London

I AM sipping cool Chablis from an almost ecclesiastical goblet under designer Philippe Starck’s decadent Black Zénith chandelier – identical to the 19th-century original in all but colour. I am at Guy Martin’s Cristal Room in Maison Baccarat. Overlooking the manicured Place des Etas-Unis, it feels removed from Paris’s snarl of traffic. Now HQ and museum for arguably the world’s most famous crystal brand, it first saw fame as Marie-Laure de Noailles’ mansion. The lavish patron of the arts supported Buñuel, Man Ray, Duchamp, and knew Dali as a pauper...Read at Square Meal »See pictures at Visuals »

Mr P and I both enjoy a good bit of bread. When Pump Street Bakery in Orford opened we thought that all our Christmases had come at once and we would never need to attempt to bake bread again. I enjoy baking bread, do not misunderstand me, but the enjoyment wears off quickly for me with something as technical as baking bread when it’s done on a daily basis, especially when menus change regularly. The British Larder Suffolk team visited the Hand and Flowers in Marlow a couple of months ago. It was a very special and memorable visit and Tom and his team looked after us very well. Amongst all the special and delicious plates of food, the memory of the delicious and very tasty soda bread has stayed with me. I was inspired to bake my own version of soda bread. It took a few attempts to get it right, or shall I say, the way I would like it to be. I used a local spelt flour mixed with wholemeal bread flour, and a teaspoon of honey gives the soda bread a rounded, moreish and lasting flavour. I add pumpkin and sunflower seeds for extra crunch to make it more interesting and give the bread another taste dimension too. The crust is superb; bake the bread at a fairly high temperature and the crust will be crisp and the interior fluffy and delicious, exactly as you would expect it to be. I now regularly bake this bread as I do find it very satisfying, and the best bit of all is that it’s incredibly quick to make. You can have a loaf of freshly baked soda bread on the table in just over an hour and you’re guaranteed to have the best smelling kitchen in the world!

Following last year’s successful Soho hit La Bodega Negra, Ricker Restaurants will launch Casa Negra in Shoreditch on 6 June 2013, adding to the group’s portfolio that also includes E&O, XO, Cicada and Eight Over Eight. Casa Negra will offer a menu of Mexican style street food, including ceviches, coctèls, aguachiles and tostadas, along with a number of different tacos. Casa Negra’s signature dish will be the Carnitas de lechon – a suckling pig ‘served at the table with fresh salsas and traditional garnishes’. The head chef at Casa Negra will be Brad McDonald from New York, formerly of Brooklyn restaurants Gran Electrica and Governor. Casa Negra’s dining room will seat 82, with space for 30+ at the bar, which will be open until 2am. There will also be a ‘Casa Playroom’ downstairs – full details to follow! For the latest updates, you can follow @CasaNegraLDN on Twitter or sign up to our blog below for our full review in due course: Enter your email address: Address: Casa Negra, 54-56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR The post Casa Negra – New Mexican Restaurant in Shoreditch appeared first on Bon Vivant Concierge Service by Emyr Thomas - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at Bon Vivant or follow us on

The surrounding countryside on the hour long bus journey from Córdoba provided a constant reminder of why I was travelling on this ageing coach in blistering heat. With my head resting against the glass, I watched reflected a continuous vista of olive groves stretching up and down in beautifully neat lines over the gently undulating hills, nothing else but olive trees, trailing off into the distance in every direction.Stepping off the bus, in an incredibly louche manner, I took in my surroundings, the rather sleepy Spanish market town of Baena, destination for a fair amount of the olives I’d seen on the journey, there to be squashed relentlessly and mercilessly at the hands of Núñez de Prado, makers of some of the finest organic olive oil you can get your grubby mitts on, which was exactly what I had in mind.Taking a swig of water and bemusedly studying the map on my phone, I wandered off aimlessly into town, accompanied by Elly, in search of the famous olive oil mill, determined to bluster, cajole, bribe or threaten my way in (as it turned out, there was no need for any of this, they happily let anyone in).Arriving unannounced in the oil mill office and enquiring about the possibility of a site tour I was a little taken aback to have the President of the company, Francisco Núñez de Prado (or Paco to his pals) stepping up to act as guide.Joined by a handful of fellow olive oil tourists we were led around the mill by