Posts by Tom Johnston
Fin & Grape
Fin & Grape 19 Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH10 5DP 0131 452 8453 www.finandgrape.com The Bill Lunch Menu 3 courses for £15 (Small Plates) Larger Plates/Specials £11.00 – £22.00 The Score Cooking 6/10 | Service 4/5 | Flavour 4/5 | Value 5/5 Total 19/25 Back in the day when I used to be involved in the…
Read MoreImprove Your Cooking in 2021
There are of course many ways in which you can improve your culinary skills. Six months at the Cordon Bleu Cookery School will help. Or follow the lead of that lady in Julie and Julia, who set out to make every single dish in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But let’s assume you lack the…
Read MoreTom Cooks! Top 5 of 2020
Tom’s Food! will be celebrating its first birthday in a few short weeks. Now if you feel you’ve been reading my reviews and recipes for a lot longer, worry not. You’re not in an early Alzheimer’s stage (just yet). The very first review was written in October 2014 and the first recipe just over…
Read MoreReview of the Year 2020: Part 2
This is the second part of the Tom Eats! review of 2020. The Top 12 scores feature below after a short, sombre musing. Those We Have Lost – and Gained There will be many lost. Especial favourites of Tom Eats!, The Wee Restaurant, Edinburgh and L’escargot blanc have both closed their doors…
Read MoreReview of the Year 2020: Part 1
2020 – Did Anything Happen? Oh, yes, The Great Plague. And The Great Miracle is that so many restaurants are still going despite a combination of Government capriciousness and ignorance in treating them in the same manner as traditional pubs. In Part 2 we’ll consider those whom we have lost and, remarkably, those…
Read MoreAlison Doody’s Light Christmas Cake
Star Baker Alison Read on before you write in to complain. I am aware that the traditionalists among you will have made your cake before the pandemic, and that you’ve been feeding it every week since. Well, best beloveds, the clue is in the title – Light. Sister in law Alison’s husband started to suffer from…
Read MoreMiranda Heggie’s Zoom Wine Tasting
For this, the last Tom Eats! of the year (apart from the annual review, which will be over two weeks on Wednesday 16 & 23 December) thanks are once again due to our glamorous and prolific guest reviewer, Miranda Heggie. Fancy a tutored wine tasting, but can’t buy alcohol out because of Tier 3?…
Read MoreThe Food Producers – Meet the Milnes, the Crafty Maltsters
Daniel, Norman and Alison Milne On a gloriously sunny November day I am on Demperston Farm, just outside Auchtermuchty in the Kingdom of Fife. The view is idyllic, looking south over the Lomond Hills. Alison Milne, however, is in reflective mode. As a society, we have never been more disconnected from our food and how…
Read MoreA Couple of Pheasant Stews
The game season is now in full swing. Probably my first exposure to game was in the form of pheasant, because that was the main thing shot at the in-laws in Perthshire. I’ve probably written before that the principal reason folk are leery of game is that they’re not sure what to do with it.…
Read MoreRollo Restaurant & Wine Bar, Stockbridge, Edinburgh
Rollo Restaurant & Wine Bar 108 Raeburn Place, Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH4 1HH 0131 332 1232 www.barrollo.com The Bill Bites £3.80 – £10.00 | Bowls £12.00 Plates £11.00 – £14.50 | Puddings £7.00 – £8.00 The Score Cooking 6.5/10 | Service 4.5/5 | Flavour 4.5/5 | Value 5/5 Total 20.5/25 It was a chance meeting…
Read MoreHungry by Grace Dent – Book Review
I wish back for just one normal evening. I was loved and I was never hungry, and for a small girl from Currock, that was as good as things get. We all know now that the small girl from Currock went on to do many more things. But until I read this, her autobiography, all I…
Read MoreOne20 Wine Cafe, Edinburgh
One20 Wine Cafe 120 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 5DQ 0131 556 1911 www.one-20.co.uk The Bill Starters £4.75 – £13.50 | Mains £12.75 – £14.75 Dessert (Tiramisu) £4.75 The Score Cooking/Produce Selection 6.5/10 | Service 4.5/5 | Flavour 4.5/5 Value 4/5 Total 19.5/25 Has COVID made you less active? Have your mental facilities slowed as a…
