG.COM

These popular events, fusing yoga practice with great food, are back for 2020. This month’s will be at the Left Handed Giant brewpub at Finzels Reach, with food provided by Mission Pizza.

Tickets are £26 and include an hour-long yoga class up on the new top floor of the pub, a couple of beer or kombucha samples, and a buffet-style vegan and vegetarian brunch. Book online. yogabrunchclub.com 1 2 F E B RUA RY

TALKS AND TASTES: BETTINA’S VEGAN KITCHEN Hear food writer and author Bettina Campolucci Bordi talk at Topping and Company about her new book 7 Day Vegan Challenge and how, with a bit of meal planning, she believes that going plant-based for a week can not only be achievable and stress-free, but that it can be chuffing delicious, too. Tickets are £15 and include the book. toppingbooks.co.uk 1 4 F E B RUA RY

VALENTINE’S MAGIC Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is opening its doors after dark for a special viewing of its Do You Believe in Magic? exhibition. You’ll get fizz and a two-course meal of specially curated sharing boards, featuring the likes of fig and goat’s cheese focaccia and pulled pork bonbons with apple ’slaw, in Wills Hall. Tickets are £37.50 (£15 without the meal). bristolmuseums.org.uk

You’ll never guess who the world’s biggest oat producer is (spoiler: it’s not Scotland)

Hero Ingredients

OATS

A true Highland hero, oats make for the ultimate winter breakfast – and much more besides…

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S T A R T E R S

liver Twist’s gruel, that watery delight of the Victorian workhouse table, never sounded particularly appealing in the book – but make it a bit thicker, and add the sort of fun toppings (nuts, seeds, frozen berries, slices of banana or drizzles of honey) that cruel beadle Mr Bumble never dreamed of, and you suddenly get delicious creamy porridge. Much more appetising!

A happy blank canvas, keen to be paired with everything from soaked dried fruits to a dusting of grated coconut, porridge is perhaps the simplest and most painless of all the so-called superfoods, a hug-in-a-bowl that’s plenty good for us too.

Though it can be made from wheat, barley or even rice, porridge is classically – and most popularly – an oat dish; especially favoured in Scandinavia, Germany and the Englishspeaking world, it powered the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, was served in British prisons so often it became slang for doing time, and has been found preserved in the stomachs of 5,000-year-old Neolithic bog bodies. Once considered a poor man’s food – in England oats were “generally given to horses,” Samuel Johnson wrote, “but in Scotland support the people” – they’ve become one of the mainstays of the modern diet, credited with everything from aiding weight loss to helping with a plethora of ailments, common and uncommon. The humble oat, it turns out, is one of the great health foods of the 21st century.

Oats weren’t domesticated particularly early – by cereal standards. Their wild ancestors from southwestern Asia and the Mediterranean evolved alongside all the other grasses tens of millions of years ago, but the cultivated versions came rather later than your wheat and your barley, proving particularly well suited to windier, less fertile landscapes where other grains refuse to grow. Happy with cool, wet summers, they became a staple crop in Russia (still the world’s biggest oat producer, by the way) and further barren, northern extremes – most famously, of course, the west coast of Scotland. (Sure, the Scots actually grow plenty of wheat and barley in their more fertile easterly regions too, but oats really come into their own on the chilly, sodden and windswept Highlands and Islands.)

Generally harvested in late summer or early autumn but available all year round, oats – despite their increasing popularity – remain something of a specialist taste in a world context; we grow ten times as much corn, rice and wheat as we do oats, and even barley and sorghum are more popular globally.

As food, oats tend to come rolled – dehusked, steamed, squished into flat flakes then lightly toasted – or, less often, steelcut; also known as ‘Scotch oats’, this version skips the steaming process, meaning the end result takes way longer to cook than rolled oats, but offers a greater depth of flavour that connoisseurs swear by. The texture makes them especially good in the stuffings so essential to classic Scottish dishes such as haggis, too. Both ‘rolled’ and ‘Scotch’ are a type of oatmeal – almost a very coarse flour – that forms the backbone of granolas and mueslis as well as porridge, plus baked goods from oatcakes to snack bars.

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The second-largest oat-growing countries? Canada and Australia, obvs

S T A R T E R S

Alternatively, oats can be ground into a much finer flour for bread-making – though it’s of limited use as it has no rise, and so usually requires baking powder and wheat flour to make it work. (The resulting dense loaves have their fans, though.) Oat flour can make useful noodles too, while traditional pasta-like oat flour rolls remain a staple food in China’s Shanxi province to this day.

More recently, oat ‘milk’ has become one of the more popular dairy substitutes, but oats have actually long been used in an assortment of drinks: oat malt stout, say, or the largely forgotten oatmeal caudle, a sort of hot, spiced and boozy drinking porridge.

It was given to invalids, expectant mothers and bridegrooms on their wedding nights – anyone who had to keep their strength up, basically – and was loved by everybody from Queen Victoria to Oliver Cromwell.

Why are oats so popular? For a start, they contain beta-glucans, a soluble fibre that slows down the absorption of carbohydrates into the bloodstream; this slower digestion means you avoid dramatic spikes in blood sugar or insulin levels, which encourage the body to produce and store fat and that you get with so many foods. The result? You stay fuller for longer, making oats a great food if you want to lose weight – especially if you sweeten them with raisins rather than sugar, which also take time to digest.

But there’s more. Oats are nutritious and gluten-free too, a rich source of magnesium, key to both energy production and relaxing the blood vessels, thus regulating blood pressure and reducing the risk of strokes and heart attacks; studies suggest they lower cholesterol and reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, as well.

Slow-cooked porridge is the most creamy, while you can soak oats overnight for a no-cook breakfast

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In medicine, meanwhile, oats have been credited with all sorts of virtues over the years, being a popular treatment for everything from osteoporosis to menstrual cramps, depression to diarrhoea. Oat extracts, meanwhile, soothe skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis, while oat straw – usually tied in a muslin bag – was a traditional way of softening hard bathwater.

Basically, you can’t lose with oats – unless, that is, you’re prone to gout or, especially, cold sores. The arginine, an amino acid, in oats can exacerbate these badly, though there’s an easy (and equally of-the-moment) breakfast food fix. Step forward, the lysineheavy avocado.

Buying oats is cheap and easy – they’re available all year and keep well in cool, dark places. (This prevents them from going rancid, which is a danger thanks to their relatively high fat content.)

Prepping them can be painless too; soaked in water or milk overnight to plump and soften the grain, they can actually be eaten raw. For most of us, though, simply microwaving for three or four minutes, again in water or milk, is preferred. Alternatively, slow cook oats on the hob: this might be more laborious but – as fans will tell you – it makes them creamier. A little salt is said to enhance the flavour, but these days it’s the rare Scot, even, who doesn’t prefer their porridge sweet.

Of course, though, porridge is not the only way to go.

For an alternative winter-friendly Scottish breakfast, try oat pancakes with smoked fish or poached eggs and bacon. In summer, a thick oat and Greek yoghurt smoothie, blitzed with bananas, berries or honey, is a great way to start the day.

Away from the breakfast table, oats are great in sweet treats – crumbles and flapjacks, cakes and muffins – and though savoury dishes are less their natural home, oats make a great thickener for soups or, toasted, a tasty addition to winter salads.

(Indeed, a crunchy oat coating for chicken or white fish adds delightful sweetness and crunch, and there are plenty of dishes where you can swap in oats for other grains too: try them in a risotto instead of rice, for instance.)

Great through this all is, big oaty brekkies are where it’s at. Fill yourself up with a Brobdingnagian bowl at breakfast, and you’ll feel little need to snack throughout the day; whereas portion control is something of a no brainer with most foods, it’s with porridge that you can throw caution to the wind. Stuff yourself early, and graze on far less later in the day. If there’s a better quick-and-easy weight loss tip than that, we’re waiting…

R E C I P E

Hero Ingredients

For Freddy Bird, oats are all about brekkie (and the occasional fruit crumble), so he’s got two morning meals for us this month…

When it comes to oats, I’m hard to please.

Be it granola, flapjacks, muesli or porridge, I very rarely enjoy them made by others.

There can be countless reasons, but most frequently it comes down to the lack of salt and fat. Don’t kid yourself – if you’re eating really tasty granola or porridge it usually has lots of fat! If you want low fat, eat muesli or bircher. I quite like bircher but I don’t wear sandals...

Here are two breakfast recipes that make the most out of oats. There is honestly no better way to eat porridge than this – I haven’t always eaten it this way, but I will never go back!

FULL-FAT GRANOLA SERVES 20 (ISH) 100ml vegetable oil 250g honey 250g maple syrup 400g oats 300g pumpkin seeds 160g flaked almonds 50g sesame seeds 100g blanched hazelnuts, roughly chopped 200g flaked coconut 1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

2 Mix all the ingredients except the coconut in a bowl with a large pinch of salt until everything is well coated in the oil, honey and maple syrup. Spread the mix evenly across a baking tray (or two if it seems a little crowded). Bake until golden all over, stirring at regular intervals.

This should take about 25-30 minutes, although some ovens may vary – try to use your eyes as opposed to a clock.

3 On a separate tray, toast the coconut flakes in the oven ’til golden. (These need to be kept separate as they tend to brown much quicker than the other ingredients.)

4 Mix in the coconut flakes and allow to cool. Pack the granola into tubs or jars, but not until it’s cold, else it will go soggy.

Enjoy with Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit.

Or, at this time of year, poached rhubarb.

PORRIDGE SERVES 1 50g porridge oats (don’t go cheap – you get what you pay for) 100ml water 100ml milk large knob salted butter dark muscovado or coconut sugar, to taste 1 Combine the oats, water and milk in a pan with a pinch of salt. Cook over a moderate heat to your desired consistency. (I can’t tell you how you like it, only you know – and you can’t mess with the way someone eats breakfast!)

2 Finish with a large knob of salted butter (or, even better, cultured butter), pushed half beneath the surface. Sprinkle the sugar over the top and wait for it to melt before eating.

Freddy is owner and chef at Little French in Bristol; littlefrench.co.uk

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Openings etc We like a side of coffee and cake with our people-watching

The box every Ready Steady Cook contestant dreams of

GOLDEN TOUCH

Have you heard? Bristol has set out its intention of becoming a gold-standard Sustainable Food City by the end of this year. Currently holding the silver award, it’s looking to develop its food systems to benefit not only the city and its residents but also the planet. A ‘Going for Gold’ campaign has been launched and is calling for all local people and businesses to get involved and pledge their intentions for eating better.

There are prizes up for grabs for those who do, too – think a Good Sixty voucher, Reg the Veg fruit box and wasteminimising products from Zero Green. Just visit the website to register the actions you are taking (or plan to take) for improving your eating habits. goingforgoldbristol.co.uk

CUP WINNER North Street in Bristol has itself a contemporary new café and coffee shop. Sweven is the creation of long-time hospitality pros Jimmy and Aga Dimitrov, and is all about serving thoroughly great coffee sourced from the top-drawer farmers and roasters that the pair have built relationships with throughout their years in the trade. (Before this, Aga was head trainer at Boston Tea Party and Jimmy was head of education at Clifton Coffee Roasters.) Visitors will find two filter varieties and two espresso-based options on offer at any one time, with some rotating varieties. Fresh pastries and home-baked cakes (courtesy of Aga) are also on the go, and there’s a real focus on service, Jimmy tells us, with the coffee shop built on the couple’s love of hospitality. swevencoffee.co.uk

HEARD IT ON THE GRAPEVINE A wine-drenched hangout has opened in Bradford-on-Avon. Leanne Oliver is the person behind Cru Wines – a welcoming, unintimidating shop and lounge. There’s a varied and intriguing collection of around 200 vinos here, which staff are on hand to help navigate you through. The bottles, which are hand-picked with strict ethical principles in mind, are available to take away or to drink onsite, and there are eight available by the glass, too. And yes, before you ask, there is food on the go as well, in the form of cheese and charcuterie platters. Look out for the monthly group tasting events, as well. cruwines.co.uk This new wine lounge is doing grape things...

