Good Lord has it really been ten years? I vividly remember the early days of this site, thinking I should more widely share the delights of York’s food scene and tapping away without any thought of where it might end up. It honestly never occurred to me for a moment that people might end up inviting me to their restaurants or seeking my advice, not that I’d have had that much of it at the time. It’s quite startling to think how much this has come to dominate my life these days and what opportunities it’s ended up affording me. Back when I started this I was debating career steps after becoming thoroughly disillusioned with a career as a Business Analyst in financial services with no plan to turn this into an occupation; the change to working in this area full time has been a slow one punctuated by a period of childcare in the Baby Fork years. These days I split my year between collating the events program for York Food & Drink Festival in the summer and York Chocolate Festival in the winter, joining the judging team at The Great Taste Awards in spring and running food tours year round. It’s been the most enormous privilege to undertake this journey and I owe a debt to anyone who’s read a single word.
January
The year got off to a bright start with a double page spread in the York Press after I extended an invite to join one of my food tours – handy bit of publicity! I fell onto the Air Fryer bandwagon which I remain firmly on board to this day thanks to my lovely Ninja, some of whose other products I’ve invested in this year and been impressed with. Ambiente are a mainstay of the York hospitality scene for good reason so their investment in a Josper grill at their Fossgate branch was a great excuse to visit again for a sample of the flame-grilled goodness it could serve up. I also caught up with the lovely Ellen who runs Leeds Food Tours over a first visit to Bab Tooma on Goodramgate, amazing value and delicious food as well as decent company.
February
This month marked the start of Great Taste season with a training day all about sensory analysis and fermentation to get stuck into, a fascinating day with a huge amount to learn. The fine folk at The Waggon & Horses celebrated 10 years of knocking out great beer; it’s been a pleasure dealing with Tom and Paulina in my role with York Bar Billiards league over that time. Baynes Wholesale staged their first showcase event, bringing together some incredible producers in the Merchant Taylor’s Hall. Roxy Ballroom opened their York branch as did Tasca Frango, whose peri-peri chicken remains as epic as ever to this day. Good news story of the month went to Josh, Vicky and the team in Hovingham as Myse won a Michelin star at the first opportunity – quite remarkable.
March
March began on a sombre note with the funeral of my cousin at which attendees were asked to wear band t-shirts, her loss was a terrible shock that even stopped wearing a tie-dye Petrol Hoers tee to a funeral feeling out of the ordinary. On a more positive note, Restaurant Week was huge success for York Bid and participating restaurants. I loved checking out Sushi & Bowl and Duck Shack for the first time. It’s a surprisingly large amount of work judging for the Visit York Tourism awards but this is the month it pays off, with the great and good of York’s tourism scene getting together to celebrate. Any excuse to roll out my tux! More great value food came from Red Chilli over on Kimberlow Hill by the university, whose £10 lunch deal remains spectacularly good. The first big event of the year was York Chocolate Festival for which I put together the trails, program and so on. Our chocolate sculpture gallery went down particularly well!
April
This month started with a few days staying in Greenwich, checking out the Cutty Sark amongst other things in London. With Little Fork having been studying the Great Fire of London at school a good chunk of the trip was dedicated to showing her sites associated with that. We also checked out the Art of the Brick exhibition of Lego sculptures, thoroughly recommended if you have the opportunity to visit. April is prime Great Taste judging season and I was treated to the usual broad spectrum of products, good and bad, but one session really was a treat as I got to judge with my good friend Elly McCausland. An award winning blogger and winner of an award for her first cookbook, as well as being Professor of English Literature at Ghent University she’s one of the most ludicrously over-achieving people I know. Getting to judge a prestigious award together after collaborating back when she was in York pushing a decade ago was a real pleasure, oh and don’t miss her upcoming book on the poetry of Taylor Swift…. Back in York, Ippuku Tea house launched their marvellous brunch menu which remains distinctive and unmissable…something that can also be said of the Tasca Frango brunch also launched. Fine dining came courtesy of Amber’s in Harrogate which launched its spectacular dining room, and the York street food scene benefitted from the launch of Goldee’s Bagels. I continued to enjoy taking people on Food Tours of York and took pride in delivering my first bespoke tour for a corporate client.