the extremely entertaining Paco, who explained the process in English, Spanish and French – with a little German thrown in, just for the sheer hell of it.The Núñez de Prado family have been making Olive Oil for seven generations and have eschewed the use of chemicals in the growing process since 1986 being subsequently certified organic in 1990.Harvest season runs from November-January with 160 employees picking the olives entirely by hand ‘working really fast’.The olives are crushed in terrifying looking, rolling, heavy granite presses which date from just after the Spanish Civil War, in 1944 and were installed by Paco’s father.The resulting paste is then hydraulically pressed. They only produce Extra Virgin Olive Oil and there is only a 1st cold pressing.The company’s primo product is Flor de Aceite or ‘Flower of the oil’ a free run EVOO that is produced by squeezing the crushed olive oil paste between mats, 10 kilos between each mat with a total of a tonne being pressed at a time. The end product is the oil that seeps out. 11 kilos of olives are needed to make just 1 litre of this oil. After pressing the olive oil is pumped into glass tanks that are hermetically sealed to prevent flavour contamination. As the oil sits, it separates naturally from the water, which is then pumped away. Nothing is wasted, this ‘black water’ and the leftover crushed, tasteless olive oil paste is combined and used on the olive groves as a fertiliser. The finished oil is then rested for a couple of months before bottling.And that is more or less that. We then got the opportunity to purchase some of this exceptional product at almost ridiculous knock down prices £4.25 for a bottle of the Flor de Aceite. Thank you very much, stick me down for a case.I found the whole thing fascinating, probably because the process is so beautifully simple, just like me. Also, I hadn’t really considered how olive oil was actually made, I mean, I had intelligently surmised you squashed the olives, but had absolutely no idea what the actual squashing operation looked like. Now I do. Artisanal squashy.Afterwards we had a quick wander around Baena, noting that olives, somewhat unsurprisingly for a town surrounded by the things, are sold absolutely everywhere. Feeling a bit sharp-set and having an hour or so to kill before our bus back to Córdoba we wandered into a bar down the road from the bus station, where the bocadillos we ordered (despite taking an age to arrive, what with the kitchen actually making a tortilla from scratch for the filling) were each ab

Taking "inspiration" from an existing successful business is not, in itself, evil. Noting the success of Bubbledogs and the Big Apple Hot Dogs and then opening your own hot dog stall is not evil. Spotting the crowds in MeatLiquor and opening your own burger and cocktail joint is not evil. Being envious of the queues trailing down Beak Street from FlatIron then serving your own version of the dish is not evil. Wanting to get in on the market for slow-cooked BBQ ribs pioneered by Pitt Cue is not evil. But doing all this at once? It's not just that Jamie's Diner is cynical. It's not merely that it's an incoherent, paper-thin mess of a place that shouldn't have left the drawing board. It's way more than that. It's a multi-million pound cliché warehouse, a jumble of every single one of London's food fads all piled up on top of each other, each more disastrously "reimagined" than the last. The menu is bone-jarring, multi-car pile up, so much so that pointing out all its failings would take a short novella never mind a blog post. There's a collection of "starters" of no obvious geographical origin, "cajun" prawns and "sweet potato quesadilla" jostling somewhat uncomfortably next to a Marie Rose prawn cocktail. There's a box of four "Classic Dishes" including a Reuben sandwich, a £15 chicken in a basket (one would hope you get the whole chicken for that; I bet you don't) and the worryingly singular "Giant Spaghetti Meatball". There's another section for "salads" which has so many eye-twitchingly irritating phrases I got as far as "Super Duper Quinoa Salad" then gave up and moved on. The "Steaks" section has just two choices - a £16.50 "Flat-Iron" (for all its failings, at least Flat Iron Soho's is only £10 with a salad) and a completely bonkers "Rib-eye for two" for £60. There's a section for "waffles" which has only two choices; one with pulled pork and one - I swear I'm not making this up - with smoked salmon and horseradish cottage cheese which must rank with one of the most terrifying ideas anyone in charge of writing a menu has ever had. There's also a box for "burgers" where if you really want to push the boundaries you can specify extra sweetcorn salsa, gruyere cheese and piccalilly for £1 an item. But if the menu is a car crash, just wait till you get a load of the food. "Guacamole tortilla