On the menu

“WE’VE BEEN REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO WELCOMING DINERS BACK”

Since restaurants, cafés and bars have been able to trade again it has certainly proved to be financially beneficial for them as Eileen Leahy discovers

hen the first lockdown happened a year ago last March few could have predicted just how W gravely it would affect business – especially those in the hospitality and leisure industries. But after months of being in and out of lockdown and severe tiers, a host of our favourite bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants were able to reopen on Monday April 12, serving food and drink outside. And now ahead of them being able to serve inside as of May 17 - to no more than two households or six people - we talked to various popular proprietors about what it’s like to be finally back in business. Zorba’s Meze Grill operated a highly successful takeaway service during the past year – and also fed

NHS staff at Tunbridge Wells hospital free of charge every week. Its owner Sedat Zorba revealed that he and his team have been

‘overwhelmed’ by the support they too have received over the past year from loyal customers. “We have been overwhelmed by your support during the lockdowns.

We cannot thank you enough for all your orders. We were able to open our doors again on April 12 for outdoor dining and we can’t wait to welcome diners back.” One of the town’s most luxurious hotels One Warwick Park is also happy to welcome back its clientele. Its operations manager Martin Garner is especially pleased to finally be able to properly showcase the hotel’s new bar. “We launched our new ‘inside outside’ bar The Warehouse late last year, but it was shortly before the most recent lockdown, so unfortunately that meant it was only open for a couple of weeks.”

The unique looking bar is made from scaffolding and reclaimed wood and also boasts artwork from local street artist HUMOUR.

Later this month diners will also be able to savour the flavours at the long awaited opening of One Warwick Park’s new restaurant STEAK.

“We’re already fully booked for the first two weeks of opening which is just wonderful. We think STEAK will bring a new relaxed eating experience to the town.”

Julian Leefe-Griffiths, owner of The Tunbridge Wells Hotel on The Pantiles was equally excited about relaunching his business last month.

“We’ve been really looking forward to welcoming diners back. We have a fantastic terrace in a lovely spot on The Pantiles so luckily we’re ideally suited to al fresco dining.”

And if the weather doesn’t play ball until May 17 Julian says there is a Plan B.

“We have marquees in case it rains so fingers crossed we can have a lovely spring. We are very much looking forward to welcoming our guests back and getting Tunbridge Wells back to normal.”

On May 6 Julian and his team will relaunch their perennially popular Jazz on The Pantiles event, albeit in a Covid compliant manner.

“We’re really looking forward to getting that underway and have some great acts signed up with Dandara as our new headline sponsor.

“To start with it will be a seated dinner and jazz event and then we just have to see where coronavirus restrictions and rules take us. It’s been a bumpy road for everyone but we’re all in agreement that we want to bring the fun back to Tunbridge Wells in a safe manner.”

Celebrity chef James Tanner and his team at The Kentish Hare have also reopened – although for the time being they are only serving lunch from Wednesday to Sundays.

“We’re sticking to those days as it means we can have the same team on in the kitchen and for front of house to ensure consistency of

What happens next in the roadmap for restaurants….

May 17 - Hospitality venues can seat customers indoors but parties must still adhere to the rule of six people or two households of any size. Groups seated outside must be smaller than 30 people

June 21 - As long as the infection numbers continue to decline all restrictions will be lifted on this date. On this date all nightclubs will be allowed to reopen. The government says it will have reviewed its social distancing rules by this date so we should know if they still need to be followed. service,” explains Paul Barber, the establishment’s General Manager. “It means we can also ease ourselves into things and ensure our produce is the freshest possible.”

Commenting on their return to the kitchens last week James, who also co-runs the Barbican Kitchen in Plymouth with his brother Chris, said being able to reopen was ‘fantastic.’

“We’ve got a great outdoor space with socially distanced tables, some under parasols, and heating elements to keep you nice and toasty while you’re dining. It’s fantastic to be back doing what we love.”

The Kentish Hare, which has just been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand for its fantastic food as well as being ranked 13th in the Estrella Damm Gastro Pubs 2021, will be able to cater for 80 people when the restaurant opens fully later this month.