May
Another interesting brunch option appeared in York this month with Ambiente throwing their hat into the ring with their European slant on how weekend mornings should look, the results being as consistent as you’d expect from that team. This month’s fine dining highlight was at Thomas Carr @ The Coast featuring, amongst other delights, stonebass with a wonderfully executed crab swirl. Continuing that rather indulgent theme I was lucky enough to make the journey out to Aldwark Manor to sample their new restaurant, Chartwell. The investment here is clear to see and thankfully doesn’t shade the food which also hit the mark.
June
The worst Airbnb I’ve ever stayed in did its best to ruin a trip to Cambridge at the beginning of the month, but there was some expert punting from myself, some good pubs and museums. After returning from Cambridge I found myself heading South again the following day to London for more Great Taste duties before returning to pick up a tour group and finally get some proper photography sorted. One of the surprises of the year was how good the tapas was at Agility in Nether Poppleton. Given the chef was previously sous at Skosh, I should have expected it! Getting away from food, I took time to head to Melbourne Raceway for their Street Weekend event which featured some of the fastest and most ludicrous street-legal cars in the country. Then it was across to Settle to visit the peerless Courtyard Dairy for a showcase of Northern Irish produce through the medium of superb pizza. Middleton’s on Skeldergate launched a new “Yorkshire Tapas” menu featuring an incredibly good value onglet steak but rather more grand was a meal in Mayfair at Jeru. The striking sight of a line of Ferraris all with parking tickets worn seemingly as a badge of disdain for the rules was quite amusing but quickly forgotten as I tucked into a really special meal with my oldest friend, visiting from Hollywood! This month also featured my first visit to Skosh since they expanded, adding capacity without losing any of the wow factor in their dishes.
July
As I was enjoying delivering food tours so much, in July I offered to help out York Cares by delivering an historic pub tour of York for them. We didn’t have a huge turnout but I thoroughly enjoyed doing the research and learning about such characters as “Perpendicular” and Richard Chicken. Fine dining this month came at Swinton Park’s Chef’s Table with Josh Barnes, the first chef I’ve seen hide smoke inside an edible shell…quite remarkable. Miller & Carter belatedly opened their doors in the building previously home to the Post Office which it’s wonderful to see back in action. The team at Jimmy Mack’s launched their new venture this month too, Fat Cap Pies, delivering some of the best pies to ever grace my plate. The last culinary highlight was the always-reliable Ippuku Tea House for my birthday brunch, just perfect. One of the gig highlights of the year was provided by my first visit to Project House in Leeds where Gogol Bordello performed with typically enormous and infectious enthusiasm.
August
We’re not short of great pizza in York but more is fine with me, so welcome Rudy’s Pizza to their new outpost. Pink, a close relative of Impossible Bar opened its doors for a showcase event to give me an opportunity to see how much it’s changed since I used to go to the bank there. I rediscovered the joys of brunch at City Screen and was the lucky recipient of a parcel of Sublime Butter’s uniformly superb products. I’ve been meaning to go to Tharavadu in Leeds for some time and upon finally making it I wasn’t disappointed. Everything was memorable but none more so than the dosa, quite incredible. The big event of the month was a trip to Berlin, one of my favourite cities, which is endlessly fascinating. On the food front there a food tour (for research obv) stuck in the mind as did brunch at the top of the TV tower in a revolving restaurant, oh and copious currywurst/pork knuckle too.