chips" were notable insofar as they contained no tortilla chips, and very little guacamole, just some salty water biscuits of some kind, slowly dissolving under a pile of tasteless chopped tomatoes. They were served in a sort of bucket thing with a handle which I'm sure someone thought was a good idea. "Dirty Barbecue Ribs" were burned, so it's hard to objectively rate their "dirty"ness, although if "dirty" means "sickeningly sweet and overcooked" then we're probably halfway there. A pile of chopped carrots and cabbage and who knows what else was entirely unseasoned and served no purpose, although bizarrely shoestring fries were crisp, perfectly seasoned and actually rather nice. Worse was yet to come, though. "Giant spaghetti meatball" was, in fact, three or four totally normal-sized meatballs of flavourless mystery meat, nestled amongst slimy commodity pasta. They were garnished with sour cream, cheap parmesan and chopped parsley, the latter being all you could taste. "It smells like vomit," my friend pointed out thoughtfully, as she gamely prodded her way through it. Dear God though, the pulled pork waffles. At first I couldn't remember if I'd ever tasted pulled pork quite this bad, and then it dawned on me - I had. At Jamie Oliver's other restaurant, Barbecoa. A winning combination of dry, sickly sweet and sloppy, their sugared-vinegar runoff had turned the waffles below from what were once presumably very bland but inoffensive carbohydrate into soggy, tooth-softening mush. Awful, and yet some deep-fried chillis, although slightly chewy, were genuinely tas

In her excellent book, ‘The Yoghurt Cookbook‘, Arto der Haroutunian talks about the health promoting properties of the white stuff, and its supposedly life lengthening power. By my reckoning I should live until at least 180, providing the yoghurt can counteract a history of fags, booze and fast livin’. Cultures which consume a lot of yoghurt, such as the Georgians, are huge believers in its supposed powers, and have used it as a cure for…well, pretty much everything actually, for centuries. I can’t vouch for the validity of those claims, but I can vouch for the taste, and its hangover curing properties. This buffalo yoghurt made in a traditional clay pot brought me back from the brink; I’m talking nausea, shakes, the creeping doom…not a whisker of it after I’d gobbled this lot down at the side of a rocky road in Georgia. Yoghurt in Georgia  The yoghurt I tried in Ethiopia recently was a little more…challenging. I asked the lady we were visiting how she made it, and she replied ‘well I just put the milk in this bucket (straight from the cow in the back yard) and leave it on the shelf for three days.’ That’s one approach, although it is of course really just curdled milk and not ‘proper’ yoghurt. The taste was very sour and it had a loose wobbly texture. The Ethiopians often mix it with chilli powder and drink the whole glass like a shot, and I can see why. I spent the next three hours concerned about potential gastrointestinal payback. Yoghurt in Ethiopia Mixed with chilli powder Labneh, then, is basically yoghurt that’s been strained of its whey. Of course I adore it because, well it’s like yoghurt to the power of ten. Once strained, the resulting substance is more akin to cream cheese, but with the obvious tartness of yoghurt; that sour freshness that yoghurt-lovers crave. I’ve found that the best brand by far for making yoghurt is Total. It’s even better than the mega expensive stuff I bought from the farmers’ market, which relinquished hardly any liquid. It is thick and creamy before straining  which is a good thing if you’re eating it straight up, but with labneh you want some residual sourness. To make labneh, mix the yoghurt with a large pinch of salt, then wrap in muslin, or as I have done, a clean/brand new dishcloth. Hang in the fridge (to be honest I used to just hang it in a cool place but now I have a very hot kitchen so the fridge it is) and allow the whey to strain away for about 5 to 6 hours. The longer the strain, the thicker the labneh, obviously. After this time it is ready, and can be used or preserved in a number of ways. Try rolling in herbs and preserving in olive oil…it’s then lovely just spread on bread. It’s also delicious rolled in dukkah, or za’atar. Straight up it’s best topped with punchy flavours like anchovy and chilli, or dolloped onto salads as you would use a goat’s curd for example. My favourite way to use it right now however is to stuff it into Turkish peppers before slinging them on the BBQ. They are lovely when wrapped up inside a flat bread with a kebab, oozing their creamy centres against the sizzling meat. If you’re up for it, you fly bastards, stuff some green chillies instead. Labneh Stuffed Peppers 1 x 500g tub Total yoghurt Large pinch of salt About 5 mild green Turkish pepper for stuffing (you could also use the long red Romero peppers if you can’t find the Turkish ones) Oil Muslin or a dishcloth for straining In a bowl mix the yoghurt with the salt. Line a bowl with the muslin or cloth and scrape the yoghurt into it. Tie the top with string or whatever you have and suspend it from something. I used to use a cupboard handle but now I have a very sun filled, hot kitchen and so I hung it in the fridge. Set a bowl underneath to catch the whey. Leave for 5 or so hours. It will be usable but soft after 3. If you