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S T A R T E R S

ASK YOUR WAITER Look, it’s Benjamin Mitrofan-Norris, owner and front-ofhouse hero at The Nordic Café

It’s been a long time in the making for Bristol’s Mowgli

CORN STAR

Indian street food restaurant Mowgli will soon launch in Bristol on Corn Street. The group, which has 10 other outfits across the UK, aims to serve the kind of authentic dishes that Indians would eat at home or on the go from street vendors. In fact, the menu at Mowgli is comprised

entirely of dishes from founder Nisha Katona’s family recipes.

There’s no chicken tikka masala here (it just ain’t a thing in India), but if it’s a comforting curry you’re after, the butter chicken is the real deal, with a rich, sweet, spiced tomato and yoghurt sauce.

Expect a casual vibe with big, bold flavours and a buzzing atmosphere at this fun new venue, set to open in the spring. mowglistreetfood.com

CALL TO MIND KR I S HA L L

The new project started life as a photography series

Working in professional kitchens is a tough gig. Chefs often work long hours in uncomfortable environments while under huge pressure, which can make maintaining positive mental health a real challenge. Having worked closely with the hospitality industry for eight years through his food supplier and photography business, Kris Hall set up The Burnt Chef Project to highlight mental health issues in the industry and develop a

support network. On the 27 January, the Bristol Old Vic will host the city’s first Burnt Chef event, aimed at educating hospitality pros about mental health while also offering practical tips on how to help manage it in the workplace.

Tickets to the meetup are £10 and proceeds will be put towards subsidising a two-day mental health first aid training session for a group of hospitality staff later in the year. theburntchefproject.com

So, when did you open the café? March 2019 And what were you working as before? A copywriter and journalist for luxury industries.

What do you like most about working in hospitality? I’ve always had a passion for great food and drink and I really love trying out new recipes and getting that instant feedback from customers. Plus, our regulars are great.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt since starting this business? That there is little rhyme or reason to how any particular day will go. Some days will be incredibly busy, other days, eerily quiet – and there’s no knowing why.

What do you love most about running your own café?

Working with my wife, and actually doing the thing we first talked about years ago.

Tell us about the concept of the café. It’s a small, ferociously independent Scandinavian bistro, serving various dishes from Northern Europe and homemade cakes.

Who does the cooking?

Alexandra does all the cakes, I do all the savoury stuff. I can bake bread, but baking pastries and cakes requires a very special type of genius.

What are the bestselling dishes at the moment?

We were amazed at how popular the loaded potato pancakes (a dish I picked up in an ex-communist worker’s canteen in Riga) were. We also sell a lot of herring – as is right and proper!

What’s new and exciting at the café? We’re about to launch a

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new menu of medicinal teas, which we’ll be bringing over from Europe.

What sort of customers do you get? A proper mix, which is exactly what we wanted.

There’s also a surprisingly large Finnish community in Bristol, and (thankfully) they strongly approve.

What makes the restaurant a special place to visit?

I like to think we serve healthy, fresh, imaginative food which is faithful to its roots and inspiration, at prices which are accessible and realistic.

Plus, we play great jazz all day, every day.

So, imagine you were a customer today. What would you order? I’d go for a herring smørrebrød – a fillet of pickled fish on dark rye bread with mustard sauce, salads, and homemade pickles and ferments. It’s the breakfast of champions.

What do you think makes great customer service?

If you enjoy your work, like people, and have real enthusiasm for what you’re serving, that’s always going to shine through. Customers can sniff out inauthenticity a mile off.

Where have you visited locally where the customer service was excellent? Kask. I was bloody delighted when they opened over the road.

Finally, where do you like to eat on your days off? I’ve been going to Souk Kitchen pretty regularly since they opened, and I’ve never eaten something there I didn’t absolutely love. facebook.com/thenordiccafe

S T A R T E R S

HIP SHOPS NEWTON FARM FOODS

What: Fresh vegetables, fruit and other locally made larder staples Where: Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BT When: Mon-Sat 8.30am-5pm; Sun 9am-4pm

elia and Hugh Gay founded this shop in an 18th-century barn on their tenanted Newton St Loe farm back in 2006. It was the product of a period of turning tides for farmers, the couple realising that the survival of their business would depend on it becoming more diversified.

The shop as we know it today developed gradually, beginning with Hugh selling their beef, door to door, in 2000 before going on to develop an on-site butchery. Once established, the farm shop quickly took off, and seeing the demand for a café, the pair built one in the disused milking parlour.

Hugh and Celia’s son Josh returned to the farm in 2015 after studying agriculture at university, and grew the livestock to include

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sheep and pigs alongside the herd of cattle.

(These days, the farmyard itself has relocated nearby, but you can still see some happy piglets bounding about in paddocks here.)

“We’re very proud of all our livestock,” says Celia. “But in particular our herd of pedigree South Devon cattle – a large native breed, known for its distinctive ginger colour and great mothering.”

Specialising in grass-fed, free-range meat, Celia tells us that the animals here are outside, grazing, whenever the weather allows. It’s this meat that’s sold in the onsite butchery and served in the café, keeping food miles down and traceability and transparency high.

Newton’s farming methods don’t just benefit the animals and the end product, though – there are environmental advantages too. This is perhaps a lesser-discussed perk of traditional, ethical livestock farming.

“Our grazing animals have a huge part to play in the conservation of the historic Newton Park, contributing to the biodiversity of this grassland, along with the grass being a valuable carbon sink,” explains Celia.

At the butcher’s counter, you’ll find all kinds of cuts of meat and homemade bangers and burgers – all from the farm’s animals. Takeaway meals, made by Newton’s chefs for cooking at home, were recently launched too.

It’s not all about the meat, though; crops like barley, wheat and linseed are all produced on the farm, and there’s a colourful array of local fruit and veg at the shop, as well as grocery items like bread, dairy and coffee. You’ll even find a selection of homeware, like Cabanaz’s retro-look crockery.

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Newton Farm Foods: a small shop that’s big on sustainability and ethics

For anything that can’t be produced onsite, the team choose third party makers with a very particular set of standards. New to the shelves are Nutcessity’s organic and vegan nut and seed spreads, and Crumbs Award-winning lavosh flatbread from Step and Stone, for instance.

While diversifying has boosted the farm, it’s still a tough industry, notes business development manager Roz Golding.

“We are experiencing stiff competition from key supermarkets, who have the space and purchasing power to buy in large quantities and are therefore able to offer highly reduced prices.

“We feel that our main challenge is to drive home the message that products such as meat are not like-for-like. It’s questionable whether supermarkets are sufficiently transparent in their claims of origin and traceability. It’s also doubtful that some meats sold in supermarkets provide the depth of flavour and tenderness that comes with products that have been slowly grown and gently matured.”

And, well, you don’t get to admire happy piglets chomping on veg scraps down your local supermarket aisle, do you?

newtonfarmfoods.co.uk

S T A R T E R S

IIn T he Larder

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Spruce up your shopping basket with some curveball additions – we have just the suggestions for you...

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Munchy Seeds, 79p/25g Whether you’re a snacker with a sweet tooth or are all about the savoury, this new range of flavoured seeds – including honey roasted, chilli and lime, and even salted caramel – might just have something for you to keep those hunger pangs at bay. It’s no secret that seeds are packed with good stuff (namely protein, fibre and vitamins), so you can get a boost while you snack al desko. Find them online at Ocado. munchyseeds.co.uk

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Mutiny Mustard, £7.99/125g These handmade mustards come in eight flavours but they all have one thing in common – a boozy kick. Created by a former chef, the for-adultsonly condiments are honey based and benefit from the depth of flavour that alcohol is loved for in cooking, be it tequila (paired with chipotle and lime) or vodka, which is joined by horseradish.

We’ve been digging into the smoky peat whisky honey mustard, and zingy gin and lime number. Buy online from the maker. mutinyfoods.com 3

Seaspoon Seaweed Chilli Crush Shaker, £3.99/25g Seaspoon is a Wiltshire start-up that found a great way to get nutrient-packed seaweed into our meals – in the form of savoury seasonings. In this firey shaker, the seaweed flakes are joined by dried

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Aleppo chilli for a savoury kick with satisfying heat.

(The sustainable seaweed is hand-harvested from our South West coastlines, too.) Shake this bad boy over stews, salads, pasta, pizza et al to add flavour and spice. Buy online. seaspoon.com 4

Pitchfork Cheese, £8/250g This is a relatively new cheese, having only been born in 2017. It wasted no time, though, in making its mark on the dairy world, and is the reigning Best British Cheese according to the World Cheese Awards. Produced in Somerset by Trethowan’s Dairy, this organic, clothbound Cheddar is punchy and well balanced in flavour, with a creamy texture and golden-yellow colour. Find it in Paxton and Whitfield and The Fine Cheese Co in Bath. trethowansdairy.co.uk 5

Bristol Distilling Co 77 Black, £16/50cl This smooth and rich cold-brew coffee liqueur is lifted by a hint of vanilla, making it sippable served simply over ice. To really fulfil its destiny, though, we’re employing it in Espresso Martinis, so it can show off its depth of flavour and velvety texture in everyone’s favourite caffeinated concoction.

This liqueur is made by Bristol Distilling Co, a contemporary drinks producer primarily known for its gin. Buy at Majestic Wines or online. bristoldistilling.com

S T A R T E R S

Ki tchen Library Speedy, eyebrow-raising dinners made from everyday ingredients, coming right up…

TASTY EVERY DAY Buzzfeed (Ebury Press, £20) Buzzfeed, the American digital media giant, has two globally popular food channels – Tasty and Proper Tasty – and the spin-off books, while somewhat lacking in character, effectively echo their simple appeal: easy, tempting recipes to up your mid-week cooking game. This one’s especially fuss-free, the chapters covering everything from slow cooker dishes to no-cook salads, 20-minute meals to those using five ingredients or fewer. The design is a little shouty – lots of bright yellows and pinks – but it suits the dishes, helping the muddy orange of the creamy chickpea stew with chiles and cilantro, and the reddishbrown of the Juicy Lucy burgers, to jump off the page. The Moroccan tagine bowl looks tempting, as does the cheesy chicken and bean skillet bake, and the fancy lamb chops with crispy potatoes and mint salad. Not one to read for pleasure as such, but a solid companion at 8pm on a wet Tuesday night.

MATT BIELBY

KEEPING IT SIMPLE Yasmin Fahr (Hardie Grant, £16.99) This is a good-looking, bouncy and highly usable book from chipper American food journalist Yasmin Fahr, a lover of quickand-easy midweek dinners, who’s lived in London, LA and now New York, and is perhaps best known for her one-pot

recipe column for the website Serious Eats.

There are plenty of useful insights and personal stories mixed in with the 60 or so recipes here, none of which will take you very long or leave you with a great deal of washing up. Yasmin gives us tips on tools, techniques and great ingredients to have at hand, enjoys a silly dish name (‘wakey, wakey, cheesy eggs and bakey’, say, or ‘a vegetarian, not-so-Texas chilli’), and enjoys banging on about her favourite things, be they feta cheese, spatchcocking chickens, or handsome, be-kilted Scotsmen cooking scallops. Best of all, everything here looks achievable and delicious, be it mozzarellatopped chicken cutlets, quickie coconut mussels or tomato-poached cod.

MATT BIELBY

THE VEGGIE CHINESE TAKEAWAY COOKBOOK Kwoklyn Wan (Hardie Grant, £15) Kwoklyn Wan cuts a cheerful, confident figure as host of the 70 or so recipes here, each based on a Chinese takeaway classic.

And no wonder: as a third-generation Cantonese chef who’s worked in Chinese restaurants all his life, he knows summer rolls, chow mein, hoisin-glazed tempeh and the rest back to front. His original The Chinese Takeaway Cookbook featured plenty of meat and fish dishes, but this one’s entirely vegan and vegetarian, concentrating on fresh produce, the five key Chinese flavours (salty, spicy, sour, sweet 16 CRUMBSMAG.COM

and bitter), and putting greens front and centre. The chilli tofu ramen, teriyaki bowl and hot and sour Chinese vegetables with mung bean noodles are just a few of the most tempting-looking dishes.

