We arrived for our booking eager and laden with several bags for the food bank. Even with a decent donation, we were still up on the deal thanks to this enormously generous offer from LNER. With our names checked off, we took our seat in the Cookery School which had been subject to a remarkable period transformation, complete with a “conductor” who introduced the occasion and the dishes. Dinner would be three courses which had been chosen to represent the past, present and future of food on LNER trains, complete with matched drinks for each course. First up was a dish taken from a 1920’s on-board menu: chilled pea soup with watercress and slow cooked sole served with honey and lemon-infused dry gin cocktail. The contrast between the buttery, rich morsel of fish and the cool refreshing soup hit the spot with a generous spiking of black pepper through it for contrast, and the drink was refreshing and sweet – very enjoyable if not something I would usually think to order.

The main followed quickly with chicken at its centre on a bed of creamed potato with plenty of chanterelle mushrooms and a disc of beetroot for colour as well as obligatory pea-shoots for presentation. A few years ago I was lucky enough to spend a day heading to London and back with Virgin Trains to try their food and I was pleasantly surprised, but if I was served this on a train, I’d be even happier! Tender chicken and creamy, rich potatoes with mushroom notes all came together nicely and formed into a comforting dish that would accompany a homeward commute nicely.

For dessert we pushed forward to the future, with the LNER chefs playing around to ponder what the future of on-board catering might be… such as a mushroom panna cotta made using 3D printing! OK, so this wasn’t actually 3D-printed, but as a proof of concept it worked just fine with pear and ginger jelly tempering the creamy mushroom notes.

To some extent everything you’ve just read is irrelevant on the basis that this isn’t an ongoing concept, but I think it worth sharing on the basis that it’s a large company trying to do something different to celebrate its heritage while supporting a worthy cause in The Trussel Trust. Thanks to all at LNER for putting their money where my mouth is and hosting the event!

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Leeman Road is still awaiting the gentrification that’s swept through other parts of the city, which given the ever-buoyant housing market is something of a surprise to me. Found down a slightly unlikely looking alley though is the new events space from which Pastelle Events will be hosting regular meals and events. I went along to their launch night to check it out and get a handle on what they would be offering. I have to admit it took me a few minutes of aimless wandering to find the sign directing me down the back of Livingstone Street to the venue, which presents a striking contrast to the rest of this area. With a horse box bar, generous space outside and plenty of glass to connect the interior and outside space, this is an immediately welcoming area that invites comfort and relaxation.

Pastelle Events don’t release a menu in advance of their pop-ups so I didn’t really know what to expect as we were seated and enjoyed canapés featuring anchovy, fig and saffron chicken which all did a great job of whetting our appetites while serving as starters. A colourful selection of mains were presented to the table for sharing and nobody was polite enough to waste any time getting stuck in, quite apt for this sort of informal dining experience. A pair each of meat and veggie dishes were available, all beautifully presented and looking like they made the best of the produce involved. Confit chicken with prunes and preserved lemon sang with olives and a generous whack of garlic while clams, tiger prawns and pork shoulder came together in another sharing dish which would have provoked disagreement had the portions not been so hearty. My favourite of the veggie dishes was the generous strips of satisfyingly charred aubergine with pepper with sun-dried tomato, while generous quantities of lemon aioli and toasted almonds over tenderstem broccoli is unlikely to make many enemies amongst people who appreciate food.

With all that in the book, it was time for a trio of cakes for dessert including chocolate torte, frangipan and a Basque cheesecake. These continued the theme of broad choice, enticing presentation and generous servings and were all extremely well executed; an opinion backed up by the rest of my household after my appetite was defeated and the leftovers came home with me.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable event that really let Pastelle stretch its legs and show what it can do. As I say things are tough at the mo but enterprises such as this that nail together value with taste and a sense of occasion should surely be bound for great success. All the dishes served were hearty and a touch rustic while still plenty refined enough and redolent with big flavours. I’m already planning to get booked onto their August event!

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Joining up to deliver the concept were chefs James Sturdy and Jack Richardson, with respective specialisms in regeneratively farmed meat and vegan alternatives. I’d tried Jack’s vegan burger when he trialled it with a pop up at Spark and was really keen to sample again as I recalled it being comfortably one of the best vegan burgers I’ve eaten. Meat for the more traditional version all came from one farmer that James was able to name personally, always a good sign, who demonstrates a commitment to high welfare while farming traditional native breed cattle. With the scene set so, I found myself with a dining companion and an appetite at Melk on the first of the pop-up’s two nights. Another positive sign appeared, when I was seated, in the shape of Steph Moon at the adjacent table, a legend of the Yorkshire food scene who wouldn’t waste a Friday evening if she wasn’t confident of the quality.