Following our review of Anassa Hotel Cyprus, we visit the Almyra Hotel in Pahos. Located on Paphos’s beach front area, Almyra is Anassa’s cool sister with a more contemporary look and feel. Almyra has an excellent location from which to explore Paphos and the neighbouring boutiques, restaurants and buildings of historic importance such as the castle and the house of Dionysos with its Roman mosaics. Almyra’s 189 rooms have an understated, Mediterranean feel with light colours and contemporary furnishings. Our Kyma suite was light, airy and modern in style, opening on to a private terrace with sun loungers and direct sea views with an additional roof terrace that was ideal for sunset drinks. While not usually keen on a buffet, Almyra’s main restaurant, Mosaics, offered a nightly assortment of Mediterranean and international flavours (depending on the specific day) that highlighted local ingredients in a chic setting and thankfully stayed clear from the all-you-can-eat style that I initially feared. Continuing with the overall feel of the hotel, Almyra’s spa is contemporary in style without compromising on luxury or quality, with a number of treatment rooms, an outside deck for yoga, and a separate adults-only pool that looked serene. The Almyra’s neighbour is its sister hotel, Annabelle, which is more traditional in style but with a similar theme and high service levels. Guests at either hotel can enjoy full use of all the amenities and facilities at both, and guests are sometimes known to move between the two until a favourite is found. The UK is by far Cyprus’s biggest market and it’s easy to see why. With winters that seem to linger into spring and beyond, the knowledge that spring and autumn can bring glorious sunshine with a short plane journey is enough to get you through. If you would like Bon Vivant’s travel concierge team to book your next holiday to Cyprus, contact us now to enquire about our Luxury travel services. If you liked our review of Almyra Hotel Cyprus, sign up to our blog below as we visits some of the world’s best hotels: Enter your email address: easyJet flies to Paphos from London Gatwick, Luton, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol. Flight prices start from £33.99 per person (one-way, including taxes based on two people on the same booking). Visit www.easyJet.com or call 0843 104 5000. The post Almyra Hotel Cyprus appeared first on Bon Vivant Concierge Service by Emyr Thomas - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at Bon Vivant or follow us on

Despite being Japan's second largest city, Yokohama isn't high-up on most tourist itineraries. This is probably due to it being perceived as a suburb of Tokyo as well as lacking traditional tourist attractions. That said, if you're staying in Tokyo then I reckon it's well worth making the short trip to Yokohama. But I would say that, as Yokohama is home to the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum!This homage to ramen opened in 1994 and is spread over three levels. The ground floor is taken up mostly by a gift shop (more on that later) but the main part of the museum consists of a recreation of a 1958 Tokyo street scene spread over two subterranean levels. It's all a bit kitsch but I don't really care, as there are no less than nine ramen shops - all outlets of famous ones from all across Japan - to check out. After a quick scout around the various joints, I decided to visit Ganja to check out their dipping ramen. Ordering is by machine and with some help from a waitress I selected one of the taster portions (these smaller portions are available to enable punters to sample more than one shop). To be honest, this wasn't really my cup of tea. I didn't mind the noodles being cold, but I would've preferred the dipping tonkotsu-shoyu broth to be hot, not lukewarm (by the way I have no idea what the 'correct' way should be). On the plus side the toppings, especially the belly pork, were top notch and the broth was packed full of flavour. It's just that the overall combo would have been better served all in one bowl. By the time I left Ganja, the museum was starting to get busy and queues were forming at some of the shops. Taking a punt on the wisdom of crowds I joined the longish queue for Kamome-Syokudo, which I thought was a tonkotsu joint but in fact served shio ramen (this