MATT BIELBY

THE BRISTOL AND BATH COOK BOOK (Meze Publishing, £14.95) Sheffield-based Meze Publishing has a neat line in regional cookbooks, mixing recipes from local restaurants and cafés with profiles of people and businesses; so far they’ve done everywhere from Cornwall to Edinburgh, as well as – separately – both Bristol and Bath. This third go at our patch ties them both together, much as Crumbs does. Indeed, most of the faces and places here will be familiar to regular readers of these pages: you get Bath Culture House, Burger Theory, Grape and Grind, Castle Farm out in Midford and more, each sharing a recipe or two. It’s all very bright and airy, and a good reminder – if one were needed – of how good we have it, food-wise, in these parts. Tempting dishes include the VLT vegan breakfast sandwich from Pinkmans bakery, smoky trotter beans from Jamaica Street Stores, and beef fillet-tail stroganoff from Hartley Farm Shop and Kitchen. A cheery Luke Hasell from The Community Farm hosts – the perfect choice, really, as his gaff overlooks Chew Valley Lake, right between the two cities. MATT BIELBY

Book of t he Mont h

from the book!

TIN CAN MAGIC Jessica Elliot Dennison (Hardie Grant, £15)

JESSICA CARTER

JO N ATH A N LOV E K IN

Ever find yourself with a cupboard full of food – dusty jars and tins, and almostfull packets of grains – but still without any meal inspiration? This storecupboard companion aims to broaden your horizons when it comes to tinned food, which is not just convenient but is usually happily cost-effective, too. Not that the stylishly shot recipes in this book – from cavolo nero and salsa verde butter beans to lime and coconut prawns – give away their humble foundations at first glance.

Chapters are each dedicated to a popular tinned ingredient – green lentils, tomatoes, anchovies, sweetcorn and more – and are preceded by recipe tips and the basic rules of building a meal around a tin of food. The recipes themselves have plenty of substitution ideas to make the most of what you already have in the cupboard, too.

Anchovy and dried chilli linguine, whipped butter bean dip with crispy herbs and condensed milk and orange zest semifreddo are just three of many midweek winners here, pitched perfectly for those that want to eat well without the fuss.

INDIAN-STYLE CREAMED CORN WITH NAAN, CORIANDER AND TOASTED SPICES This is half way between a dahl and a curry, where a few tins of regular sweetcorn are transformed into something fragrant and special by the help of the spices from the back of your cupboard. I’ve suggested using a stick blender to give your corn a nice creamy texture, but if you don’t have one, don’t worry, just mash some of the corn by hand using a potato masher instead.

SERVES 2 6 tbsp rapeseed, light olive or coconut oil 1 onion, finely sliced 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced 2 x 340g tins sweetcorn, drained 2 tsp ground coriander 1½ tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp curry leaves (optional) ½-1 tsp dried chilli flakes, to taste 1 lemon 1 large naan or 2 chapatis handful coriander leaves 1 First, heat 4 tbsp oil over a medium heat in a wide pan.

Add the onion and garlic, reduce to low, then fry for 15 minutes until soft and translucent. Stir occasionally and add a splash of water if beginning to catch.

2 Add half the corn to a jug with a splash of water. Then, using a stick blender or food processor, blitz it into a rough pulp.

3 Add 2 tbsp oil to the onion, then add the spices and curry leaves. Stir for 1-2 minutes until

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fragrant, then add the creamed corn and reserved kernels.

Add the zest of one lemon and the juice of half, plenty of seasoning to taste, and a splash of water to loosen if it’s too thick. Cut the remaining lemon half into wedges.

4 Meanwhile, use tongs to heat the naan bread directly over a gas flame for a few seconds until lightly charred. You can also do this in a pan or oven.

5 To assemble, divide the corn and naan between two plates. Roughly tear over the coriander and serve with a lemon wedge each.

TIP! Try substituting the onion for leek, ground coriander for garam masala, or lemon for lime.

Tel: 07854239926 info@cliftonwineschool.com

A very warm welcome to Clifton Wine School!

We are a local wine school hosting events in Bristol and Bath.

Choose from our Cheese and Wine Matching night, a Fine Wine tasting, Wines of the World evening courses, Gin tasting, and so much more.

We also do unforgettable hen parties and corporate events.

We don’t sell wine, we sell confidence in wine knowledge from a DipWSET qualified teacher.

You can purchase any course or tasting as a Wine School Gift Voucher starting from ÂŁ25 the perfect present for any wine lovers!

Proud Crumbs Award Finalist 2019! + Crumbs Award Winner 2018!

www.cliftonwineschool.com

TOP RECIPES FROM OUR FAVOURITE LOCAL FOODIES

CHEF!

Saffron is the priciest spice around, but luckily you only need a pinch for James Whetlor’s tagine

HIGHLIGHTS

22 SALMON LIKE YOU

A classy starter to impress at your next dinner party

24 SO CRABBY

Apple and celeriac buddy up with crab in this zingy dish

26 HOT JAM

This lemon, almond and jam cake is a must-bake 19

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Recipe from Goat

by James Whetlor (Quadrille, £20); photography by Mike Lusmore

KID SHANK, APRICOT AND PISTACHIO TAGINE

James dotes on his goats

Kid you not

South West-based chef, entrepreneur and champion of goat meat James Whetlor has a killer of a slow-cooked dish for us...

Adding the sweetness of dried fruit to the depth and richness of kid meat creates a dish that is one of the greats of world food, writes James. I always have a jar of ras al hanout in the kitchen – it’s a really useful seasoning. You can also use 800g diced kid here in place of the shanks. Serve with harissa and couscous.

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SERVES 4 4 kid shanks 2 tomatoes, roughly chopped 2 onions, finely chopped 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 60g butter, melted 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground 2 tsp ras al hanout spice blend ½ tsp ground turmeric 400ml stock or water 10 saffron strands, soaked in warm water for 10 minutes small bunch coriander, leaves chopped, stalks reserved 150g dried apricots, roughly chopped 1 medium preserved lemon, rind only (discard the pulp), roughly chopped 50g pistachios, roughly chopped honey, to taste small bunch mint, leaves picked, to serve

1 Mix together the shanks, tomatoes, onions, garlic, melted butter, spices (apart from the saffron), 1 teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

2 When ready to cook, put the marinated meat in a large saucepan and cook, uncovered, over a moderate heat for 20 minutes until a sauce has formed and thickened.

3 Add the stock (or water), along with the saffron and its soaking water, the coriander stalks, dried apricots and the preserved lemon, then cover and simmer gently over a low heat for about 2 hours or until the meat is completely tender. Top with a little water if it dries out.

4 When the shanks are cooked, remove any excess fat from the sauce and add the pistachios, then the honey with salt and pepper to taste. Serve scattered with the coriander and mint leaves.

C H E F !

This tagine is happily low in effort – it almost cooks itself. Just don’t tell your guests

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Rillettes, we’ve had a few...

Begin your dinner party as you mean to go on with Rob Clayton’s top salmon starter

For the rillettes: 1kg middle cut fresh salmon 2 lemons 5 peppercorns 4 sprigs dill paprika 250g smoked salmon, diced 200g Greek yoghurt For the dill and mustard mayo: ½ bunch dill, picked 500ml mayonnaise 1 tbsp Dijon mustard 1 tbsp grain mustard 2 tsp English mustard For the cucumber pickle: 300ml vinegar 100g sugar 200ml water 1 cucumber To serve: handful lilliput capers 1 lemon, divided into individual segments pea shoots (optional)

Rob founded Bath restaurant Clayton’s Kitchen in 2012, having worked with Nico Ladenis at his threeMichelin-starred Chez Nico, gained his own star at Huntstrete House Hotel, and maintained another at The Bath Priory for his seven-year stint there.

In the ensuing eight years, Clayton’s Kitchen has become known in the city for his modern Mediterranean- and French-inspired food.

Will salmon pass Rob another tea towel, please?

SALMON RILLETTES WITH DILL MAYONNAISE AND LAVOSH CRACKERS SERVES 12 AS A STARTER For the lavosh crackers: 500g plain flour 10g salt 10g sugar 1 egg, lightly beaten 200ml milk 150g poppy seeds 150g sesame seeds

Clayton’s Kitchen, 15a George Street, Bath BA1 2EN; 01225 585100; claytonskitchen.com

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1 Preheat the oven to 160C/310F/gas mark 2.

2 For the lavosh crackers, sieve the flour into a bowl, add the sugar and salt and mix in the egg, milk and seeds. When you have a smooth dough, roll it out thinly.

(It’s best to do this in a pasta machine, to the number 2 setting.) Cook on a baking tray for 8-10 minutes. You can cut the dough into shapes if you want to be chefy, but it’s equally good left whole and broken into shards after baking.

3 Put half of the fresh salmon into gently simmering water with 2 slices of lemon, the peppercorns and the dill. Cook for 3 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave to cool in the water.

4 Dice the remaining fresh salmon and mix with the juice and zest of 1 lemon. Season with sea salt and paprika and leave to marinate for 10 minutes.

5 When the poached salmon is cool, flake it into a mixing bowl. Add the smoked salmon and marinated salmon, and mix in the yoghurt and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Leave in the fridge until needed.

6 For the pickled cucumber, add the vinegar, sugar and water to a pan and bring to the boil. Then turn off the heat and leave to cool completely.

7 Use a potato peeler to cut the cucumber into ribbons and place into the pickling liquor for 2 minutes.

8 For the dill and mustard mayonnaise, add the picked dill, mayonnaise and all three mustards to a liquidiser and season with salt and pepper before blending.

9 To serve, place a swipe of dill mayonnaise in the centre of each plate, put the salmon rillette in a pastry cutter or mould on top. Remove the mould, then place the pickled cucumber on the salmon. Serve with the lavosh crackers, and garnish with the capers, lemon segments and pea shoots.

C H E F !

This classy dish is surprisingly doable at home

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You too can look this pleased with yourself by making Mitch’s recipe

Mitch, originally from down the road in Westonsuper-Mare, has fish restaurants in Devon and Dartmouth, and was the original founder of Bristol’s Spiny Lobster. Specialising in seafood, his dishes follow the seasons. This number is a great example, putting winter’s apples and celeriac to great work.

“Fresh, crisp apple gives a satisfyingly sweet and juicy note to this dish,” says Mitch. “I like an apple with a more tart and acidic side like a Granny Smith, something with a little more punch than red varieties such as the Gala. The white flesh with bright green skin also adds to the appearance of this dish.

“Despite being not much of a looker, celeriac, with its knobbly and rather irregular shape, has a fantastic peppery crunch and tastes great raw. It’s also packed with good stuff: vitamin C, antioxidants and the like.

“Combined with some of the best crabmeat – white only, for this recipe – from England’s Seafood Coast in Devon, these ingredients make for a light, fresh dish.”

Crunch time

CRAB WITH CELERIAC AND APPLE

South West chef Mitch Tonks has rustled up a super-simple, seasonal treat for us – no cooking involved

mitchtonks.co.uk

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SERVES 2 75g celeriac, cut into matchstick-size pieces ½ Granny Smith or similar, thinly sliced on a mandolin 2 radishes, thinly sliced on a mandolin 1 tbsp chervil 160g white crabmeat 2 tbsp olive oil 1 lemon, juice only 2 slices rye bread (or sourdough) 1 tbsp mayonnaise

1 Put the celeriac into a bowl with the apple, radish, herbs and crabmeat.

2 Dress with the olive oil and add a good squeeze of lemon. Season with salt and pepper.

3 Lift out of the bowl in one handful and then let it fall naturally into a neat pile on the plate. Serve with the mayo and bread on the side.

C H E F !

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We can almost smell spring approaching, thanks to this light and zesty dish. (Too soon?)

No, Elly, we’re not washing your dishes no matter how nicely you ask

Recipe from Green by Elly Curshen (Ebury Press, £22); photography by Martin Poole

This almond and jam cake was served at one of Elly’s recent supper club events and is another example of how her creations can be changed up. Riverford, where she was cooking, had made strawberry and basil jam in the summer, of which there was lots still left, so that went in instead of the raspberry jam – and worked an absolute treat.

Elly’s next event is a dinner at Roth Bar and Grill in Bruton on 19 March – tickets can be booked online.

This is jam hot

Specialising in meatless, veg-packed meals that are fuss-free and hella satisfying, Elly Curshen shares a recipe from her latest book

Over the years that Crumbs has been kicking about, Bristol-based Elly has gone from café owner (many locals still miss the popular Pear Café) to hugely popular cook and food writer, with three recipe books under her belt. Her latest, Green, celebrates fruit and veg in fuss-free vegan and vegetarian recipes, designed for modern home cooks.