Read MoreIn Praise of Mash
Now if you posed the question, mashed what, it proves how little you know me. In this divided age in which we live, a less magnanimous columnist might tell you to sling your hook: I, on the other hand, invite you to enter the fold and learn. The answer is, of course, potato. Yesterday was…
Read MoreChef Watch – Fred Berkmiller, L’escargot bleu
CHEF WATCH Featuring Fred Berkmiller, Chef Patron of L’escargot bleu, Broughton Street, Edinburgh How long have you been a chef? I started my apprenticeship at the age of 14, and took my first head chef job was when I was 23. Why did you become a chef? I didn’t really choose to, rather I was…
Read MoreMonkfish
Children are cruel beasts. Many believe that William Golding called it right in Lord of the Flies. The ugly and the different are not well treated and are often misunderstood. So pity the poor monkfish. You may never have seen one: the average fishmonger simply stocks fillets on his shelves. As you will observe from…
Read MoreThe Räv, St Andrews
The Räv 80 North Street, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AH 01334 208580 www.therav.co.uk The Bill Lunch and Dinner Starters £6.00 – £11.00 | Mains £13.00 – £21.00 | Desserts £6.50 The Score Cooking 6.5/10 | Service 4.5/5 | Flavour 4/5 | Value 4.5/5 Total 19.5/25 We’ve been coming to St Andrews for a short break…
Read MoreThe Food Producers – The McKenzie Smiths of Lindores Abbey Distillery
As a solicitor I have in my time engaged in very many aspects of legal practice. The one that gave me least satisfaction was conveyancing, transferring title to heritable property. There would, however, be the the occasional nugget of interest; an odd title condition, say, or some weird and wonderful names. Who knew, for example,…
Read MoreThe Black Bull Inn, Lowick – Guest Reviewer Fiona Garwood
The Black Bull Inn 2 – 4 Main Street, Lowick, Berwick on Tweed TD15 2UA 01289 388375 www.blackbulllowick.co.uk The Bill Lunch and Dinner Starters £5.50 – £11.95 | Mains £10.95 – £23.95 | Desserts £6.50 The Score Cooking 8/10 | Service 4/5 | Flavour 4/5 | Value 4/5 Total 20/25 There are several pubs in…
Read MoreTom Cooks! Duck
Well, after Wednesday’s D for Duck column I don’t have much choice, do I? Many food writers say that duck and fruit go well together. Accordingly, I begin with raspberry. A big loud one to all of you who wrote in to say that I had misspelled Pekin and that it should have been Peking. Well,…
Read MoreD is for Duck
Long Island Duck I started this article looking to escape from the misery of a dreich and wet Sunday. Some hours on, with the brain nipping, I’m really wishing I hadn’t. The source of my perplexity (at this stage I neither know nor care whether that is a real word) will become clear…
Read MoreBeef Bourgignon
On Wednesday we talked about cooking with wine, so there was only one candidate for today’s Tom Cooks! Actually, there were two. It was a toss up between today’s dish and coq au vin. Done correctly, both are very similar. And what else they have in common is that both can be done very simply…
Read MoreCraft, Birmingham – Guest Reviewer Miranda Heggie
Craft The Terrace, ICC, 8 Centenary Square Birmingham B1 2EA 0333 772 9329 www.weare-craft.co.uk The Bill Lunch and Dinner Two Courses £33 | Three Courses £39 | Four Courses £45 Afternoon tea £25 with Hot Beverage or £30.00 with a Glass of Sparkling Wine or Craft Gin Cocktail The Score Cooking 8/10 | Service 5/5…
Read MoreCooking With Wine
We’ve all seen that fridge magnet. It was quite amusing the first time. (No, I don’t have one. Mine is the equally classic Life’s too short to drink bad wine, of which more later.) But for the inexperienced cook, keeping wine out of the pan and pouring it into the gob can sometimes be the…
Read MoreBill Kerr’s Crab and Parmesan Risotto with Seared Scallop
While I had the undivided attention of Bill Kerr, subject of this week’s Chef Watch, I thought it would be criminal to let him away without extracting a recipe or two from him. He gave me a winter warmer of slow cooked beef shin with horseradish mash. I was reassured to see it was…
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