On the menu you will find appetising delights such as Dorset Crab, confit chicken & duck terrine,

barbecued line caught mackerel and Manager, Emma Martin told SO she braised Suffolk lamb shoulder. and her team were adamant that

Talking of delicious food, beautiful coronavirus would not deter them Bewl Water’s Waterfront Café has from safely welcoming guests back. one of the area’s most inviting "Having survived two world terraces which overlooks the wars, the Spanish flu and picturesque reservoir. It too numerous recessions in its will be serving a selection of history, Salomons Estate hot and cold snacks until it emerged successfully from can reopen its restaurant. the recent lockdowns with the

Its sister site Salomons opening of our new covered Estate has been heated terrace which catering outside for can safely seat up to the past month or 90 guests. so courtesy of its “Guests can enjoy special marquee far reaching views where visitors over our 36 acres have enjoyed of gardens and everything from woodland whilst pizza evenings and enjoying the spring traditional Sunday sunshine." lunches to indulgent James Tanner of The Sounds like the perfect afternoon teas. Kentish Hare (above) way to start the

Its Operations summer…

We’re already fully booked for the first two weeks of opening in May which is just wonderful

Photograph: Lee Smith

MARK DIACONO’S NEW RULES FOR USING HERBS

The expert gardener and food writer’s new cookbook is dedicated to herbs. And so far, we haven’t been doing them justice, discovers Ella Walker

“We don’t need herbs,” says Mark Diacono, a man who has just written an entire cookbook about them. He goes on to call them “unnecessary” and adds, quite heartlessly, that “we can perfectly merrily eat for the rest of our lives without herbs and we will live”. However, they are also “the thing that makes the difference between feeding and eating,” he says, turning this dark tale into a lightfilled parable. “It’s the unnecessary brilliance of [using herbs] that just makes you want to eat this delightful thing and get pleasure from it.” And so, in conclusion, we actually do very much need herbs on our plates and growing on our windowsills, and Diacono, food writer, photographer and creator of Otter Farm – a nursery designed to encourage people to grow “unusual and forgotten food” – is very willing to share his affection for herbs. “We’re the only species on earth that cooks,” he continues. “We’re doing it for two reasons. One is to transform foods into something that’s edible, you know, just plain old ‘I can eat that/That’s not going to kill me and/or I’m not going to lose my teeth trying to get through it’. But once you’ve got to that point, the rest really is about pleasure.”

Herbs provide “that little tweak” that can amp up a dish or morph its character slightly – take Diacono’s bread and butter pudding. Laced with standard thyme he says it takes on a “Novemberish” feel, whereas lemon thyme connotes April.

Despite his adoration for most of them, Diacono does not indiscriminately enjoy all edible shoots. In Herb: A Cook’s Companion, the follow up to his 2019 cookbook, Sour, he rages amiably at the ubiquitous one leaf of parsley garnish (“It’s, ‘I thought about you, but I didn’t think about you enough…’”) and rails at being presented with whole mint leaves to eat (“They’re just unpleasant in the mouth,”).

Poor lemon balm feels the full brunt of his ire. “I love it in the garden; in the kitchen, I couldn’t be less interested,” he explains. “There’s no meal that can be improved by lemon balm, there’s no delight to be had from it.” According to Diacono, it’s the sherbet leaves of lemon verbena you really ought to look for.

The problem is, most of us get “stuck” with the herbs that we use. Diacono nods to the usual suspects, mint, coriander, Herb: A Cook’s Companion by Mark Diacono is published by Quadrille, priced £26. Photography Mark Diacono. Available now.

rosemary, thyme and parsley – in its own right. “If we leave the which in a double-whammy of chop fairly coarse, what you get is a going through the motions, as we punch every now and again, of say, also tend to use them repeatedly in coriander – it becomes a surprise: the same old ways. It means we’re ‘Oh, that was coriander!’ rather accessing only a “tiny little sliver” than if we chop it really finely and of the green fronds throw it in, we could be scoffing. everything becomes

“If you get to grips coriander. The with herbs just a impression is very little – and they’re different.” very easy to get to grips with – then it If you get to He considers herbs a way to build, season could change your grips with and layer flavour, and food like nothing else,” says Diacono. herbs then it fortunately, “it’s quite hard to overuse a “These are the could change herb I would say, so clothes that dress up the plainer your food like play, experiment and keep tasting – people ingredients. You’re nothing else tend to taste right at in for a fair bit of fun the end, keep tasting, with them.” keep tasting.”