“It’s never, ever about telling people what not to do,” she says. “It’s about telling them what I want them to include rather than take out. For me, my job as a food writer and cook is to show people how delicious meat-free eating can be, and what you can do with vegetables.”

Sounds like exactly what we need post-Christmas and having already binned off our more, er, ambitious New Year resolutions. And, with the ‘hungry gap’ on its way, those who like to eat locally and seasonally will find comfort in Elly’s recipes, which are designed to be flexible.

“My recipes are really adaptable – it’s all about inspiring people,” says this easy-going cook. “I’m absolutely fine with people making changes – learning what and how you can change things is how you learn to cook.”

ALMOND, LEMON AND RASPBERRY JAM CAKE SERVES 8 140g plain flour 125g ground almonds 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 225g salted butter, softened 200g caster sugar 3 eggs 1 lemon, zest and juice 2 tbsp raspberry jam 4 tbsp almond flakes, toasted lightly in a dry pan

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.

2 Mix together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the dry ingredients along with each egg.

3 Fold through the remaining dry ingredients and then mix in the lemon zest and juice.

4 Grease a 25cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the hot oven for 25 minutes or until the top of the cake is light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

5 Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin. Once cool, remove the cake from the tin, spread the jam over the top, sprinkle with almond flakes and serve.

6 This cake will keep well for 2-3 days when stored in an airtight tin, sealed, and kept in a cool, dry place.

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C H E F !

That’s the cake sorted, but who, pray tell, is taking care of the tea?

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( advertising feature )

COLD PRESSED IS BEST FUSSELS FINE FOODS has been producing cold pressed rapeseed oil for the last 10 years from its third-generation farm in Somerset

R

apeseed oil has grown dramatically in popularity over the last few years, topping the leader board as the healthier choice for cooking. It has the lowest saturated fat content of any culinary oil (half that of similar oils), which is a great health benefit, considering current advice confirms a diet high in saturated fat is linked to poorer heart health.

While it has less monounsaturated fat, it contains more polyunsaturated fat, which helps to lower LDL cholesterol.

It’s also rich in Vitamin E and omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids.

Rapeseed oil is stable at high temperatures, which makes it a good choice for frying and roasting. It’s also a great substitute for butter in baking, reducing the saturated fat content of some family favourite cakes by more than 50%.

It’s produced from the bright yellow rapeseed crop that we see in fields all over the UK during the summer months.

It’s recommended that we choose cold pressed rapeseed oil, but why?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COLD PRESSED AND HEAT EXTRACTED RAPESEED OIL? Heat and solvent extraction The Rapeseed is heated in a cooking process to a temperature of 80-105°C. The seed is then pressed using much larger scale presses than with cold pressing.

The resulting byproduct, called rapemeal, still contains about 14-18% oil, which is unacceptable to commercial pressing, so the rapemeal has a solvent added (n-Hexane, which is specially manufactured for vegetable oil industry).

The Hexane-saturated rapemeal then leaves the solvent extractor after a fresh ‘solvent wash,’ containing only 1% oil. Next is the refining of the oil. Water precipitation or organic acids are combined with water to give good oil stability and enhanced shelf life, bleaching takes place via a clay filter to removes unattractive colour compounds, and the product is then deodorised using steam distillation to recover solvent and to remove any compounds liable to give oil unpleasant tastes or smell. The oil is then kept and stored at a high temperature to aid pumping. After all of this, the oil is ready to be bottled or transported in bulk by road tanker.

The resulting oil is bland, colourless and odourless. Ideal for very high-volume food manufacturing like making crisps, potato waffles and such.

Cold Pressed The rapeseed is mechanically pressed only once, using no artificial heat – it’s simply filtered and bottled, ready to be used. Nothing is added, nothing taken away.

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Cold pressing is all about optimising the yield rather than maximising it, maintaining the integrity of the oil during extraction. So, you get a beautiful, slightly nutty flavour, perfect for carrying other flavours rather than dominating. Cold pressed rapeseed oil also has half the saturated fat of other oils and 10 times richer in essential fatty acid omega 3.

It is also extremely versatile, ideal for all types of cooking, from baking breads and cakes to seafood recipes, roasting and stir-frying.

Fussels is the West Country’s leading cold pressed rapeseed oil producer.

With a family passion for farming and good-quality British food, Andy Fussell and his team grow, harvest and press Rapeseed to arrive at a carefully crafted, healthy oil that is highly versatile and incredibly delicious.

Church Farm, Parkgate Lane, Rode, Frome, Somerset, BA11 6AA 01373 831286 info@fusselsfinefoods.co.uk fusselsfinefoods.co.uk

Use code CRUMBS98 during checkout to receive a

10% ORDER DISCOUNT Minimum £20 spend, valid until 29/02/2020

UPCOMING EVENTS Monday 3rd February | 8:30pm – 10pm

General TV Knowledge Quiz Friday 14th February

Valentine’s Day

Now taking bookings for our set Valentine’s meal. Call us to book!

Friday 28th February | 9pm

Dean Martin Tribute Act OPENING TIMES

FOOD SERVED

Mon - Thu: 11:00 - 23:00 Fri - Sat: 09:00 - 00:00 Sun: 09:00 - 22:30

Mon - Thu: 12:00 - 21:00 Fri - Sun: 09:00 - 21:00

01761 568779 | Broadway, Chilcompton, Somerset, BA3 4JW www.somersetwagon.co.uk | f somersetwagon

Our chefs have deep roots with India and its culinary heritage.

Bikano’s is our attempt to bring the flavour of India to Bath.

Dine in or Takeaway! 25 Claverton Buildings, Bath BA2 4LD 01225 533591  info@bikanos.co.uk  www.bikanos.co.uk

I DRINK, THEREFORE I AM

WHAT SUP? The Amulet is a mix of rowan berry-infused JJ Whitley vodka, house-made rowan berry shrub, dry vermouth, fresh lemon and demerara

There’s no hocus pocus in these concoctions, just fresh, homemade ingredients

Love potion

The new cocktails being mixed at this Bath bar are rather bewitching...

Cocktail haunt The Dark Horse is serving up a spell-binding cocktail menu right now. The atmospheric Kingsmead Square bar – all glowing lamps, Chesterfields and varnished wood – has based its winter drinks collection on witchcraft, using traditional herbs and other botanicals in the new potions – sorry, drinks.

Cordials, syrups and shrubs are all made by hand using local and seasonal ingredients and there are infusions too, like rowan berry vodka, made from locally foraged fruit.

The latter features in the Jackdaw, which mixes it with Wild Turkey Bourbon, Stryyk’s ‘Not Rum’, homemade chai syrup, fresh lemon and angostura bitters, and can be found in the ‘Light and Fresh’ section of the menu, which promises great-tasting cocktails that go easy on the booze.

Otherwise, the spiced Devil’s Mark might be more up your street, with Beefeater gin, Yellow Chartreuse, homemade apple and black pepper shrub, ginger, honey, lemonade and angostura bitters.

This imaginative menu will be available until late February.

BEER – COFFEE – WINES – SPIRITS – MORE

darkhorsebar.co.uk

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W H A T

THE DRIP FEED

WILD WEST

NEWS + BREWS + BARS + TRENDS

Low- and no-ABV

drinks special!

The creator of Hendrick’s gin has turned her hand to ultra low-ABV drinks

THAT’S THE SPIRIT

It wasn’t very long ago that alcohol-free spirits didn’t even exist – now new ones are cropping up all over. Atopia is a new low-ABV offering from global drinks producer William Grant and Sons. It was developed by Lesley Gracie, the distiller behind Hendricks gin, to provide the complex flavour and sense of occasion that comes with more boozy concoctions. Made in a similar way to gin, Atopia is distilled

MY L OC A L

with a selection of botanicals.

There are two varieties: Spiced Citrus is made with a backbone of orange, juniper, coriander, angelica root and lemon, while the Wild Blossom number is more floral, with a super-subtle smokiness thanks to the addition of applewood smoke. Both are great for mixing into cocktails or sipping with tonic over ice, and come in at a hangovereliminating 0.5% ABV. Buy at Waitrose or online. atopia.co.uk

Holly Eggleton, general manager of Michelinstarred pub The Pony and Trap, has room in her life for more than one boozer, as we’re about to find out...

S U P ?

New ultra-low alcohol sparkling wine Wildlife Botanicals is not only an easy-going 0.5% ABV but is also packed with nutritional benefits, being enhanced with eight vitamins and minerals such as zinc and B6 (promising 15% of the recommended daily intake for each in one glass).

Botanicals such as lemon balm, rosemary and ashwagandha – thought to have antioxidant, antiinflammatory and moodboosting benefits – are included, too. While this South West-created sip isn’t super akin to the wines we’re used to, it is fresh and light tasting, with fruity flavours, a whisper of sherbert and a crisp mouthfeel. We’re big fans of the branding too, with artwork done by West Country artist Sarah Trewhella. Buy online. wildlifebotanicals.co.uk

My local is The Rising Sun, Pensford ...

The vibe here in three words is friendly, warm, good vibes from the locals (slightly more than three, there) ...

I’m drinking half a Guinness to start, followed by a glass of red

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Aperitifs without the ABV

NO MEANS NO Non-alcoholic aperitif Nogroni was launched late last year by the team behind the popular ABV-free Seedlip spirits. It’s a mix of three of their products, including the Spice 94 – a distillate featuring allspice and cardamom. The booze-free cocktail is ruby red in colour and satisfyingly bitter in taste, with a real edge of warming spice. A modern and well-executed homage to the much-loved Negroni, and a great way to drink without actually drinking. Buy online. seedlipdrinks.com

These bubbly wine alternatives are fresh and light

And to nibble on I’ll have the Sunday roast – a bit more than a nibble, but it’s a winner ...

Food and drink aside, though, the pub’s best asset is the relaxed vibe, the garden and views ...

The crowd here are cider-drinking locals

If I was to steal something from here I’d take the horse out the back! ...

Basically, you should try my local because the staff are welcoming and there’s great beer and home-cooked food risingsunpensford.com

20 What will we be drinking in 20 inks – and how? We’ve spoken to drth ink experts about the trends theyis ye ar will be shaping the industry thhere) (spoiler: gin ain’t going anyw

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W H A T

S

our beers have been bubbling away in popularity for some time, with local breweries experimenting with the lip-puckering style.

Lots of us have now developed a real taste for them, then, and Chris Scullion of Independent Spirit of Bath reckons this could well be their year.

“Last year, many customers were introduced to the world of sour beers and, as such, it’s one of the more exciting beer trends for 2020 – encompassing everything from classic Belgian lambics to more contemporary kettle sours from our own fantastic South West breweries. Mills Brewing in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in particular, is gaining a phenomenal reputation.”

Another local brewer of sour bevs is Wild Beer Co, based in Somerset.

You might know this brand best for its Wapping Wharf bar.

“We are seeing a spectrum of ‘quick’ sour beer styles and flavours across a number of national retailers; gose, Berliner Weisse, kettle sour and others,” says Wild Beer’s co-founder, Andrew Cooper. “Hopefully, in the year ahead we’ll get an authentic, long-matured barrel-aged sour beer becoming more widely available.”

It’s not just about sessioning, either – sour beers are gaining popularity in food-focused venues, notes Andy, having worked with Michael O’Hare on a new sour brew at The Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds.

S U P ?

“The restaurant market is developing and we are seeing greater variety, particularly in high-end restaurants. The market has come a long way, as people crave a wider range of beer styles available in many more locations and type of outlet.”

(Psst: prefer cider to beer? These sours might be right up your street, then, reckons Chris Scullion.)

When it comes to spirits, gin – you may be wholly unsurprised to learn – is going nowhere. But the range of styles is developing, says Chris, blending oldschool with the 21st century.

“We’re seeing a lot more experimental, flavoured gins, but the strongest sellers are more traditional styles, albeit made in a more contemporary fashion.

“We are seeing a spectrum of ‘quick’ sour beer styles and flavours”

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W H A T

S U P ?

“More traditional liqueurs seem to be making a comeback; Benedictine, Frangelico and even creme de menthe have been huge sellers this past Christmas. This is a trend likely inspired by the great-quality cocktail bars in the South West, which continue to improve.”

