If there’s one trend in the restaurant industry that’s really come to the fore since the turn of the century it’s the rise of the second-career chef. Men and women who worked in all manner of highly successful, and often high-paying, careers – lawyers, doctors, engineers, corporate managers, computer programmers, management consultants, hedge fund gurus ... Read more »
The Three Horseshoes, Powerstock, Dorset
It’s amazing how many blog posts I’ve still left to write from our short trip to Dorset at the end of May. I’ve already blogged the foraging course around which the weekend away was arranged, our meal at Hix Oyster & Fish House, another at The Wild Garlic and even shared what we cooked with ... Read more »
Dorset’s Finest: The Wild Garlic
After screaming in delight at the telly when Mat Follas won Masterchef 2009 my friends and I had a fantastic meal at his new restaurant, The Wild Garlic, during our summer holiday in Dorset last year. Mat also kindly gave me an interview, which remains one of the most popular posts on my blog to ... Read more »
Hix Oyster & Fish House, Lyme Regis, Dorset
West Dorset has become a place of pilgrimage for food lovers. Not only is it a land of abundance, with wild garlic growing… well, wild… along the verges and dairy cows mooing in delight over the lush green grass, it offers a fabulous selection of top class eating experiences of which we sampled only a ... Read more »
Ming the Masterchef: Mat Follas @ The Wild Garlic (Part 2)
A review of our evening at Mat Follas’ The Wild Garlic in Beaminster is long overdue. For those champing at the bit for feedback on the meal, it was lovely. Food, service, ambience… everything came together to create a wonderful evening which everyone in our party very much appreciated. The Wild Garlic, Beaminster The Wild ... Read more »
Ming the Masterchef: Mat Follas @ The Wild Garlic (Part 1)
Despite the inconsistency of the judging, the clearly unrepresentative editing (even before I read accounts from contestants), the nauseating sexualisation of desserts by one of the judges and the bizaare nature of some of the tests, I rather enjoyed Masterchef 2009. There’s much I’d love to change about the format, mind, but I enjoyed it ... Read more »