the salt & pepper diaries

This is a great story. Two good friends launched their new restaurant this evening - Tortilla in Islington. For as long as I’ve known them both there has been talk of this Mexican restaurant that has everything except the location. They have searched high and low, pulled strings where they could and finally ended up with a perfect spot opposite The Angel tube on the site of an old Chinese restaurant.

They have put everything into this - working day jobs and then returning home each evening to sample recipes, plan menus and order grills! They must be sick of burritos and pinto beans by now - but we’re not - the food is absolutely top draw.

The nice touch about Tortilla is how the menu is presented - simple and clear, walking you through how to create your lunch or dinner. Start with the meal, a burrito or fajita wrap, or naked burrito and tacos. Then choose your base - chicken, steak, braised pork or vegetarian and finish off with a choice of toppings. Go for the hot Salsa Roja - not stomach burning, but close. The guacomole was superb and I wished I’d had the Black Bean Soup.

The large burritos could be mistaken for large bricks, taste great and come in at about a fiver.

So head over to Islington for a Mexican and wish Brandan and Jen the best of luck if you see them sweating behind the grill.

Tortilla

13 Islington High Street

London N1 9LQ

0207 833 3103 

The Meat Club has now been running for several years. A Gentleman’s club established for the eating of meat with mates in restaurants that truly care about where they source their meat, its husbandry and a general passion for carnivourous cooking. Obvious Meat Club regular haunts include St.John, Simpson’s on the Strand, The Quality Chop House and Roxy Beaujolais’s Seven Stars.

I’m a founder and past President and very proud of what it has become, which is why it’s so good to have been recognised by Time Out and a three page feature written about the club last week. This will soon be online and I’ll link to it from here when up, but in the meantime, here is the current and past Presidents in a cliched band shot! The BBC are now calling looking to cover a Meat Club evening - not sure about this….

I never thought I’d be writing this, but I love Pizza Express. Forget the under-sized sorry excuses of pizzas they usually bash out - the ones that are just about on a par with their supermarket range and barely fill a plate. What you need is their new Romana pizzas.

These are ultra thin ‘traditional’ pizzas with only the simplest of ingredients. These dwarf the plates they arrive on, with the toppings unevenly distributed as the bubbles in the base have burst through, brittle and cracking when pressed.

Pancetta Pomodoro is the stand out best - pancetta, rich tomato sauce, chilli and fresh parsley - a nod to Rome’s Amatriciana sauce.

So when you’re early for he cinema or just feeling lazy, don’t pass on the Pizza Express, just their usual pizzas and go for the Romana. The other great thing is it goes to show what rubbish they have been peddling for the last decade.

This week October 24 - 30

I haven’t done this for a while as the same old recommendations kept coming up. However, here is a crop of new Time Out hot tips to try out.

If you don’t go to any other restaurant in any of these tips, make sure that the one you do go to is Bodean’s - a truly unique BBQ experience run by true BBQ believers!

• 1 Hereford Road - Tom Pemberton’s new Notting Hill haunt
• 2 Fifth Floor Cafe - The AbFab Harvey Nicks eatery
• 3 Bodean’s - Yes, Yes, Yes!
• 4 Divo - Not a mock Italian Pop opera quartet, but unique Ukaranian kitch experience
• 5 Cote - French bistro comes to Wimbledon

Thanks again to the TO team.

A little late reporting on this one, but Il Buco’s famous Sagra del Maiale (or outdoor pig roast) has been and gone and was a huge success.

The view from the studio is photo evidence of the queue going down the street and around the corner - everyone waiting for the set meal of BBQ roast Ossabaw pork, Panzanella and lemon and pecorino apple ricotta fritters.

The roast Ossabaw itself is cooked using a method known as infernillo, which translates to “little hell.” The pig is slow roasted between two iron griddles with an intense wood fire above and below, keeping it moist and the skin crispy. As you can see, it’s quite a sight!

All photos are from Noodle and there are more here.