The no- and low-alcohol market is another area of growth, as drinkers look to curb their boozy habits (and so cut their pain-killer consumption). It’s unsurprising, really – not only are we all more health-conscious than ever, but we’ve been obsessed with hard-hitting bevs like craft beer and gin in recent years, both of which are notorious for their merciless hangovers. Wince.

Hard seltzers (basically sparkling water with a drop of booze and a dash of flavour) have become big news in the US, notes Danielle Bekker, co-founder of The

Good Living Brew Co, makers of low-ABV Binary Botanical beer.

“It will be interesting to see what happens with hard sparkling water, which has caused such a phenomenon in the USA,” she says. “They have tapped into an under-served market.”

Usually around 4-6% ABV and with low sugar content, these drinks appeal to those looking for a ‘healthier’ option, without going entirely ABV-free.

Along with the concern for our own health comes the growing need to care for that of the planet, too. So, with singleuse packaging on everyone’s mind, don’t be surprised to see this transcend the food sector and start to shape the way our drinks are served, too.

You may remember that, back in the autumn, Wiper and True did away with its recognisable glass bottles in favour

“We are seeing a lot more experimental, flavoured gins”

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of cans (it was for reasons of flavour as well as the environment, founder Michael Wiper specified at the time, as the aluminium alternative allows “drinkers to get closer to the bright, bold flavours of the tank-fresh beer”), and the canned wine market is expanding too (check out contemporary new businesses Nice Drinks and Cannd).

“We think this sector will grow in 2020,” says Rich Hamblin, founder of sustainability-focused wine supplier More Wine. “Most fillers (i.e of bulk wine or own label for supermarkets) have added or are adding canning capability.”

Refill stations for beers and wines have been proliferating too. Bars like Bristol’s recent addition Kask is serving wine on tap to drink in or take away in reusable glass bottles, while locally based More Wine has been championing bag-in-box vino for some time.

“More Wine is over 30% up for revenue in a shrinking wine market,” notes Richard, “mainly through wholesale of bag-in-box wine to small independents. And When in Rome, a fellow bag-in-box wine specialist, is having great success in Unpacked branches of Waitrose.”

Speaking of eco-vino, we may just be in for a bit of a natural wine revolution this year, thinks Clifton Wine School founder, Ruth Wiles.

“As with craft beer, there is no definition of natural wine,” she says. “However, it looks like the movement could be just as powerful and transformative. More winemakers are turning towards ancient winemaking practices to produce less commercial, more interesting wines. Visit Kask to taste some.”

This wine pro is also noticing more interest and uptake in lighter styles of red in the industry, less oaky and more easydrinking (“We’ve seen a large increase in sales of Beaujolais,” she tells us) and has her eye on Corpinnat, a new Spanish fizz that reps a departure from Cava.

Lots of thirst-quenching excitement for 2020, then. We’ll drink to that.

“More winemakers are turning towards ancient winemaking practices to produce less commercial, more interesting wines”

Your drinks directory Shop at Independent Spirit; independentspiritofbath.co.uk Learn at Clifton Wine School; cliftonwineschool.com Drink at Kask; kaskwine.co.uk

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ARMOURY AR MOURY

KITCHEN

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS

Longpi Karibowls range from £19, with the largest Karipots at £79 and a cookware set at £179. For more, tiipoi.com

Pretty ugly

These deliciously wobbly Indian pots are super-green and made in the traditional way, says Matt Bielby.. What’s not to love?

Now that is one lumpy looking pot!

But in a cool way, right?

Kind of gorgeously organic in a style that speaks to us here at the start of the 2020s, when we all want to be kinder to the planet and be seen to be doing our bit.

‘Gorgeously organic’, hey?

That could also describe my cack-handed pottery efforts at school.

The fact is, these not only work but they’ve got a real story behind them. Sold by Tiipoi, a London product design studio, the Longpi collection of Karipots and Karipans is named for the tiny North East Indian village where they’re made

by young artisans, trained by local master craftsman Mathew Sasa; these guys are mostly school dropouts who’ve found new purpose through traditional craft.

And the results are green, you say?

Extremely! Partly it’s because they’re so simple, made from local serpentine stone and clay dredged from the nearby Shungvi Kong river. This is then shaped and burnished using improvised tools, fired on an open bonfire and smoked in sawdust, giving each pot its distinctive black colouring. The end results are sealed, almost as if they’ve been given a

glaze, which, of course, they have not.

And that’s important why?

Because it means they’ll have zero environmental impact if you decide to bury them at the end of their natural life. Ditto the fact that they lack any chemical coatings, like the PFOA used in the Teflon. That doesn’t mean they’ll quickly end up a crusty, food-caked mess, though: they’re naturally non-stick and will preserve your ingredients’ oils and flavours.

Non-stick, but also quite breakable, I’m guessing?

Of course – but think of it as a good thing. Many of

the problems with plastics, after all, revolve around the simple fact that they’re not.

They’re all undeniably wobbly shapes, mind.

Like so-called ‘ugly’ veggies! But it’s these natural imperfections make them more human and approachable than most kitchenware; indeed, as they’re made to order in small batches, with an edition number on the base, there’s much that’s lovably human about them.

I’m sold!

Then pick between two different pots, a roasting pan and a pair of serving bowls, designed to be used

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on the hob or in the oven, and perfect for one-pot dishes. Best of all? They stay hot for longer than other pots – ideal for that greedy guts who will no doubt want seconds.

In the Studio

STEP INTO MY OFFICE In a new book, we’re given a peek at the lives and inspirations of South West artisans and granted entry into their workshops and studios. Here, Jessica Carter shares some of its stories...

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALICE WHITBY

In The Making is a new book produced by the famous Frome Independent. This vibrant, festival-like market is known not only for its sense of celebration but also its variety of independent, talented craftspeople.

In its pages, these makers open the doors to their studios, workshops and kitchens, giving us a glimpse into the lesser-seen spaces where they create their artisanal products and letting us in on their inspirations.

Local photographer Alice Whitby spent much of last year photographing these makers in their natural habitats, catching them in action and documenting the creative spaces they work in.

What follows is just of some of our favourite insights into the worlds of the book’s food and drink-focused crafters...

Quotes and images taken from In The Making by The Frome Independent, with photography by Alice Whitby. Crumbs readers can buy a copy for £15 (RRP £18) by using the code CRUMBSOFFER when ordering at thefromeindependent.org.uk

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I N

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Westcombe Dairy westcombedairy.com

Cheese has been made on Westcombe Farm since the late-19th century, when an Edith Cannon was busy making her version.

Nowadays, it’s Tom Calver – also a trained chef – and his team that you’ll find toiling over their award-winning cheese at the Somerset dairy.

It’s all about traditional West Country Cheddar, made with unpasteurised milk from the dairy’s own cows. Tom has made it his business to understand the daily changing character of his herd’s milk, which, he says, is hugely impacted by the patch of countryside where the cows graze.

“You see, here in the verdant hills of east Somerset, terroir is – and always has been – vital to producing exceptional Cheddar,” Tom explains in the book. “Without the combination of the lush pastures, plentiful spring water, rolling hills and cool mists we’re blessed with, our cows wouldn’t produce such rich milk and we wouldn’t be able to slowly mature our cheeses so they develop such complexity and character.”

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Holdsworth Hunt Knives hhuntknives.co.uk

When Ed Holdsworth Hunt’s favourite knife broke, he struggled to find a replacement. So – as you do – he decided to make his own. That was five years ago, and he’s been crafting knives ever since.

Working with high-carbon steel and sustainable, often local and reclaimed wood (think old timber beams or hardwood floorboards), Ed now makes a whole range, including sheath – ideal for foragers – and kitchen knives. His work is meditative, he says in the book.

“I find I ‘come to’ after hours of work and see what I have been up to! It is the pursuit of perfection. The most important part being that every stage of the creation has been done to the absolute best of my ability. I never settle for the ‘that will do’ attitude.”

These knives are mostly made to order, but sometimes Ed has some to sell on his stall at the market, too.

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Absolutely Preserves absolutelypreserves.wordpress.com

Mary Longford spent her career as a creative, working on performances and installations. She’s always had an interest in food, though, and it was that which ignited the spark for her preserves business.

“My life-long love of cooking was inspired by my Italian mother who spent part of her childhood in Egypt, then on coming to live on a farm in Britain she learnt to cook English food and to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs,” Mary says. “At an early age I was used to eating a combination of different foods: a bowl of ravioli followed by poached Pershore plums or homegrown stuffed marrow and tomatoes followed by steamed blackberry and apple pudding.

“I have carried on combining food in this way, but now mix together unusual ingredients and flavours, which has become a hallmark of Absolutely Preserves.”

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S U P P E R C L U B

Fi Underhill instagram.com/fiunderhill

Having learned her pottery trade in London, Fi moved to Frome in 2017, expanding her range of stoneware pots to include kitchenware like plates and mugs. These items have special significance to her, as she notes in In The Making.

“Tableware is used every day, yet is imbued with the ritual of preparing and enjoying food or drink, and the beauty of company or a quiet moment. The pots I favour in my home have borne witness to these daily moments of meaningful mundanity over many years, and my hope in making objects is that they will hold a similar place in other people’s lives.

“I find making mugs really satisfying – balancing the shape and weight of the thrown pot with the placement and curve of the pulled handle is a process I am constantly tweaking and improving, but that feeling when the handle is just right is so good!

I also love the rhythmic, process-driven nature of working with clay; there is an optimum window in the life of each pot for its progression to the next stage and tuning into these rhythms is essential to a pot’s existence.”

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Worleys Cider worleyscider.co.uk

Neil Worley and Helen Burge are the pair behind this award-winning Shepton Mallet business. Their Special Reserve keeved cider – inspired by the Breton style – won the Nigel Barden Heritage Award at the most recent Great Taste Awards. Th ese guys make cider the traditional way, carefully selecting their fruit and paying great attention to the art of fermentation.

“Cider has always seemed a slightly murky and mysterious world, best stumbled upon in the sheds and lanes of the UK’s South West counties, the Welsh borders, the Spanish regions of Basque and Asturias, or Normandy and Brittany in France,” they say in the book. “It’s full of myth, legend and slightly crazed country folk. When we started making cider, a lot of this mystique and authenticity seemed to have been mislaid in concrete factories making cheap fizzy drinks from apple juice concentrate, artificial colouring and lots of water. Which seemed a bit of a shame. So we set about trying to bring back to cider some of the timeless inspiration anyone can feel in an autumnal apple orchard.”

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The Bakemonger thebakemonger.com

Helen Bakunowicz has had a colourful career – literally. She started it working as a textile designer before becoming a colour and trend forecaster. She founded The Bakemonger in 2014 and is a self-taught baker.

“For many years I baked up a storm at home, experimenting and enthusiastically feeding friends and family,” she recalls. “In more recent years, however, beautiful bakes and culinary delights took over my inspiration boards, and baking has very naturally become my creative medium.”

Her artistic flair and appreciation for colour and form are clear to see in her creative and distinctive bakes, which merge the worlds of food and art.

“I love experimenting with new techniques. I design first, often sketching for the client. Then all the various decorative components are made bespoke before baking commences. I love that moment when everything is ready and it’s time for the design to come to life. Suddenly all the planning and prepping comes together and the magic really happens.”

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K I T C H E N

Sky Siouki Stone Tile Coaster, £7.95 each Bristol designer Sky Siouki prints each of these coasters with a special hand-drawn illustration. Buy from Casper on Bristol’s North Street. skysiouki.com

A R M O U R Y

T he Want List

Inspired by In the Making, we’ve been hunting down handmade kitchenware from local artisans...

Isobel Higley Blue Glazed Mug, £28.99 This Bristol-made ceramic mug, with 24-carat gold lustre on the handle, will give your tea break some real style. Buy online. isobelhigley.com

Libby Ballard Personalised Pet Bowl, from £35 Okay, so your pet probably won’t appreciate their new ceramic, made-to-order bowl – but you sure will. Buy online. libbyballard.co.uk

Bridget Hemmings Porcelain Pasta Bowl, Bowl £14 These bowls are beautiful with their metallic gold rims – and practical too, as they’re dishwasher safe. Buy online. bridgethemmingsceramics.com

Kara Leigh Ford Calm Seas Dinner Plate, £31 We love the swirl design on these plates, hand-thrown on Kara’s potter’s wheel and glazed at her studio in Bath.

