Food and Drink

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Created by Felix Cohen, owner and founder of The Manhattans Project – the team behind the much discussed Cocktails on offer at POND, a Hawaiian restaurant in a hidden location just a stones throw from Dalston’s hip centre, the American Gothic is this week’s featured recipe. “Classic cocktails, done right” is the main mantra from the Manhattan Project and available for just three months, the American Gothic is a must try; comprising Rye Whiskey, Calvados, sugar syrup and...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Peckham-based ‘craft meat’ business – Serious Pig, specialising in quality charcuterie, is leading a ‘craft, not crap’ campaign to prevent brands from misleading customers about unhealthy, overly processed junk food in an attempt to inspire the nation to embrace some more authentic snacks. The campaign follows the news of leading scientists, writing in the British Medical Journal, recently calling for a ban on artificial trans fats from processed food, claiming that this could save...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Strength: 3.8% ABV Brewed: Ellon, Scotland Tired of a market dominated by industrially brewed Lagers and Ales, the team behind BrewDog set up the world’s first crowd-funded brewery in 2007. Now operating from a site in Ellon, just north of Aberdeen, a community of over 14,500 investors owns the business, with shares in the brewery still available. And what’s more, the brewery that’s made for the people, by the people is still constantly striving...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent The restaurant industry is set to be ‘Uberised’ by a new app which offers customers a bill splitting option when booking a private chef at home. La Belle Assiette, an online marketplace that matches professional chefs to clients, has created the new feature after research found 79 per cent of English customers split the bill in restaurants. Customers can now pay only part of the bill when booking a chef, with menus priced ‘per guest’...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  A pop up restaurant in Borough Market serving stale bread as a main ingredient has been set up to highlight food waste. Great British Bake Off champion Nancy Birtwhistle joined forces with national charity Love Food Hate Waste to create a menu with one requirement – each course had to contain bread which had gone stale. They cooked up the idea after figures revealed that 24 million slices of bread are thrown away in the UK...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  The biggest decisions in life are made in the kitchen, new research reveals. A typical homeowner makes 208 important decisions while in the kitchen each year, with career moves, kids’ schooling and relationship chats among the burning issues. Research into the home lives of 2,000 people uncovered the kitchen as the hub of the home, with four in 10 saying it’s the most likely room to play host to ‘family meetings’. One in 10 made...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Over the past couple of years, there’s been a rapid growth in focus on sharing within some of London’s best restaurants. Personally, I have absolutely no qualms against this ‘Social Food’ concept, as OPSO put it. However, most Londoners (and most of my friends) are a bit selfish when it comes to Food and they’re not so keen on the concept of sharing. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a disadvantage for restaurants such...

Six-time World Pizza Champion, Bruno DiFabio's pizza dough recipe provides the perfect base for a New York pizza.

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Set up as an evolution from the regular Cocktail of the Day on diffordsguide.com, which was inspired by a trip to Barcelona back in 2009, the new ‘Difford’s Guide: 365 Days of Cocktails’ features an expansive selection of drinks with one perfectly fitting for every day of the year. What’s more there’s also an insightful introduction with an idiot-proof guide to Cocktail crafting, ideal for even the most inexperienced of home mixologists. Beginning with...