September
As usual September was centred around York Food & Drink Festival, for which I again curated the events line-up. Hard work but a tremendous event that I really believe adds to the fabric of York and gives something back to the city. I paid my first visit to Harlow Carr in the run up to their Festival of Flavours and also made the acquaintance of Blank Canvas Kitchen who popped up at Brew York’s Handley Tap site in Osbaldwick. The Golden Forks is a unique event that celebrates the best of this year’s entries to the Great Taste Awards, held in Battersea Arts Centre with generous tastings from some of the best producers in the world. It’s unmissable if you have the opportunity to go along. Making sure I got full value from my train fare to London, I popped by the touring F1 exhibition the following day which had some unique exhibits – seeing the charred remains of Romain Grosjean’s was quite affecting. Almost as impactful was the opportunity to spend a lot on Lego after I was lucky enough to be gifted a voucher for market research participation, I can confirm Jaws Lego is almost as perfect of the film that inspired it. I’d not managed to visit York Beer Festival since it moved from the racecourse and was pleasantly surprised by how well it fitted the space on Lawrence Street. A busy month with some real highlights!
October
Exceptionally poor planning meant that I was back in Berlin this month, with time with friends rather than family. Sadly the precursor to the trip was less than relaxing as my wife was in Frankfurt and London the preceding days then stranded in Manchester, only making it back a few hours before I needed to leave. With childcare duly handed over I was quickly enjoying more Currywurst, trips to Burgermeister and Hofbrauhaus as well as an Ice Bar and some of the best Korean food I’ve been lucky enough to encounter. Oh and a visit to the Disgusting Food Museum: the cheeses smelled good to me but I’ll skip the urine braised eggs, ta. Back on home turf, it was Restaurant Week which featured visits to Ambiente and The Chopping Block, both amazing value and as reliably delicious as ever. Bosun’s out in Bishopthorpe held a relaunch event to welcome new chef Kurtus Auty with the venue looking as fabulous as ever. One of the biggest openings of the year in York came with Florian Poirot, the renowned patissier whose macarons are the stuff of legend, who opened the doors to a new establishment on The Shambles. A couple of light shows were memorable too: York Walls Twilight Walk making for a very pleasant way to spend an evening while York Minster pulled out all the stops to put on a show suitable to mark 40 years since their catastrophic fire.
November
The penultimate month of the year kicked off with a return visit to Amber’s in Harrogate for a faultless Sunday lunch served by none other than my old friend Jack, (somewhat) reformed from his days as resident pub gremlin in York and showing great professionalism. I then had the fortunate opportunity to join cheese expert Emma Young in Manchester for an afternoon pairing French cows milk cheeses with Northern Monk beers, a winning triumvirate! Christmas at Castle Howard is unmissable these days and they raise the bar every year as demonstrated at the press preview this year with the Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea looking particularly eventful. I continued to entertain corporate clients with bespoke tour packages, The Whippet Inn earning particularly strong feedback this time out. More signs of Christmas to come with the delivery of a package of pies from Made in Oldstead ready for them to make their debut at York Christmas Market, predictably well put together. One of the biggest social media engagements of the year came from The Kings Inn, the new venture on The Shambles from the owners of Licc which features truly hearty pub grub….who could turn down a flight of pies? There was a strong cue-sports theme toward the end of the month as we spent a day in Leeds at the Marvellous Brudenell club playing pool for a friend’s 40th before rocking up to the Barbican for the UK snooker championships. By this time the Christmas Market was in full swing and, while I didn’t get the chance to sample much, poutine from the gang at Miller’s was just as perfectly executed as one would have hoped.
December
December started with a visit to Santa at William’s Den where the food is far better than it needs to be, demonstrating their commitment to customer experience. My sole turkey dinner of the year was just what I was after! My Bar Billiards team is developing a tradition of going for a Christmas curry and this year (after I undertook some takeaway based research) we visited Mirchiz which won universal approval, my lamb shank lodging itself happily into my memory. In all honesty aside from a garlic bun from the gang at Biga+ and a bagel from Goldee’s Bagels, not much went on food-wise. It’s been a long year with more travel than expected and time for a break. Happy New Year!