Buy them online. karaleighfordceramics.com 47 CRUMBSMAG.COM

Take a look at our newly relaunched website to discover the latest food and drink news, restaurant reviews, recipes and so much more

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EATING-OUT INSPO, INSIDER KNOWLEDGE AND FOOD PIONEERS

MAINS

Did you know that coffee farmers make up half of the Fairtrade Foundation’s producers?

HIGHLIGHTS

50 FAIR ENOUGH?

Why fair trade is so important, and how we can support it

54 HER MAJESTY THE GREEN Give your kitchen an eco-overhaul, with Melissa Hemsley

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FAIR PL AY

With Fairtrade Fortnight around the corner and entries to the 2020 South West Fair Trade Business Awards now officially open, we take a look at the concept of ‘fair trade’ and what it means to our local food and drink industry...

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A

heap of Britain’s most relied-upon products – I’m talking that morning coffee, the cure-all cups of tea that we lean on for everyday crises and celebrations, and the king of all things sweet, chocolate – could never be produced from scratch here on this isle. We rely on far-flung countries to farm and ship this precious cargo – countries that happen to be developing ones, where poverty is often rife and extreme.

Think that having this trade automatically lifts the economy in these producing regions? Not so. The Fairtrade Foundation calculates that, while the chocolate industry in the UK is worth £4 billion, the average farmer in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana (where the lion’s share of the world’s cocoa comes from) makes less than 75p a day.

(This income easily undercuts the boundary of extreme poverty, by the way, which is placed at around £1.40 a day.)

The Fairtrade Foundation – which carries probably the most recognisable ethical mark in the UK – was established in 1992 to nurture a fairer marketplace for small-scale growers and workers in developing countries. This not-forprofit organisation assesses and certifies fairly traded products while also promoting the cause and supporting producers.

(If you are wondering, ‘Fairtrade’ refers to the foundation and its certification, while ‘fair trade’ is used to describe any practices that support developing-country producers and are based on ethically sound principles. Comprende?)

Our local patch has its very own campaign group supporting fair trade values: Bristol Fair Trade Network CIC. Independent of the Fairtrade Foundation but working closely with it, this local organisation aims to raise awareness of the issues affecting workers and farmers in developing countries, and champion all fairly traded products and certifications (including the Fairtrade Mark) across our region.

“At Bristol Fair Trade, we want people to choose products that guarantee farmers a minimum price for their crops, award a premium to develop better farming methods or facilities for their communities, and empower farmers through cooperativisation, access to training and more,” says Danni Rochman from the network.

“In the UK, the Fairtrade Mark is the most widely available and recognisable route to this, but there are other schemes, such as Fair Wild, certifying wild plant collectors, Fair for Life that looks at complex supply chains, and even Fairmined that certifies small-scale and artisanal precious metal mining organisations.”

Bristol’s local fair trade organisation was formally established in 2005 when the patch became a Fairtrade City. Wondering what, exactly, that title entails? Well, the regions that carry that title have each made a commitment to fair trade products and systems, and are part of a network called Fair Trade Towns International, which counts almost 2,000 global communities

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THE STATS

1.66

MILLION The number of people working in Fairtrade-certified producer organisations globally

84

MILLION The amount of money, in Euros, that was earned as a Fairtrade premium by coffee farming organisations in 2017

57

The percentage of sales growth of Fairtrade cocoa in 2017

73

The number of countries that Fairtrade-certified producer organisations span

425

The number of official Fairtrade communities in the UK Stats from the Fairtrade Foundation website

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“FAIRTRADE IS HAVING TO SHOUT LOUDER AND LOUDER TO BE HEARD ABOVE THE NOISE”

among its number. All towns and cities with this status have to achieve five core goals, including support for fair trade from the local council and the business community.

Other requirements include fair trade products being used by local organisations (think schools and workplaces) and sold in outlets such as shops and restaurants throughout the area.

So, you’ll find fair trade food and drink all over our patch, on the shelves in local stores and as ingredients in products that are made here.

The market for ethically traded goods is at a high right now. This is likely not only down to the work of fair trade-focused groups and campaigns, but also our growing engagement with production systems and their effect of the planet, thinks Danni.

“I’ve seen a big shift in the way people engage with fair trade,” she says. “I think, initially, most interest came from long-time supporters and those of us that had learned at school that fair trade gives farmers a better deal.

Increasingly, though, interest is growing amongst those who are interested in how alternative systems like fair trade can address the climate emergency, trade injustice and inequality.

“People are recognising that it’s one of several ways of undermining the control of big corporates in global trade.”

Kevin Hodder is buying manager at ethical grocery store group Better Food, which sells all kinds of fair trade food and drink, from sugar and bananas to spices and wine. He agrees with Danni about consumers’ shopping decisions being more politically inspired, but also notes the struggle of knowing what to look out for when trying to shop ethically.

“The certification has a long history of standing up for the rights of small-scale farmers in a world that favours big industry. How things are produced and how the people that produce them are treated are questions we should be asking about everything we spend our money on. The Fairtrade Mark was one of the first ethical certifications to give shoppers the autonomy to use their spending power to support what they believe in, and they inspired a movement when they did that.

“However, there are a lot of competing claims on what it means to be ethical, especially in food and drink. Fairtrade is having to shout louder and louder to be heard above the noise.

That’s why we’re so keen to represent fair trade certifications alongside organic.”

Coffee beans rep one of the biggest product markets within the Fairtrade Foundation; they’re what half of all its farmers produce. Local roasters like Bristol’s Wogan Coffee are big supporters of the certification, which the coffee farming industry really benefits from, says James Wogan.

“Of course, coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world,” notes James, “so there’s such a massive scope for an organisation to oversee fair play and a fair wage. It’s also, regrettably, an industry which can be prone to

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corruption, intimidation and even slavery. [Fair trade systems] are in a uniquely powerful role to try and stamp out these injustices.”

And by creating a fairer environment for farmers and workers, fair trade has also seen the quality of the product flourish, explains James.

“We hear constantly about the positive effects that fair trade coffee purchasing creates: one thing that’s really incredible is the difference in quality that it creates over time. With a better price for their products, farmers are able to invest far more in their future crops, meaning the taste just keeps improving. A really good example of this is our Fairtrade and organic Honduran, from the San Pedro de Copan region. Every single year it just tastes better and better!”

The South West Fair Trade Business Awards are designed to shine the light on local businesses and organisations who are supporting fair trade systems and therefore helping to improve the conditions for thousands of workers in developing countries, as well as create conversations and buzz around the subject of fair trade and its importance to industries across the spectrum. This year’s award ceremony is being held in May at the Tobacco Factory’s new Spielman Theatre and entries – drumroll please – have just opened. Categories cover everything from Best Fair Trade Caterer to Best Product and Best Retailer.

Hosting the event is Bristolian TV bod, baker and Crumbs Awards judge, Briony May. “I’m thrilled to be a part of these awards,” she tells us. “In the world we’re living in today, it’s more important than ever to take extra care over the products that we buy. If we’re purchasing fair trade then we’re doing our bit, however small, to help farmers and workers around the world.”

In the meantime, if your interest in fair trade has been piqued, then keep an eye out for local goings-on over Fairtrade Fortnight (24 February until 8 March). During these two weeks, organisations, businesses and individuals join efforts to tell the stories behind many of our staple food and drink ingredients, bringing our attention to the people that make them and the exploitative conditions they’re threatened with.

Better Food will be taking part in the campaign again this year, says Kevin.

“We always get involved – it’s a great time to shout about our support of Fairtrade. We’ll be raising awareness of the lead campaign from Fairtrade Foundation, She Deserves, as well as making sure we have plenty of enticing offers on Fairtrade products – hopefully with the result of encouraging a few more people to give Fairtrade a go!”

A shopping basket packed with sound ethics and great-value deals to boot? Sounds like a winner to us.

Find out more at fairtrade.org.uk and bristolfairtrade.org.uk

Melissa Hemsley We talk eco-anxiety, using up those leftovers, and reforming our cooking habits with this cook and entrepreneur before she heads to the West Country on her book tour

That’s our lunch sorted, then, but what are you having, Melissa?

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As part of her book tour, Melissa Hemsley will be at Topping and Company on 23 January and The Ethicurean on 13 February; tickets can be booked online

he year 2020 marks a significant milestone for cook, entrepreneur and food writer Melissa Hemsley. See, it was a decade ago that she and sister Jasmine launched Hemsley and Hemsley – a service to help people with digestion and diet issues and promote positive relationships with food and cooking.

Celebrities were soon on their books as private clients, as were brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Vivienne Westwood. Next came a column in Vogue, two recipe books (The Art of Eating Well and Good and Simple), a café at Selfridges in London and a Channel 4 TV show, Eating Well With Hemsley and Hemsley. The pair even released their own spiraliser, having been among the first to champion the practice of turning vegetables into spaghetti.

Their emergence coincided with the first waves of the ‘clean eating’ movement (a concept which, although linked to the sisters in many people’s minds, the Hemsleys have verbally distanced themselves from). All glowing skin and glossy hair, they portrayed the ultimate vision of health, at a time when we were all looking to our diets more keenly than ever to enhance our lives.

And not only were their health-radiating appearances nothing to do with Photoshop (we can confirm the glow is very much apparent IRL), but they were joined by sunny

Melissa’s Store Cupboard Staples I’m a huge fan of Hodmedods pulses, which I discovered when I went to the Fairs family farm to see their quinoa crops I keep raw honey in, and love Black Bee Honey Tahini is a staple – I like to add a swirl of it to thicken up stews, soups and most dressings, too Rare Tea – I’m having a pot of lemon verbena and lemongrass tea right now Mustard of any type – smooth or grainy – for dressings, soups, stews, gravies, roasts, sauces...

dispositions to match. Of course we all wanted in on their secret, so we looked for guidance in their eating habits.

A decade later, the sisters are busy pursuing different interests, although their café at Selfridges is very much still run as a joint effort. Jasmine has gone down a wellness and nutrition path, while Melissa’s interests lie in shaping wholesome, satisfying dishes into practical and adaptable everyday recipes – so this has been the focus of her two solo books.

“For me, [going solo] was about hoping to inspire people who didn’t cook at all, or very rarely, to get stuck into the kitchen – I’m drawn to people who say they hate cooking!

I started developing specifically 15-minute to 30-minute recipes, which had very basic methods and easy-to-get ingredients but still tasted as good as any takeaway or ready meal.”

This is very much the path that Melissa’s cooking has taken as a whole, her food evolving to appeal to a wider audience than perhaps the Hemsley and Hemsley recipes might.

The new book, Eat Green, builds on Melissa’s first, taking its ideas a step further by putting vegetables in the spotlight (although meat and fish are involved to some extent too) and having a real emphasis on tackling food waste. It’s something of a manual for modern, time-poor and environmentally aware cooks, giving tips and inspiration on rustling up speedy, nutritious meals without having to compromise on flavour or eco principles.

“We all want to eat in a way that is delicious, nourishing, exciting and good for the planet, while saving us time and money,” says Melissa.

“Eat Green is about getting you cooking confidently to do just that, whether you’re an omnivore, vegetarian or something in between.

“It’s stuffed with flexi tips, waste-cutting advice and easy-to-adapt recipes to give you the confidence to use up your odds and ends, to reinvent your leftovers, to make the freezer your friend, to use your ingredients in their edible entirety and to switch up your vegetables depending on the season (there’s a seasons chart at the front of the book).”

There’s even an A-Z of odds, ends and leftovers, listing ways to use up any food that’s remaining from the meal before. Making very small, waste-saving changes in the kitchen like this can teach us how to be more resourceful and ultimately make a big difference to the amount of good food we waste each month.

“Next time you look in the fridge and think ‘I can’t see a dinner here’, think frittata, think soup or think stir-fry. [I] guarantee you can rustle up something for one of those. I love a fridge raid frittata because it means a quick dinner and I always hope to have a nice thick wedge left over for tomorrow’s breakfast or packed lunch.

