Liverpool Food and Drink Festival awards

The winners have been announced; some are worthy, some are questionable. I'd like to take this opportunity to bestow my own awards, which I can almost guarantee will not be appearing in anyone's PR kit in the near future.

Best source of caffeine: Bold Street Coffee. Founder/Owner/Coffee Fanatic Sam Tawil has brought independent, quality coffee back to Bold Street after the closure of Coffee Union last year. He also runs the mobile coffee company Transition Espresso, which you can visit at farmers markets and events around the city. Their coffee has flavours you won't find anywhere else in the city; witthout a doubt it's the best I've tasted in Liverpool.

Not a coffee drinker? Then get to Brew.

Best new bar: (tie) Santa Chupitos and The Shipping Forecast

Though these two appear rather different on the surface, I think their aims are the same: great drinks in an interesting space. Santa Chupitos feels like the hole-in-the-wall cocktail bar you might find in New York; Shipping Forecast gets the students in with a fine range of beers and food and its venue space. Both are standouts on Slater Street.

Best new addition to Hope Street: Clove Hitch Bar and Bistro

Occupying a former Mexican restaurant, Clove Hitch has kept its decor simple and its menu straightforward. The evening menu offers well-prepared standards (I couldn't fault my mushroom risotto) and the daytime one has a variety of sandwiches and platters for all tastes. A good selection of vegetarian options too. A few beers on draught wouldn't go amiss, but I will gladly miss out the taps if it means they keep the increasingly elusive Kopparberg Elderflower and Lime cider in stock.

Best restaurant/deli on the way to world domination: Delifonseca

I don't eat at Delifonseca often enough. But now that they've opened their second branch near Brunswick Dock, that might change. I used to live within staggering distance of their new location in the former Il Bacino, but now I'm only a short drive away, and don't have to worry about where to park.

We visited last Thursday and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. The beer list offered an Scottish brew from Innis and Gunn, aged in bourbon casks over 77 days. This maturation give it an unusual whisky flavour, and a bit of a kick at 6.6% ABV (laugh away, I admit I'm a total lightweight). We shared a chicken liver pate to start, then the herby fishcakes for me and the bangers and colcannon mash for him. When I asked for mayonnaise with my chips, a waiter emerged from the kitchen to apologise that it wasn't available and offer some garlic aioli instead. Now that is the kind of substitution I like to see. The fishcakes were excellent and husband's colcannon mash was mouthwateringly creamy.

We were too full for dessert, but did have a stroll through the foodhall. It has an expanded selection of the ranges available in Delifonseca Stanley Street, and the addition of Brough's Butchers. Really though, it was the cheese counter and the discovery of my namesake cheese that has sealed my love and loyalty.



Correction: Both bars are on Slater, not Seel, Street. Sometimes you wouldn't know I'd lived here five years.

Food and Drink Festival, continued

Liverpool Food and Drink Festival launch day

After coming home full of appreciation for another delicious (and sunny) food festival launch day, we decided we wanted to try a new restaurant on Monday and take advantage of the 50% off promotions available. Having enjoyed a meal at The Monro on Duke Street awhile back, we decided to try its sister restaurant, The James Monro, on Tithebarn Street. Its offer was, and I quote, 'half price off rump steaks' (click on the link then The James Monro to see its Monday offer). I mentioned this offer to the man taking my reservation, who was extremely friendly and professional, confirming that was the offer. Sadly our experience didn't live up to our anticipation.

The James Monro has been decorated in a neoclassical style befitting its early 19th century namesakes (both a ship running the first regular passenger service between Liverpool and New York and the fifth President of the United States). We arrived a few minutes early and had our choice of seats; unfortunately, we picked the Invisible Table (tm). You know, the table which has the only unlit candle, unnoticed by waitstaff out of at least twenty candles burning throughout the restaurant (I eventually lit it myself because I like playing with matches). The table that has no cutlery even after the starter arrives (we ate the salad leaves accompanying our garlic bread with our fingers because we're classy like that and hate waste). The table which just seems to be overlooked by waitstaff serving every other table around it. So our restaurant karma was a little off from the beginning.

The James Monro's website mentioned a new menu available from September; I can only surmise they're still getting the hang of it. There were several typos (it took us a little while to figure out what a 'wind mushroom' was) and some incongruities with dishes available on the early bird menu vs the a la carte menu and vice versa. The goat's cheese and courgette parcel with asparagus and yoghurt and mint dressing I ordered wasn't available, I was later informed. And when my husband went to order his steak, he was told that yes, it was available as part of a 2-for-1 offer.

