The Daily Telegraph, 27 September
Jasper Gerard visits Bill’s Produce Store, Lewes, East Sussex
Several towns are issuing their own money; Lewes is just the latest to print its own pound notes, on proper paper complete with watermarks. These can be tendered in 70 outlets, encouraging people to buy from locally owned shops. This keeps money in the area and is also environmentally friendly as town traders are encouraged to source stock from nearby. You can exchange it for a proper pound whenever you like but, so far, the Lewes Pound has proved almost too successful: collectors are paying £35 a pop on eBay, while television crews from Russia and Japan are interrogating locals about what they make of it all. A pioneer of the Lewes Pound is Bill's Produce Store, which uses fruit and veg from farms in the region.
Bill’s Produce Store – review in full >>
The Guardian, 27 September
Matthew Norman visists The Kingham Plough, Kingham, Oxfordshire
While sitting in the restaurant bit of the Kingham Plough, a handsome pub in a ridiculously pretty Cotswold village (where are the cameras, you wonder, on gazing across the green at the charming stone dwellings? Whither the officious assistant director waving the Richard Curtis script?), I endured a flashback to one of the grotesque faux pas that have peppered my life.
The Kingham Plough – review in full >>
The Observer, 28 September
Jay Rayner visits Oki-Nami, Brighton
A year or so back in Tokyo I ate at a French restaurant of such unremitting awfulness, such gothic catastrophe - think green bean soup with lavender ice cream, and lamb served so thin and pink it looked like sweaty ham - that, in between trying to identify the right waiter to stab with a spoon as an act of revenge, I fell to thinking about the cultural accessibility of different culinary traditions. Or, to put it another way, was it unrealistic of me to hope that Japanese people could cook good French food? This was an uncomfortable thought, verging on prejudice, until I turned it around. Would I eat at a sushi bar run by a bunch of white boys from Wimbledon? Well no, I wouldn't. Or at least I'd get everything I deserved if I did.
Oki-Nami - review in full >>
The Sunday Times, 28 September
AA Gill visits El Bulli, Roses, Girona, Spain
The first thing that’s a welcome surprise about El Bulli is the complete and utter lack of ponce in the décor department. It’s a couple of simple dining rooms built with the careless abandon of people who throw up buildings beside the seaside. The decoration is untroubled by the creative ministrations of gay interior ponces. Pictures are hung because there’s an available nail; they may be greening photos of French bulldogs or Dali prints – the old melting-clock charlatan lived down the road.
El Bulli – review in full >>
areyoureadytoorder.co.uk
Jan Moir visits St Pancras Grand, London NW1
Initial impressions? Not bad! St Pancras Grand is housed in a large room with a gilt-edged ceiling and a confident sense of its own importance. Golden lights suffuse the well-spaced tables while comfortable banquettes, smart napery and the presence on the menu of English lobster and potted salmon almost evoke the halcyon days of gracious rail travel. I say almost. Inside the muffling restaurant on the upper concourse, there is no proper view of the soaring splendour of St Pancras station, which is one of the joys of going to St Pancras station in the first place. Big mistake. Big shame.
St Pancras Grand– review in full >>