“I also like to keep a designated shelf in the fridge (space permitting) for food that needs eating up. That way, you get into the habit of

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going there first to avoid waste and buying more of what you might already have.

“Another tip is to make friends with your freezer. If you think you won’t get through something then chop it up and freeze it – frozen bananas, berries and greens can all go into a smoothie, or chopped greens can be thrown, frozen, into a bolognese, stew or stir-fry.”

This champion of the freezer is also a big fan of using ice cube trays for food – not only to save ingredients but to create “flavour bombs” to easily bolster the flavour of dishes in an instant.

When writing the new book, Melissa says she took her lead from readers, who she met while touring with Eat Happy. As well as listening to what they wanted more of, she’d ask people what fruit and veg they most often find themselves wasting and based many of her new recipes on those. (She found carrots and carrot tops, broccoli and stalks, herbs, and salad leaves were among the most binned ingredients. We knew you were wondering.)

As with her focus on waste, other issues of sustainability, economy and climate are woven into Melissa’s work. Being made an ambassador for Fairtrade, presenting the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s Awards and cooking for Extinction Rebellion using rescued food are all among the career highlights that she lists to us, and she’s also written on the subject of eco-anxiety in her Vogue column.

“Some people might roll their eyes at the term ‘eco-anxiety’, but it’s definitely a feeling I’ve heard a growing number of people talk about. When I first heard it at the beginning of 2019, maybe the end of 2018, I really understood what people meant. It can feel incredibly overwhelming, which sometimes can make me despair or freeze for a moment, considering what to do and how to move forward.

“My advice, if asked, is always that we can all do our part and that small changes – which work for you and that you can stick to and repeat every day – can have a big impact. I believe in voting with your

M A I N S

Melissa is all about food for the soul – think filling summer salads, almond and chickpea stew, soothing miso noodle soup and fruity pancakes

PHOTOS BY I S S Y CR O KE R

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Recipe taken from Eat Green by Melissa Hemsley (Ebury Press, £20); photography by Philippa Langley

SPICY SPROUT AND MUSHROOM NOODLES WITH FIVE-SPICE Sprouts (and the whole brassica family) go fantastically with Asian flavours. Out of season, use a mix of the rest of the brassicas – broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, spring greens etc. You could also make a spring version with asparagus and peas. This dish uses the sprout tops too, but if your sprouts don’t come with them intact, add in a handful of leafy greens instead. You can also shred in any leftover meat or fish. Five-spice is usually a mix of cinnamon and star anise with cloves, ginger, fennel and sometimes nutmeg, and a little goes a long way. Just a tiny pinch adds fantastic flavour to Chinese and Vietnamese-inspired dishes.

spending power – spending your money with farmers, shopkeepers and companies who are trying their best with sourcing, packaging or growing food as close to nature as possible and caretaking the land.”

Like many cooks and chefs, Melissa credits her mum with instilling in her a fierce set of culinary principles, many of which tie in with her environmental focuses.

“She is the queen of leftovers,” says Melissa.

“She taught me the best cooks don’t waste a thing, and she won’t go out food shopping until she’s cleared the fridge first. That’s a key lesson I’ve learnt and pass on.

“When I look back at the four cookbooks [I’ve written] now, they have mum’s wisdom – which, when I was younger, I thought of as nagging – all the way through them. I’d say 95% of everything she told me when I was younger turned out to be right!”

Although food has always played a huge part in Melissa’s life – brought up as she was with comforting, home-cooked meals – it wasn’t until she flew the nest that she began giving it real thought.

“My Filipino mum is a great cook – not fancy, no recipes, just good home-cooked food.

She makes great British food (as shown to her by my paternal grandmother) and brilliant Asian food, then she just mixes them up to make her own fusion.

“Like many in my generation, I wasn’t taught to cook, so didn’t cook until I left home. At first,

I cooked because I needed to and missed my mum’s lovely nourishing soups and comfort family foods. Then I realised that I loved cooking for all my friends who missed their mums’ food, and I started feeding everyone.”

And she’s still a feeder to this day, describing cooking as “bringing instant joy to people through something as simple and enjoyable as chopping, stirring and simmering.”

She continues: “I love that cooking empowers people, especially less confident cooks who feel a ‘failure’ in the kitchen. I really enjoy giving lessons and watching people change their mindset around cooking, then bounce out, ready to take on the world.”

That’s not all she loves about spending time in the kitchen, though: “I find cooking relaxing and chopping meditative, so it’s a good destresser for me.

“I prioritise my mental health, and home cooking has a huge part to play – what we eat and the act of preparing it, too.”

This well-known cook is very familiar with the Bristol and Bath food scene – she’s especially fond of Poco in Stokes Croft (co-owner Tom Hunt is a good friend of hers) and plant-based restaurant Acorn in Bath – so is keen to get down to our neck of the woods, she says, for her Topping and Company event.

If you miss her there this month, fear not – we’ve got a taster of her new book here, in the form of one of its hot-off-the-press, bangin-season recipes.

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SERVES 2 300g Brussels sprouts and their sprout tops, the sprouts halved or quartered if large (you want them in bite-size pieces), and the sprout tops shredded 1 tbsp oil or ghee 400g mushrooms, any type, roughly chopped 3cm piece of ginger, finely chopped or grated 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped or grated 1 fresh red chilli, seeds too, finely chopped ¾ tsp five-spice 2 bundles of noodles (I like soba) 1 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp tamari 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice or vinegar 1 tsp fish sauce or extra tamari 2 tbsp black sesame seeds or chopped nuts or seeds, to serve fresh herbs such as coriander or mint, to serve (optional) chilli garlic sauce (from the book), to serve (optional) 1 Fry the sprouts in oil or ghee in a wok or large deep-sided frying pan over a high heat for 4 minutes. For the first few minutes, fry them in an even layer, untouched for a minute or so, then stir or shake the pan to get to the other side. This will give you nice golden edges, which adds flavour.

2 Chop the mushrooms, then add them too, stirfrying for 5 minutes along with the ginger, garlic, chilli and five-spice. If you’ve got sprout tops, add them now to briefly fry.

3 Meanwhile, get the noodles cooking in a second saucepan following the label instructions; they should be ready once the sprouts are.

4 Once the sprouts are tender and the mushrooms have started to go golden and any liquid they have released has been cooked off, add the maple syrup, tamari, citrus (and fish sauce if using) to the sprouts pan and mix everything together.

5 Finish by adding the cooked noodles and tossing everything together for 30 seconds so the noodles pick up the flavours, adding a tiny splash of water if you need to. Serve with the sesame seeds, fresh herbs and chilli sauce (if using) on top.

R U : 0’ YO ER S2 FF RD B O O UM % T R 10 RS ‘C FI TE O U

Q

Pistrina

Wholesale Sourdough bakery 07542457965 • info@pistrina.co.uk • pistrina.co.uk

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AFTERS

NEW AND NOTABLE RESTAURANTS, PUBS AND CAFÉS

HIGHLIGHTS

60 TACO ’BOUT IT Bath’s new Mexican Dos Dedos is just what the city was craving

62 MOON LANDING

Global tapas and waterside views at New Moon on the Quay

64 GREY MATTER Why Grey’s Brasserie isn’t just Whatley’s ‘other’ restaurant

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Whatley Manor has two restaurants under its roof – not to mention a swish spa and luxe rooms

COOL HANGOUTS

DOS DEDOS Sticking dos dedos* up at cutlery, Charlie Lyon heads to this new joint that boasts “lively Latin flavours” to get elbow-deep in tacos and guac *two fingers, that is

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The plates here may be made to share, but we’re certainly not going to judge you for scoffing ’em all yourself

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hat do you call cheese that’s not yours? No, don’t worry. There’s no room here for cheesy jokes: this is an earnest spiel about a new taco joint in Bath that’s adding serious edge to the city, and we’re not going to spoil it with a cheap pun. (That wouldn’t be like us at all.)

If you haven’t already heard of it, Dos Dedos, the dinky den on Edgar Mews, is cool and urban: you might say it’s nacho average Bath eatery. (Ahem.)

When it comes to assets, Bath is well stocked, with its grand architecture, big green spaces and boutique shops. There are fine dining joints and cosy pubs with quality brews at many turns, too.

But what it does lack are the laid-back food joints that you can duck into, happily wearing your sweats and leaving formalities at the door, while still knowing you’re going to be in for a top feed. For this kind of casual dining, the masses flock to Bristol.

However, the landscape is changing, and in the last few years a few eateries have opened that are more boilersuit-and-hightops than cashmere-Toast-cardi. Electric Bear Brewing Co in its edgy industrial location on Brassmill Lane, for example; Magu diner on Moorland Road, which

A F T E R S

serves up vegan chilli cheese fries and a ‘mac’ burger; and cool, friendly seafood joint The Scallop Shell on Monmouth Place.

And now there’s Dos Dedos, the Mexican cantina that opened in October, riding on the coattails of the nation’s new love affair with mezcal (tequila’s smokier-flavoured sister) and ongoing appreciation of tacos.

Owner Harry Bret knows a thing or two about sharp bars – he owns The Common Room and The Hideout – but here, at his third venture, there’s more focus on the nosh. He got bitten by the taco bug while travelling through Guatemala, Mexico and Belize, and has brought the fresh and fiery flavours back to Bath, to a former art gallery.

The welcoming bar gleams enticingly as you enter the hip little hideout, heavily stocked with warm lighting and glittering glass bottles. The vibe is ‘reclaimed’ – timber bar, mismatched stools and furnishings that look like they’ve been sourced from the city’s finest fleas. The backdrop is exposed brick, roughly whitewashed.

We eschew the high tables and stools, choosing instead to flop onto comfortable low, velvet-feel backed seating to get a good view of the hubbub.

The house cocktails are worth the trip alone – a smoky mezcal Negroni and four different Margaritas are just a few of the

offerings that need to be worked through.

Tonight, for me, it’s a Michelada – a Mexican beer with tomato juice, hot sauce, chilli and lime. Sounds weird, tastes supreme. You can add an extra kick with a shot of mezcal or tequila – a lively Bloody Mary with a fizzy twist. Either way, you’ll be licking that chillisalt rim clean and ordering another before you know it.

When it comes to the food, you need to forget about airs and graces – this is finger food that’s going to get dirty. The menu’s simple: essentially four toppings – chilli chicken, beef and black bean chilli, portobello mushroom and black bean chilli, or pork shoulder – which are loaded up into tacos, onto nachos or as rice bowls.

We get going with the chilli chicken nachos (£7.95) – yellow and black chips piled high with lashings of shredded meat.

There’s a moreish chilli kick and cinnamon warmth in the chicken and generous amounts of guacamole, salsa, cheese and sour cream. No chip goes unslathered.

The slow-roasted pork shoulder with herb, citrus and spice seasoning that fills our soft flour tortillas – made by The Little Tortilleria in Bristol – is juicy, full of flavour, and plentiful (£7.95). While a Mexican might crave a crisp skin for bite, we’re stoked with the three generously filled tacos.

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You’ll go for the food and stay for the cocktails, reckons a happy Charlie

A blue-and-white enamel bowl comes loaded with rice and chunky slow-cooked beef chilli. It’s a filling meal with quality meat and great flavours – not to mention top value at £6.95.

With a friendly team, dogs-allowed policy and kids welcome ’til 6pm, this is a cool city hangout with a neighbourhood vibe that’s totally Mexcellent. Roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.

(Oh, and by the way: ‘nacho cheese’ is what you call it, obviously.)

Dos Dedos, Edgar Mews, Bartlett Street, Bath BA1 2QZ; dosdedos.co.uk

RIVERSIDe dining

NEW MOON ON THE QUAY

The new restaurant has a cosy, bohemian vibe

The team behind a popular Clifton restaurant have taken on a quirky (read: tricky) space on the harbourside, and turned it into a restaurant with plenty of colour – in more ways than one, says Jessica Carter

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A F T E R S

Food inspired by countries from all over the world come together on the menu at New Moon, meaning you can hop from the UK to the Philippines then over to Russia in one meal

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aving eclectic tastes is a blessing and a curse. Variety is the spice of life, sure, but ever tried putting your crossgenre music collection on shuffle? There’s no stress quite like it.

Eclecticism is a core characteristic of Clifton restaurant New Moon and its more recently launched incarnation on Hannover Quay. Here, it’s a blessing.