The waiter noticed that we were just *slightly* taken aback, because 2-for-1 was not quite the same thing as half price. If it was, we wouldn't have come, because I don't eat steak. Husband asked for a few minutes to revise his order and the waiter retreated to the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later to say that they would be willing to do husband's steak at half price. All credit to him for resolving the issue, but we shouldn't have had to make a fuss to get what was stated both online and by the member of staff who took our booking.

Faff aside, our food was quite good. I settled on fish and chips since the main I originally wanted wasn't available. Husband's steak was cooked exactly as he ordered, the peppercorn sauce looked appealing and the chips were proper big, handcut chips, cooked almost to perfection. My fish was flaky and moist, the batter dark and crispy. My chips were equally tasty.

We don't like being the couple that have to make a point to get the level of service that other tables are shown as a matter of course; I had to ask for a wine list, whereas others just got them alongside their menus. It left a slightly bitter taste, metaphorically. While the food was nearly the equal to The Monro's, I'm not sure I'll be heading back to the James Monro. The business district definitely needs more quality restauarants if it wants to be be more of a destination after 5pm, so I wish them the best and hope they can live up to the potential that's there.

Next up: a welcome newcomer on Hope Street, just in time for Sunday's Feast...

Liverpool Food and Drink Festival

The third Liverpool Food and Drink Festival began yesterday in Sefton Park. Saturday's rain gave way to sunny skies, though the ground still had festival-worthy mud in places and wellies were out in abundance. The number of stalls had increased noticeably over last year, with more vendors traditionally found at farmers markets alongside the usual restaurant suspects. Crowds gathered around the cookery demo/celebrity chef marquee and we spotted James Martin striding through the crowd, with minders.

It was good to see smaller restaurants alongside the heavy hitters and my favourite sources of caffeine on Bold Street, Brew and Bold Street Coffee, were doing a brisk trade. French Quarter Bakery had an impressive stall, twice the size of a normal Lark Lane market offering, while Liverpool Cheese Company's seemed rather smaller than usual. After sampling as many freebies and entering all the competitions we could, it was difficult to choose where to eat properly. Husband went for some beans and rice with friend plantains to start before settling on a hog roast for mains. A friend chose the fish curry from Spice Lounge. And eventually, I settled on Chaophraya, and their mixed starter plate. Their stall was one of the best looking, and I appreciate how much effort went into its appearance as well as the food. The starter plate held chicken satay skewers, a veggie spring roll, corn fritter and strips of beef.

We shared a jug of mojitos while listening to a steel drum band. Eventually we queued up to get a crepe from some French friends whose creperie appears around the city during continental markets. We made our way home in the autumn sunshine.


The rest of the festival consists of Restaurant Week-style offers and events at participating venues. I hope to visit at least a couple restaurants, especially the new Delifonseca Dockside at Brunswick Dock. More to come.

Bagelicious - just another sandwich shop

Over the summer, I saw 'coming soon' signs for a new place to eat on Smithdown Road, near Dafna's Cheesecake Factory, that I thought might offer something a little different from the usual takeaway sandwich shop. Namely, bagels. Called 'Bagelicious', it promised bagels, paninis, the usual variety of coffee drinks, etc.

I should have realised the sign above their door announcing said "bagel's" was a warning to be heeded.

Now, I'm probably a little luckier than most Americans who didn't grow up in the New York metropolitan area, because I was familiar with bagels from an early age. Every Saturday after ballet lessons (which I enjoyed despite my total lack of grace or rhythm) we would go to Bageland, the bagel bakery in Murray Hill, one of Pittsburgh's Jewish neighborhoods. Strictly takeout, there were 6, maybe 8, flavors of bagels. Plain, sesame seed, onion, poppy seed. Cinnamon raisin was the only sweetened variety available (and I've debated with another baking friend whether or not it counts as a 'proper' bagel flavour; she says no). They were fresh from the oven and exactly what a bagel should be; chewy inside with a perfectly thin, shiny crust on the outside. I don't even feel right calling it a crust, because that implies a flaky crumbliness that it doesn't have; it's more like a skin, because of boiling the bagel dough briefly before baking them, which seals it.

This was long before the chains of Bruegger's and Einstein Bros came along to introduce bagels to middle America. Before flavors like asiago cheese and blueberry were sat along side the plain and the cinnamon raisin. Though Bageland is sadly long gone, I was lucky enough to live in New York for a few months after graduating and experience some gorgeous (and frankly, enormous) bagels and shmears from Ess-a-Bagel. So I admit, my standards are probably unfairly high.

That said, if you're going to make bagels a cornerstone of your brand, then for the love of cream cheese, the least you can do is sell actual bagels. Not barms/baps/sandwich buns with a hole poked in the middle. That is what we were served yesterday, with a fairly average choice of catering pack sandwich fillings available. And since they were still packaged in the wrap of the wholesale bakery from whence they came, I now know exactly which company to thank for making a product that was far less authentic and palatable than the Tesco brand bagel I had for my breakfast that morning. Cheers for making decidedly average supermarket bagels look downright appealing.