Pairing them in Diacono is a hugely different successful gardener combinations, or – he writes gardening chucking them into dishes at varied books as well as recipes – so it’s moments during cooking could massively reassuring to know how make a real impact, he reckons. For relaxed he is about stuffing bundles instance, when making mint sauce, of parsley guilt-free in the Diacono doubles the mint; dousing supermarket trolley. the bulk of it in water, sugar and “My belief is, buy the herbs you vinegar, and then topping it with use masses of. There’s just no way, The ones you should consider finely shredded fresh before unless you have infinite time and sowing and growing from seed at serving for extra zing. space, that you can grow all the home, he says “are the

Another swift way to up your parsley, all the coriander, all the embellishments on that”. He’s herb game is to consider how thyme you are likely to use if you talking ginger rosemary, orange you’re wielding your knife. “How like it,” he says. “You’ll end up thyme, pineapple sage, Vietnamese we chop is really important,” says hammering the thyme plant to coriander, the “varieties on the Diacono, calling it an ‘ingredient’ death.” variety”, as well as the leaves you’d just struggle to buy, like shiso, salad burnet, chervil, savory. “We tend to only have a certain amount of time and space that we can dedicate to growing stuff,” he says, “so make it the flavours you cannot have unless you grow it yourself.” Even a few pots by the back door, he’s adamant, “can transform every meal you eat. That’s a pretty extraordinary thing and it’s very easy to achieve.” He’s all for just giving things a go, be it making marjoram and chive flower salt, distilling the essence of fig leaves in syrup, or infusing all the vodka he can get his hands on, apothecary-like, with twirled stems of lovage and stalks of lemongrass. “We are desperate to just do the things we’re good at,” he muses. “So we tend to shut down [when faced with new challenges]. We tend to do fewer and fewer things. We just do the things we’re good at. We defend them with a cricket bat, you know, and it’s like: stop it, we’re here to live for a very short time, do stuff you’re crap at and get good at it, if you want to, or just be crap at it! It doesn’t matter. “We’re here to live,” he continues – and even the smallest jot of greenery can help us remember that it’s the small things, be it a furry leaf of sage rubbed between your fingers, or chewing on a homegrown sorrel leaf. “I think we mustn’t lose that sense of play. We mustn’t lose that sense of doing things. Of joy.”

THINGS ARE LOOKING ROSÉ

Wine guru James Viner cherry picks his favourite pink wines

1)Must-try supermarket rosé from Provence Specially Selected Coteaux Varois en Provence Rosé 2020, France (£6,49, Aldi, 13%) This delicious supermarket rendition is summer in a glass and will surely brighten any miserable spring day. It’s a (red) carignancinsault-syrah blend, pepped up with a dollop of peachy (white) rolle and it has a beautifully delineated suite of summer pudding flavours, plus hints of herbs and pink grapefruit to balance. Bright, limpid, dry, and pale coral in colour, it’s an excellent aperitif to also enjoy alongside aioli with crunchy crudités, bouillabaisse, brie and grilled fish.

2) Pale rosé/rosado from Rioja Ramón Bilbao El Viaje de Ramón Garnacha Rosé 2020, Rioja, Spain (£8, The Co-op, 12.5%) Scoop up this gluggable, crowdpleasing, juicy, pale, Provençal-style garnacha-dominant Rioja, enlivened with a dab of honeydew melon and lemon verbena (white) viura. It’s properly dry; match with grilled vegetables, light seafood, and risottos – or just enjoy the naked sip. Scores highly with roast leg of lamb hot off the barbecue. Salud to spring!

3) Scrumptious, left-field, crisp and dry rosé from sunny Crete Lyrarakis, Kedros Liatiko Rosé 2020, Crete, Greece (£12.50, The Wine Society, 13.5%) The nose is an intriguing mix of ripe red berry fruits, peach, and red hibiscus, all bound in tangy citrus acidity. So clean and pure with a long, mineral-defined finish. Give it a whirl with grilled fish (perhaps red mullet), shellfish, and seafood. Track it down now!

4)Prettily-packaged Provençal pink lookalike from the North Downs of Kent Simpsons Wine Estate Railway Hill Pinot Noir Rosé 2020, Kent, England (£19.50 £19.99, simpsonswine.com,) There are some great English still pink wines to be had if you know where to look, and this is one of them, made at a leading estate run by an accomplished husband-andwife team living the dream in a vineyard situated at Barham, Kent, in the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Fresh and scented, stylish and pale, this has lip-smacking acidity and bags of primary fruit (think watermelon, pink grapefruit, cranberry, and peach) flavours, with a whisper of lychee.

5) Opulent, pinot-noir-forward sparkling rosé from the South Downs of W. Sussex Ashling Park Rosé 2014 (£30.95-£31.50, Whisky Exchange & ashlingpark.co.uk, 12%) This local gem is made by ace Irish winemaker Dermot Sugrue from champagne grapes pinot noir (PN) and pinot meunier grown at a family estate in Little Ashling, W. Sussex. It’s pale, dry and rich, with a fresh, elegant and lively palate; PN (80%)-derived plum and cherry to the fore. The show continues through the long, fresh finish and aftertaste. One sip was taken for the whole note and the flavours are still lingering. Superb.

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