Small plates are the order of the day, and are bountiful in both supply and influences – we’re talking 20-odd dishes on the main menu, with Southeast Asian, Spanish, Middle Eastern, Italian and Russian roots.

And that’s before you even flip it over, for the six-dish-strong themed menu on the back, where lesser locally seen cuisines like South African, Uzbek, and Albanian are showcased, the hero country changing with each new moon.

Chilled aubergine rolls stuffed with goat’s cheese and basil mousse (£7) are a bit of a signature dish here. Although the cooled aubergine doesn’t feel particularly inviting to pick up with my fingers (cutlery is provided – I was hungry, and it slows me down), the flavours are fresh and layered up nicely, the tang of the goat’s cheese echoed in the basil and lifted with sundried tomato and walnut.

Charred octopus (£9) sees the flesh coated with a sweet balsamic glaze and joined by flavours of walnut and olive. (The tender, well-cooked meat isn’t as mild or fresh-tasting as expected, though, with a rather robust seafoody flavour.) Better are

the fat king prawns (£8.90), which come shelled, sautéed and slathered in a smooth and creamy Pernod and red pesto sauce.

Lamb cutlets (£8.90), again with a balsamic glaze (many common threads run throughout these varied dishes, basil and balsamic being two) are delicious, as is the mound of minted spinach heaped underneath them. Usually put off this rich leaf by the soggy texture it yields to when cooked, I despatch spoonfuls of the stuff onto my plate after a tentative mouthful, employing it as mint sauce.

Perhaps our favourite dishes of this meal come from the reverse side of the menu, which is dedicated – at the time of writing – to the food of the Philippines, a cuisine that has evolved to incorporate countless cultures over the centuries, thanks to the neighbours, trade and history of colonization of this sprawling cluster of islands (2,000 of which are inhabited).

Vegetable okoy (£6.40) are fritters made up of shredded sweet potato, squash, pepper and onion, formed into loose patties and deep-fried until crisp, golden and promising buckets of crunch and texture. We use them to scrape up the tangy and fiery chilli vinaigrette that’s swiped on the slate in front of them.

Tamarind is a favourite ingredient in the Philippines, often used in soup and – as here – stews. This warming bowl of braised pork with mushroom, aubergine and bok choy is nicely spiced, the slow-cooked meat tender with butter-soft fat, and the liquor moreish.

A hearty bowl of goodness for winter.

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While globally adventurous, the varied dishes do somehow maintain a kind of comforting familiarity, unconcerned with new-fangled cooking techniques or current trends (I mean, much of our food is served on slates, for instance). If you really can’t decide what to order from the almost overwhelming list, the ‘testing selection’ for two puts the decision making in the hands of the chef, who will send out five or six of their current favourite dishes for a set price. That’s what we roll with, and we get a good spread, but having re-read the menu since I’ll want to pick for myself next time, I think. (I’ll always be a defiant, contradictory teenager at heart.)

Kiosk 3 – as the quirky little building on the harbourside is known officially – never looked very inviting in any of its former guises, but now almost beckons you in with the warm glowing light you can see on approach. Inside is a cosy, bohemian-style space where plants fill the floor space and hang overhead, with strings of tiny lights woven throughout their leaves and fronds.

Wicker furniture and animal print give an exotic vibe that’s contrasted with more plush touches of red velvet and light shades.

New Moon’s eclectic tendency goes much further than the food, then – and this cosy little hideaway with interesting menus is all the better for it.

New Moon On The Quay, Kiosk 3, Hannover Quay, Bristol BS1 5JE; 0117 927 9689; newmoononthequay.co.uk

HOTEL RESTAURANTS

GREY’S BRASSERIE Comforting, filling food made with finesse is what this casual dining hotel restaurant is about, finds Jessica Carter

I

It might be relaxed in the dining room, but in the kitchen Niall Keating is running a tight ship

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’ve spent the first month of this year totally thrown off when it comes to the concept of time; there’s something about the turn of a decade that adds to my inability to compute dates, apparently.

It’s like some kind of millennium bug, but in my brain. And 20 years late.

I was certain that this incarnation of Grey’s Brasserie was new to Whatley Manor.

It went through a complete overhaul recently, shedding its confidently embodied theme of wood-clad chalet in the Swiss Alps.

(I remember having breakfast in there once after a stay and being somewhat confused by my surroundings and the abundance of kitsch Christmas decs. I am less bemused now, having realised that the owners are, of course, from Switzerland.)

Anyway, when I say ‘recently’, what I mean, it turns out, is 2017. And it was the year before that when the chef I called ‘new’ to my dinner date was actually appointed.

Anyway. For the last couple of years at least, a suave and elegant Grey’s Brasserie has been fulfilling the role of the all-day dining, laid-back sibling to the luxury hotel’s two-Michelin-starred Dining Room.

While it may be the hotel’s more relaxed venue, Grey’s is still upmarket, with a decor of neutral hues, banquette seating and decorative wall panelling giving off elegant vibes, and a menu whose prices still fall outside the ‘everyday’ bracket.

It’s a large space, although it’s been cleverly designed with plenty of corners and nooks to create a sense of privacy and cosiness. The service matches the laid back feel, and the atmosphere is one that happily doesn’t call for hushed tones.

A F T E R S

Whatley Manor is a hotel and spa in Wiltshire – and it’s happily only about a 45-minute drive from either Bath or Bristol

Sure, I felt pretty dull ordering the vegetable broth (£12), but I’d been cold all day, thanks to a damp mist that seemed to have crept underneath my skin and into my bloodstream, so it sounded right up my street. Those thoughts of dullness, though, were promptly banished by the arrival of a heap of pearled spelt and chopped king oyster mushroom, submerged in a hot broth on which floated a vibrant green oil. The liquor was wholesome and deep in flavour with an understated layer of umami, while the spelt and mushroom offered satisfying chew. I held the bowl to my chest and slurped noisily from my spoon (not even sorry) until not a speck was left.

There was also chestnut orzo (£9), the pasta slicked with an impossibly silky and creamy sauce. A comforting bowl of carbbased gratification, it contained a whisper of truffle and was topped with a parmesan and

hazelnut crumb for a bit of textural variation and a bolster of flavour.

The beef Wellington special (price on request) was a looker, my slice presented on a plate of its own and showing off deepred meat, surrounded by a generous layer of mushroom duxelles and thin layer of latticed, golden-brown puff pastry (crisp and flaky on the outside, although with a bit of a moist inner, truth be told). The beef was spot-on: evenly cooked, juicy and tender – I barely needed to chew it, even.

The kitchen didn’t skimp on the sides – the Welly’s arrival was followed by that of roast potatoes, vibrant green veg, braised red cabbage and crispy sprouts (which I assume had been deep-fried – how I would exclusively eat them, given the choice).

The chicken breast (£25) was local and organic, the menu told us, and arrived in pillowy soft and insanely tender hunks. The

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plump, white flesh was a far cry from the poultry most of us eat most of the time.

The quenelle of chocolate mousse (£8.50) with honeycomb and hazelnut was a surprisingly light end to dinner – which I was wholeheartedly thankful for, after all of the above, plus two rounds of bread and butter. (I doubt I shall ever learn to decline seconds of homemade bread.)

Don’t think of Grey’s Brasserie as the less-good Whatley restaurant: the quality is absolutely there in terms of both ingredients and skill. The two venues share a kitchen, in fact, meaning the two-Michelin-starred head chef Niall Keating carefully oversees both outputs. And it shows.

Grey’s Brasserie, Whatley Manor Hotel and Spa, Easton Grey, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 0RB; 01666 822 888; whatleymanor.com

L I T T L E

B L A C K

B O O K

PAT POWELL

Not even the co-founder of Swoon can live on gelato alone, you know Quick pint? Left Handed Giant at Finzels Reach, overlooking the river and Castle Park. Their craft beer is delicious. Watch out, though: Alphonso the Passionate ManGoose tastes like a soft drink and goes down way too easily.

Cheeky cocktail? The Dark Horse. It’s just too easy to cross Kingsmead Square from Swoon in Bath for an afterwork cocktail. The Hanged Man I had in December was a particular highlight.

Hot brew? Kung Flu Fighter – eucalyptus and echinacea cold-weather tea by Bird and Blend. Their blends are amazing – as are some of the names.

Sunday lunch? There’s so much choice, but a few of my go-tos are The Kensington Arms (really great food and relaxed atmosphere), The Victoria Park and The Cowshed.

Breakfast? I love to walk down to the waterfront with friends and our dogs and have brunch at Spoke and Stringer.

Their Shakshuka is delicious, as are their poached eggs with smashed avocado.

On the run? Chaiwalla. Delicious low-fat food on the go.

Posh nosh? This is a tough one! Love Bulrush, love The Ethicurean, love Wilsons. Please can I have all three?

On a budget? Pizzarova. I often walk up from our College Green gelato bar at lunchtime for a slice. Far too tempting.

Comfort food? The Scallop Shell in Bath. Love their fish and chips, and the homemade tartare sauce is to die for.

With the family? Pasta Loco. We all adore the pasta and love the casual atmosphere. They always source top ingredients and wine, too.

With friends? Bianchis in Montpelier. Great value and food, and such personal service. We’d go more than we do, if only we could get in!

Belting burger? We’re spoilt for choice, aren’t we? To eat in, it has to be Asado. Deliciously dirty burgers. And if I’m going to be bad, I like to do it properly.

Something sweet? It has to be Swoon, doesn’t it? But if I have to give an alternative, it’s Anna Cake Couture. The creations are as delicious as they are beautiful.

Favourite grocery shop? Good Sixty. This online store supports great quality local independents.

Best wine merchant? DBM Wines in Clifton. The team are always ready with great advice – and samples. Dangerous.

Best atmosphere? If I have friends visiting Bristol we usually take them for a drink on the terrace of the Avon Gorge Hotel for the spectacular views, followed by a meal upstairs at Lido, overlooking the pool. Such a special venue.

One to watch? A former boot factory that’s being turned into boutique hotel – Artist Residence on Portland Square, Bristol. It’s going to have a coffee shop to encourage neighbourhood and transient visitors alike. I’m interested to see the design and layout.

On the hit list? I have yet to try Freddy Bird’s Little French.

I was a big fan when he was at Lido and have heard good things about his new venture.

Most underrated? Olé Tapas. I think because it’s upstairs on the first floor of the building it gets missed, but the tapas are authentic and delicious.

swoononaspoon.co.uk

Quick! Now add this little lot to your contacts book...

Left Handed Giant, Bristol BS1 6EU; lhgbrewpub.com The Dark Horse, Bath BA1 2AB; darkhorsebar.co.uk Bird and Blend, Bristol BS1 5PB; birdandblendtea.com The Kensington Arms, Bristol BS6 6NP; thekensingtonarms.co.uk The Victoria Park, Bristol BS3 4QW; thevictoriapark.co.uk The Cowshed, Bristol BS8 2NH; cowshedrestaurants.com Spoke and Stringer, Bristol BS1 5AT; spokeandstringer.com Chaiwalla, Bath BA1 1EN; facebook.com/chaiwallabath Bulrush, Bristol BS6 5TZ; bulrushrestaurant.co.uk The Ethicurean, Wrington BS40 5SA; theethicurean.com Wilsons, Bristol BS6 6PF; wilsonsbristol.co.uk Pizzarova, Bristol BS1 5HS; pizzarova.com The Scallop Shell, Bath BA1 2AY; thescallopshell.co.uk Pasta Loco, Bristol BS6 6JY; pastaloco.co.uk Bianchis, Bristol BS6 5QB; bianchisrestaurant.co.uk Asado, Bristol BS1 5BB; asadobristol.com Anna Cake Couture, Bristol BS8 4AA; thisisanna.co.uk Good Sixty; goodsixty.co.uk DBM Wines, Bristol BS8 4AB; dbmwines.co.uk Avon Gorge Hotel, Bristol BS8 4LD; theavongorgehotel.com Lido, Bristol BS8 2BJ; lidobristol.com Artist Residence, Bristol BS2 8SA; artistresidence.co.uk Little French, Bristol BS6 7QB; littlefrench.co.uk Olé Tapas, Bath BA1 2JL; oletapas.co.uk

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