Still, I can see it doing well among students who can't be bothered to walk to Oomoo. The exposed brick walls, wooden tables and brown leather seats are attractive enough, and free wi-fi is meant to be available, though we didn't test it out.

I'm as disappointed in the lowest-common-denominator approach to food and the wasted chance to stand out and provide something not widely available in this city as much as the mis-selling of their key product. If you do bother going to Bagelicious, save yourself the letdown and skip the bagels.

Social Media Cafe Liverpool

The first SMCLiverpool was held at Static Gallery last night. Quite a few people turned up to hear presentations from people working in different areas of social media. It was nice to see a couple of familiar faces and chat with new ones. Topics of discussion included data visualisation and storytelling from a journalistic perspective, 'how to win Foursquare friends and influence people' by Josh, aka @technicalfault, and a sort of history of social media by a longtime user, Dave Coveney, who reminded everyone to have fun and remember the person at the other end of a conversation/thread/flamewar is actually a person too. He also said 'don't be anonymous', which I'm not sure I totally agree with because I think there are situations where anonymity is a good thing. I saw what he was getting at though and I respect his viewpoint.

There are some recaps by Alison Gow and Mike Nolan on their respective blogs, as well as links to Dave Coveney's and Alison's presentations on the SMC Liverpool's blog.

In a much less visually appealing way than Alison used her data, here's a randomly chosen selection of numbers about the evening:

30+: Attendees
19: The number of words I got on my social media bingo.
15: Different platforms used by those Twittering during and after the event.
2: Number of Threadless t-shirts spotted.
1: iPad I got to try out for the first time.

Looking forward to the next one!

in brief

A round up of noteworthy exhibitions and events of late:

At the end of May when meeting up with a friend in London, we went to the National Portrait Gallery for the Irving Penn: Portraits exhibition. A show like that reaffirms my belief that life looks better in black and white. Penn’s prolific output and lengthy career meant he photographed a pretty good cross section of celebrity in the second half of the 20th century. Though his work was most widely viewed in magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair, seeing actual prints make his photos all the more compelling. A similar exhibition of celebrity and fashion portraits by Cecil Beaton at the Walker last year, which left me underwhelmed, felt even more superficial compared to this. Beaton seemed content to photograph surfaces, whereas in Penn's words:

what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe

A contact sheet of a session with novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett exemplifies his efforts to get behind the facade. Each negative shows a slightly different aspect of someone who looks like a character Judi Dench would get an Oscar nomination for playing, and yet none of them became the final print. Penn photographed many of his subjects in a studio environment that could be described as stripped down at best. It wasn't designed to make the sitter comfortable, but it seems to have brought something interesting out of each person.

After much experimentation Penn settled on silver gelatin as his print of choice and it gives an undeniably 19th century quality to photographs of stars like Al Pacino. Wide-eyed and alomst haunted-looking, it’s one of the best photographs of him I’ve ever seen and it was possibly my favourite of the exhibition. Not even because I’m a particular fan of his, I’m not, but Penn’s ability to elicit and capture that expression at that moment encapsulate the photographer's talent and technique.

Shooting under rather different conditions, but no less a master of creating memorable images, the Don McCullin retrospective Shaped by War at the Imperial War Museum North was an extremely moving experience in a museum than can’t fail to move you to sorrow, outrage, grief, or all of the above. McCullin made his name as a war photographer in the 1960’s and 1970’s for the Sunday Times Magazine, covering conflicts in Vietnam and Cambodia, among others. He was actually shot in Cambodia and the camera that caught the bullet was displayed alongside photos he took from the back of the truck taking the wounded to safety. Possibly because images of the Vietnam War are already indelible in American consciousness, and I had a greater familiarity with the historical context, I actually found the most difficult images were of the Biafran famine. In particular, one of an albino boy. He was already an outcast for the colour of his skin, and the suffering on his face was indescribable. He stood, with other children behind him at a distance, holding an empty tin can. I admire McCuillan for bearing witness to these events, but I can’t imagine putting up the psychological barriers he had to erect to be able to do that job without going to pieces. The exhibition is travelling to the IWM in London next autumn, and it is very much worth seeing.

After taking that in as well as the main part of the museum, we needed a bit of something lighter. Luckily the Lowry is just across Salford Quays and the Spencer Tunick exhibition had just opened. And yes, there are naked people visible if you click on that link, FYI.

