The more things change, the more they stay the same. York has built its reputation on large elements of its attraction having remained unchanged for a great many years, but there’s part of the city that holds a mirror up to that and looks forward. The nature of the hospitality industry, whose operators are always…
York does rather well for wine these days. Since Pairings started blazing a trail for quality wine in relaxed surroundings, there have been a few others recently enter the fray with places such as Howl, 2ManyWines, The Wright Place and Jorvine all throwing their corks into the ring. The latest to join this group is…
Spark has done a lot for the hospitality scene in York both directly and indirectly. As a venue to be able to reliably grab decent food in a relaxed, family friendly setting, it’s broadened the city’s offering greatly and as a launchpad for new businesses it’s made a strong contribution to the wider offering and…
A Sunday roast, done properly, should present more opportunities than for just eating. It should be an enabling factor in letting your Sunday afternoon expand toward early evening as you go through a few courses and graze on leftovers. I’ve always been of the view that having a Sunday roast in a restaurant can be…
Third party booking apps or websites are not something I’m in the habit of using. I’ll lean into the easy utility of Just Eat or Deliveroo when I’m feeling lazy and can’t be bothered to breach my own threshold for food but generally if I want a table at a place in York a few…
One of the privileges of running this site is to meet people at the beginning of their journey in the hospitality industry and see them grow to realise their potential. Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of well intentioned people opening concepts that are too ambitious, subtly flawed to remove viability or…
For the last half decade or so I’ve felt like I’ve known Leeds pretty well. Occasional invites have rolled in to tempt me over for a meal, or gigs crop up that I fancy a look at that also justify a pre-event feed. One way or another, I’ve been a semi-regular visitor for a couple…
Sometimes, though admittedly rarely, I really don’t know what to expect when I get invited to a new place to eat. My finger is generally firmly on York’s pulse when it comes to new openings but every so often something will sidestep into view that I’m not entirely sure what to make of. In this…
If you read this site even semi-regularly then you’ll realise I tend to be quite the sociable type. Between review meals, helping organise food festivals, keeping Baby Fork socialised and being an active participant in the York Bar Billiards League, I tend to have quite a few demands on my time and I thoroughly enjoy…
Periodically the cyclical world of Sunday supplement tag lines will blurt out the maxim that “Staying in is the new going out” with varying, generally minimal, degrees of justification. Right now though, we really can say categorically that staying in is most certainly the new going out in the extreme circumstances we find ourselves. Socialising…