just goes to show that I can't read Japanese, especially when hungover). This time I went for a normal size portion and while the toppings were abundant and of good quality, being a shio-based broth it wasn't really what I was after. That and the fact the broth was far too salty for my liking. I may have chosen badly, but neither ramen shop I went to in the museum was as good as those I'd visited in Tokyo. Mind you, there were seven ramen shops at the museum I didn't try.Feeling quite full I left the year 1958 behind me and popped upstairs to the gift shop. I went over to the design-your-own-ramen section where you can pick out your choice of soup, tare (seasonings) and noodles to take home in a souvenir box. I plumped for a mixed broth consisting of a sachet of tonkotsu (pork bone broth) and a sachet of rich chicken stock. For the tare I went for shoyu (soy sauce) with a pack of shrimp oil for good measure. And last but not least, I chose some thin ramen noodles to complete my ensemble. I then had to suffer the humiliation of having my photo taken that was then stuck on the top of the box. The end product tasted better than anything out of a packet had any right to, although it is clear that my egg boiling skills need honing.If you do decide to go to the ramen museum then I also recommend you visit Yokohama's Chinatown (Japan's and some say Asia's largest Chinatown). Save for a cheeky skewer of siu mai, I didn't eat there but from what I could see the eateries serve a wide range of food from authentic dim sum to Japan-ified Chinese dishes. However, Yokohama's Chinatown is more about walking around and savouring the atmosphere than the food. That and, if you're of Chinese-descent, topping up the Chineser points. I enjoyed my day trip to Yokohama and with its ramen museum and Chinatown it can boast two attractions that Tokyo can only envy. In other words: Yokohama 2 Tokyo 0.

Words & Photography by Felicity SpectorHolland Street, W8, is one of those roads where everything is just so: a branch of Ottolenghi. A rather smart gallery. A cobbled, winding pathway leading to a small mews, strewn with climbing roses. And now, a new neighbourhood restaurant; itself so bijou and beautifully turned out it could have come straight from the pages of Vogue Living.The Terrace on Holland Street has been transformed by Leith’s graduate Sara Adams – the cooking talent behind the highly regarded Kensington Square Kitchen – and her husband Chris Hodgkinson, a former chartered surveyor who has clearly had a big hand in the stylish refurb.Image courtesy of The TerraceThe kitchen is run by head chef James Kelly, who is aiming to put together a small but seasonal menu of “British inspired” dishes – it will change frequently, although customer demand seems to mean there will always be a place for a properly done steak and chips.There are just 20 covers at The Terrace, although if there is any warm weather there’ll be double that, thanks to a rather lovely outside terrace. Chris told me there had been one outside lunch service so far, on the single day the sun managed to drag the temperatures to more springlike levels.But on the night we visited, on the invitation of The Terrace team, it was definitely a night for sitting indoors. Everything was very comfortable, the decor a tasteful dove grey, and as I arrived, slightly late, my niece was happily enjoying a glass of sauvignon blanc. “This place is lovely!”As we looked over the menu a waiter arrived with some slices of warm treacle soda bread, with some deliciously creamy butter: one of the best breads I’ve had for ages. A very good start indeed.The starters all looked so tempting I decided to have two instead of a main: asparagus with an eggs mimosa style topping, followed by seared mackerel fillet with a smoked mackerel bonbon (and who could resist one of those?) with a little beetroot and blood orange salad.My niece went for the crab on toast, with a twist of apple and fennel salad, and then sea bass with asparagus and crushed potato, mainly because she liked the sound of the blood orange hollandaise it came with.I loved the asparagus: cooked just right, with a scattering of chopped roasted hazelnuts on top of the finely diced egg, to add a bit of texture. The crab on toast was just right, generous without being too rich.When my mackerel arrived I wished I had taken up the waiter’s offer to upsize it to a main course portion. It was really well balanced, with a sharp tangle of beetroot and orange to cut through the oily fish, and as for the bonbon, soft, fluffy in a crunchy crumb – if only all fishcakes were as well made.My niece made short work of the sea bass and especially loved the much-anticipated blood orange hollandaise, resolving to try making it herself at home.I couldn’t resist a chocolate fondant for pudding, which came with a ginger creme anglaise and some