the salt & pepper diaries

Just walking home tonight, I saw two restaurants closed for business after very short periods of time. The first was Savarona on Great Eastern Street, EC2 and the second, Vinum on the Highgate Road, NW5.

Now I know nothing of Savarona and why it should bite the dust, as I never had the chance to eat there. I did however, make the mistake of eating at Vinum and I’m not surprised it failed to impress. I’m not going to put a review here as I’d rather forget, but the one thing that does stick with me was the waitress with a bad cold and streaming  nose, serving a luke warm risotto and sneezing over it. Nice!

My dislike for Vinum though doesn’t hide the fact that whenever I see a cafe, bar or restaurant go bust, I immediately think of the owners who took the risk to open in the first place and believed it would work. I hope they have better luck next time.

The NY Times has just published a list of Manhattan’s infamous speakeasies - the bars made famous for slinging the sauce when the US was supposedly ‘dry’. in 1929, there were over 32,000 speakeasies and a few survive now.

So if you’re planning a trip to NY and fancy some historic drinking, check a few places here and enjoy!

My favourite - Fanelli’s on Prince. Legend has it that a trough used to run the length of the bar and drinkers too lazy to head to the gents (if there were any gents) just took a quick pee where they stood.

“Shish unites cultures to bring you a new way of eating and living. Shish has perfected one of the world’s oldest and most widespread ways of cooking. Using the finest ingredients, cooked fresh to authentic recipes and modern reinventions, delicious dishes are served up promptly, and what’s more we don’t charge the earth. Simple, really!”

This is how the web site for shish introduces the posh kebab shop concept. The owners would probably skewer and roast me slowly for this comparison , but I’d take it as a compliment of sorts.

There’s a good spread of Greek dishes - shish (obviously) meze plates, tzatziki, hummus and grilled veg. It goes a little modern with Shish wraps, but I suppose this compares loosely to a gyro wrap and hey, we’re in Shoreditch.

Good selection of fresh juices - carrot, honey, ginger and lemon is great.

It would have been good to get a little more than the a single skewer of meat, but the food was cooked well, full of flavour and pleasant staff. Probably best as a lunch spot, or early evening snacks - but not a place for a romantic date.

So rather than go all the way to Spain to sample Ferran Adria’s famed world beating restaurant El Bulli, two of his charges have set up here in London.

Bacchus in Hoxton run by Nuno Mendes - a Modern European affair

177 Hoxton Street, London, N1 6PJ

Tel: 020 7613 0477

El Faro on the Isle of Dogs run by Chef Edward Guttierez. This get’s an impressive 8.5/10 from Matthew Norman in the Observer. Restaurant / Tapas bar.

3 Turnberry Quay, Pepper Street, London E14

Tel: 020 7987 5511 

I haven’t been to either so any comments or reports very welcome

Well, if you don’t fancy that, there’s a host of other game pies to choose from on foodfullstop.com, as well as hundreds of other locally sourced covering meats, poultry, game, fish, fruit, veg and cheese.

The site is brand new and for its age has somehow compiled an impressive list of suppliers and goods. Recommended by the gastro aristo, Tom Parker Bowles, as the first stop for ‘properly produced British food’, it really has some treats, and with delivery from one to three days, becomes a pretty straight forward service to use for those small luxuries….like the mallard pie!

Looking into this a little deeper, it seems to have been started by TPB’s mates, Charlie, Blanche and Zoe who have somewhat of a track record. Blanche was at St.John and Zoe a chef in the city. They have done a nice job and the site is incredibly easy to use.

However, there is more out there - check the following for a browse around:

Food Lovers’ Britain
foodloversbritain.com, 020-8206 6111

Forman & Field
formanandfield.com, 020-8221 3939

Abel & Cole
abel-cole.co.uk, 08452 626262