Seared Orkney Scallops
20 Stories
In the restaurant of 20 Stories, way above Manchester, I had the pleasure of eating the Orkney Scallop dish. The scallops found 100m deep in the sea surrounding the mainland of Scotland had the perfect taste of the sea and were exquisitely cooked. They were served with a cauliflower vinaigrette that has a slight crunch and a crispy and flaky cured sardine pie. A fishy dish but very delicious! – Petr Kaiser
Sausage and Egg Naan
Dishoom
The perfect and simple start to the morning is Dishoom’s sausage and egg naan. With a taste of the tandoor oven on the warm and perfectly soft naan bread coated with chilli tomato jam to add a lovely hint of sweet and spice to the dish. The pork sausages are peppery and grilled to perfection. The two fried eggs had perfectly runny yolks that oozed over the sausage and naan. – James Barker
Toasties
Koffee Pot
We discovered a lovely little secret this week – £5 for all-you-can-eat toasties on a Thursday at The Koffee Pot. Could it get any better? The answer is no. No it can’t. These huge slabs of bread and cheese were the perfect antidote to a stressful week and although I could only manage to devour 5 of them – I was left feeling VERY satisfied and VERY happy. I’ll be there again next week – hopefully see you there yeah? – Damon Stead
Full English
The Alchemist
We popped down to the Alchemist for a spot of Sunday bottomless brunch and it was seriously good. Hash browns are without a doubt the best thing in the world, but these little hash brown bites mean you’ve got an even greater crunchy to fluffy goodness ratio. Yes, the perfect hashbrown is a science. And the Alchemist have conquered it, got a PhD and no one else should bother. Served alongside with everything you’d expect on a full English; bacon, eggs, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, Bury black pudding, baked beans and buttery sourdough toast. I urge anyone to pop down to Alchemist and try the new bottomless brunch! – Alex Watson
Tortellini di Ricotta e Limone
Rosso
We were at Rosso this week for the launch of Festa Italiana – the city’s FREE Italian festival which will be popping up at Cathedral Gardens around the middle of July. To celebrate the event (and talk about it all) we went down to Rosso to tuck into some lovely Italian dishes. To start we had a brilliant bit of Tortellini which was stuffed with ricotta and came in a pea broth alongside my favourite – fennel. It’s on Rosso’s new lunch menu too – which I wholeheartedly recommend too. – Steven Pankhurst
Summer Berry Mojito by The Rum Kitchen
The Liars Club
Thursday saw London-based Caribbean legends The Rum Kitchen head on down to The Liars Club for a night of cheap cocktails and top tunes. Naturally I got myself down there and tucked into a fantastic Summer Berry Mojito – pretty much the best summer drink you can imagine and one of those cocktails that you could drink 20 of, think you’re fine, stand up and fall flat on your face. Brilliant stuff. – Kate Tighe
The Gooch
Crazy Pedro’s & Bunny Jacksons & Cane & Grain
This week has been a bit of a wild one in the Finest office – we’ve been guzzling Hooch like it’s going out of fashion. We’ve all been smashing the GOOCH in fact – the perfect pairing of Hooch and Gin that will get you nice and merry and ensure that you start showing off your dance moves. Charlotte and I managed to fall of a stool in Crazy Pedro’s after 2 of these beauties – and still managed to get straight up and do the tango like Ricky Martin in 1998. Highly recommended. – Ben Brown