honeycomb, although I prefer my chocolate pure and simple, so I asked for the fondant on its own.There is that moment, when a fondant arrives, when you wonder if this is one of the ones which works: will there be that essential ooze when you cut into it? This one certainly didn’t disappoint: the centre spilled out onto the plate in a reassuringly liquid pool, the chocolate was dark and rich. My niece, who fancies herself a bit of a cocktail maven, asked for an Old Fashioned instead of dessert, which kept her happy.The team take great care sourcing the best produce, much of it from local suppliers – and as much attention goes into the wine list, which they promise will be updated regularly.All evening, we were surrounded by a sort of contented hum: the other customers, many of them locals, seemed more than happy with their new neighbourhood gaff. Service was friendly and relaxed, and prices seem reasonable for the area.I normally only head for High Street Ken to hang out at the big Whole Foods Market down th

Best-selling author Olivier Magny’s newly released “Into Wine” has something for everyone who’s “into wine” Paris native Olivier Magny is a true entrepreneur. And, as a sommelier, wine educator and TV host with his own Parisian wine bar, he’s got quite an impressive wine résumé. But somehow I don’t think that’s what he really wants you to focus on. I believe his true aim is to pass on his boundless enthusiasm for the richly diverse world of wine to anyone who wants to listen, and to make sure they enjoy themselves along the way. Hence his newly released book, entitled Into Wine. It serves as a wonderful gateway into the often confusing and complex world of wine. And I recommend anyone with even a passing interest in wine to read it, and take its contents seriously. For although the book comes across as simple, there’s quite a bit of thought hiding behind its playful diction. Even so-called ‘wine experts’ are sure to find some useful information within its pages (take note particularly of the detailed appendices). Into Wine is written in a colloquial style and broken into tasting-size pours — with interesting, and often provocative, statistical and anecdotal call-outs sprinkled throughout. The book brims with energy, enthusiasm, an unmistakable joie de vivre and a somewhat boyish sense of humor. You could say it pulsates with life. And that’s just what Olivier believes that soil should do … because this is what leads to complex, unique, interesting wines that reflect their local cultures. Yes, you see, Olivier is a self-proclaimed Terroirist. Now terroir is one of those French words that don’t translate well into other languages. But if you had to approximate it concisely, you could say it means “a sense of place.” And many people believe that certain methods of farming and winemaking can lead to wines that actually express the “place” they come from in your glass. The starting point for someone looking to craft such a wine (well, actually, any wine at all) is the vineyard. Today, there are strongly held beliefs and feelings on both sides of the fence about organic and biodynamic farming, and the so-called ‘natural’ wines that such methods often help to produce. No matter what side you tend to gravitate towards — and especially if you’ve never thought or heard about any of these things in the first place — the best policy is to let everyone have his or her own say. And that’s exactly why I asked Oliver to do via the below questions. So I invite you to listen. And if you have comments, please use the comment function below on this post or contact Olivier via his own website. Chin-Chin! ———————————————- Q: Why did you decide to write Into Wine and who is your intended reader? Anyone with an appetite for wine and an open mind should enjoy Into Wine. The idea behind it is not only to share knowledge and insights, but also to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what wine teaches us, far beyond wine. Q: Your book comes across as refreshingly direct and down-to-earth, and is injected with enthusiasm and humor. Indeed, this seems to be the point: to write a wine book that doesn’t talk down to the reader or use unnecessarily flowery terminology. How do you strike the delicate balance between (a) retaining this attitude at all times, while (b) conveying what is often necessarily a lot of complex information that people will need to learn about the subject(s) at hand? Thank you very much. I’ve perfected this art for ten years at O Château. Every day, I have people in front of me that come from all walks of the wine life. Your wine pro will be sitting next to a complete novice, and my job is to make sure both have a great time and learn a lot. My daily challenge for ten years has been to strike that delicate balance between informative and fun, for everyone. Keeping things factual and genuinely