My main reason for going was that a friend had taken part in its creation and I wanted to see if I could spot her. There are about a dozen photographs and a film of the shoot taking place across Salford and Manchester. Tunick said he wanted to respond to LS Lowry’s work and in the choice of location on Dantzic Street and the position of the participants, I could kind of see what he was getting at. Other pictures are, in fact, large groups of naked people, albeit artfully arranged ones. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and given that it was bloody cold on the morning of the shoot, I take my hat off to the people willing to strip off and pose. I couldn’t spot my friend, but she did manage to find herself in at least one of the pictures and told me where to look for her if I do go back and see it again.


Liverpool stuff:
Check out www.sevenstreets.com, my new favourite site about Liverpool goings on. Well written and offbeat.

Coming up on June 30 is the first Social Media Cafe at Static Gallery. It's free and you can register here.

I’m on the way home from two lovely days at Wimbledon. Saw some great tennis, drank more Pimms than I ever have before (thank God it’s diluted with lemonade or I would have been hammered in the heat on Friday) and had a generally very good time.

Ok, maybe that wasn't so brief. That's what Twitter's for anyway.

High Violet is rapidly becoming my album of the summer. Go have a listen.

Picasso: Peace and Freedom

Opening today at Tate Liverpool, "Picasso: Peace and Freedom" is a major exhibition examining Picasso's work in the post-war period, situating many of his works in a polictical context relating to his nearly 30 year membership of the Communist party.

Several column inches have already been devoted to the exhibition before it opened and what surprises it may have in store, such as the Daily Telegraph's claim of Picasso's previously unknown support for feminism and the Guardian's skepticism of the depth of his political beliefs.

Having previously written about Picasso's later career and the efforts of different photographers to depict him and how they contributed to his legacy, I was incredibly curious to see how this exhibition would re-interpret his later works, traditionally given much less attention in critical scholarship than his earlier, more groundbreaking pieces and if it would radically revise the perceptions of him as an artist.

The exhibition opens on the ground floor with a timeline of major events in Picasso's life and western history since World War II. Four screens show documentary footage of Picasso at work and news footage from different political events such as the Sheffield Peace Conference of 1950. Anticipating the work on display upstairs, it is presented in grey and white, though I thought some coloured text might have been useful to distinguish general historical events (such as the Suez Crisis) from ones Picasso was directly involved with, politically or personally.

Moving upstairs to the fourth floor, I would venture that more work by Picasso is on display than anywhere else aside from the museums dedicated to his work in France and Barecelona. It is impressively overwhelming. The Charnel House hangs in a smaller room to the left of the entrance. Though it never garnered the attention or reputation of Guernica, it remains a powerful work. If Guernica is a scream of anguish, The Charnel House is a silent post-mortem. The bodies lay twisted but quiet. I know Picasso was initially inspired by the images of a Spanish family killed during the war, but images of Holocaust victims and the way bodies were disposed of in concentration camps were all I could think of. I found the experience incredibly moving.

Still life and landscape paintings dominate the first room, with a couple of sculptures and portraits of Francoise Gilot and Sylvette David. Some paintings of the view from his home on the Cote d'Azure use a brighter palette, and I can't help but recall his dialogue, both artistic and personal, with Matisse, who lived in the area until his death in 1954.

The gallery devoted to images of the famous 'dove of peace', chosen by Louis Aragon, not Picasso himself, leads to a larger space devoted to posters, newspaper front pages and photographs of Picasso with fellow Communists. He ignored Russian attempts to encourage him towards their sanctioned realism, and they rejected his portrait of Stalin as insufficiently life-like. Cards and posters he designed for different organisations and events certainly demonstrate his engagement and willingness to be publicly linked to these causes. One is a postcard to celebrate International Women's Day in 1964. I don't think this, combined with some of his later nudes in display can convincingly make the case for him as a feminist. His misogyny will remain a subject of debate for many years to come, but perhaps this will be one useful example in showing his commitment to freedom for all marginalised groups.

The last few galleries show series of paintings and prepatory sketches for Rape of the Sabines, Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (after Manet) and (self)portraits in the guise of a 17th century muskateers. Certainly the more common reading of these paintings is that Picasso at this stage in his life was engaging with art and artists of the past to cement his place in the history of art as the equal of Manet, Rembrandt and Poussin. Situating these works in the context of contemporary events provides an intriguing counterpoint (his Women of Algiers after Delacroix, was painted during the conflict that would eventually lead to Algerian independence), but ultimately a political motivation or theme in these works is surely only one among many.

Making an exhibition around Picasso's Communism twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall is an achievement in itself and illuminates another facet of his personality. Regardless of one's political affiliations or opinion of Picasso, the fact that so much of his work has been gathered in one place makes the exhibition worth seeing.

The Guardian's review

BBC Liverpool video