Category
6 articles
The bread arrives before the menu, before the order, before anyone has had a chance to impress you. That first basket is often the most honest thing a pub kitchen sends to the table. Here is how to read it without turning a quiet pint into an audit.
A good pub crawl is a menu problem before it's a map problem. Here's how to decide which of your three stops carries the main meal, where the bar snack belongs, and how to keep portions, pints and pavement time from wrecking your appetite for dinner.
A printed menu tells you what a pub will do for anyone. The specials board tells you what the kitchen is doing today, and whether it means it. Here is how to read the crossings-out, provenance notes and chalked-on swaps without getting distracted by the sales patter.
There is no statute that says the table nearest the flames is yours because you got there first. A practical, mildly opinionated guide to sharing the best winter seat in a British pub without behaving like a squatter.
Anyone can hide a mediocre main under gravy. The dessert board is where a pub kitchen has nowhere to hide. Here is what a proper sticky toffee pudding, crumble or treacle sponge reveals about the place you are sitting in.
An affectionate defence of pies, fish and chips, and menus that resist foam and tweezers. The best pub food is often the least complicated, and the gastropub label has not always helped.