the salt & pepper diaries

What do you think? Agree with the selection and the final nominees? This is the final top 10 list of the best regional UK restaurants as compiled by Which magazine.

Wales – Tyddyn Llan

Scotland –Linen Room

Northern Ireland – James Street South

The North West – Ramsons

The North East – Yorke Arms

The Midlands(East and West Midlands) – Perkins

The South West(including the Channel Islands) – Culinaria

The South East – The Plough, Bolnhurst

The East(including Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge) – The Swan Inn (Monks Eleigh)

London – Canteen (Spitalfields)

These were all publicly nominated and the overall Winner will be announced on the 27th of June.

I used to work around the corner from this place, but was always lured by the Fox – then ran by Trish Hilferty, and never ventured through its newly refurbed swing doors.

A great shame, as that was five years ago, and it’s has taken that long to visit – and then on someone else’s invite. Mores the pity, as this is a great pub, neatly split in two. Downstairs is a fairly open area ‘boozer’. You can see this place thick on a Friday night with a mix of Shoreditch fashionistas and city boys. Then upstairs you have a well-presented restaurant, accessible by an ornate spiral staircase.

The Princess is run by Zim Sutton and Andrew Veevers who also run The Easton in Clerkenwell. Zim operates as Exec Chef and his Antipodean routes can be seen in the menu – seared scallops, carpaccio of beef, Steak and Lamb. The Bar serves a separate menu with stand out items including slow roast pork belly sandwich with crackling or staffed mackerel.

I liked this place and will return despite the spiel about some East End legend called One-Eyed Ron who used to own the place and therefore it should be a landmark. If anyone can let me know who this Ron is then please comment here. I’ve search and have had no luck.

The Princess
76 Paul Street, EC2A 4NE.
Tel. 08712074260

I love this. The Eater is laying odds on what review rating Frank Bruni will give the famous ‘When Harry met Sally’ Jewish Deli, Katz. It seems the smart money is 2-1 on a zero rating and crazy dollars are in 25000-1 4 Stars!

The reason I love this so much is that I’ve eaten at Katz and The Eater is right, it’s not a four star venue for food, but for corn beef and pickles it is an Oscar winner. Lets see what Frank says tomorrow.

I have a terrible shyness of taking food photos in restaurants, so I usually resort to taking a rubbishy camera phone shot or a picture of the restaurant from the street. Two reasons for this; one is that often I am with people that I don’t know so well and they think I may be a little odd and two, flash photography with my little point and shoot doesn’t always get the best results.

So, by way of inspration and as a prompt for me to get better shots and submit them here I’ve subscribed to a few flickr groups for food and restaurant interiors. Here are just a couple of examples and also a few links to see for yourself.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/restaurantinteriors/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/londonfood/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/eater/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/flickrrestaurants/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/meals/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bknydiners/

If anyone has any tips please let me know.

No doubt this is an annual affair, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this event. Taste London comes to Regent Park on June 21.

It seems that our appetite (sorry!) for all things ‘kitchen’ means there is now a case to run a restaurant festival - and not just in London, but also Bath, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Apparently 5o of the capital’s best restaurants will all have stalls offering signature dishes and samples as well as demo’s. It all seems a little odd, but I’m intrigued and will probably go. Tickets are between £21-£35 - a bit steep, but these come with ‘crown’ tokens that can be swapped for nosh, and also a Taste Book.

Taste - June 21-24 / London