The menu was predictably and appropriately brief with the meat and plant-based versions of the burgers present and correct along with cheese and spice options and a few sides. We opted for one each of the plant-based and beef burgers as well as some garlic and parsley dressed chips, slaw and pickles. An average burger is an easy thing to produce but truly exceptional ones, especially featuring plant-based patties, are a rarer thing available most notably in York from Sloppy’s Bar & Grill in Woodthorpe. Having established that the ingredients were top quality, also featuring Bluebird Bakery buns, it wasn’t the shock of the century when both the plant and meat based burgers turned out to be top tier. The double beef burger was generously garnished with finely shredded lettuce as well as tomato, cheddar and burger sauce. The burger bun held its own too as you’d expect coming from Bluebird, standing up to the rigours of Friday night meat consumption admirably and enabling all of the elements of this fantastic burger to shine. Though this was beautifully executed, the plant based burger was arguably more exciting and had the same savoury, rich flavour as I recalled from the pop-up in Spark. Texture can be a stumbling point in meat alternatives, some being unnecessarily dense and with a disconcerting “bounce” but this delivered on all fronts to produce a seriously satisfying product. The sides hit the mark too with a fresh, crunchy slaw and garlic dip helping along some fries seasoned with garlic and parsley that were quickly polished off.

Anyone who’s seen The Menu (spoilers!) knows that a really good cheeseburger can improve an evening no end and those on offer from Just Burger do exactly that. This first event shows great promise so stay tuned to hear about future opportunities to enjoy in the near future!

(Disclaimer – PR meal)

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Yahala Mataam started as a joint project run by the Refugee Council, York City Church and a group of gifted chefs from Syria and has been steadily building momentum over the last few years, finding an increasing audience for their monthly pop-up restaurants with each running. I’ve been meaning to go along for some time after meeting up with organiser Rob through my involvement with York Food Festival, at which they have demonstrated, and recently I finally managed to line the dates up with childcare to go along. The Citadel is a handsome building toward the Lord Mayor’s Walk end of Gillygate that houses an airy, open space which can accommodate a good number of guests. We arrived to find our table ready and waiting, replete with falafel, hummus and flatbreads to get straight into. My experience of falafel over the years suggests it’s something very easy to get wrong but this version remained texturally appealing and hadn’t dried out unpleasantly as can be the case. Hummus and flatbreads were equally well executed and set the scene perfectly for the main course of chicken and rice.

The generous portion of well seasoned chicken with rice and spices was quickly divided between the table and went down very well with a fresh salad to accompany and we were soon onto a dessert of “Basbousah” which was served with mint tea. This semolina based cake flavoured with orange blossom was a pleasant note on which to end a meal that, in truth, wasn’t all about the food. Yahala Mataam gives an opportunity for the refugees that we welcome in York to proactively engage as a community and place themselves at the heart of our society. It’s a great pleasure to see this group thriving and their pop-up nights so deservedly popular both on the basis of the hospitality and the ethos behind the endeavour and a suggested donation of around £20 is extremely fair, particularly in the current context of price rises. Keep an eye on the TV listings too as they’re due to make an appearance on the BBC over the summer after filming took place at York Food Festival. One final thing worth noting is that these events are alcohol-free so while they have drinks available (including an alcohol-free beer) it’s not appropriate to bring a bottle to have with dinner.

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The Fossgate Social is well known for dishing out great coffee and schooners of craft beer from its understated but undeniably cool home on Fossgate and is somewhere I’ve been intimately familiar with over the last few years. The focus of my most recent visit though was to give the T’ART menu a good close inspection, which Allesandro was more than happy to accommodate with a selection of the savouries followed by one of their signature desserts. The kitchen is semi-open so the chefs always have an eye on the punters up on the first floor as they get stuck in, as I quickly did. The platter of samples I got to work on included examples of the foccacia, “Grandma Pie” and bruschetta as well as a few other twists on their dough-based excellence.

Evidence of the dedication to elevating these dishes beyond ordinary is easily found in the presentation, and then in each bite. The bruschetta packs in big wallops of flavour that are distant from the kind of supermarket example we’re more familiar with while focaccia wraps great depth of flavour around soft burrata and tomato. Potato and pork sausage with fennel top another section of the dough while it’s also pressed to service as a kind of wafer thin pizza showcasing tomato and olive oil. My favourite though is a delicate sandwich of ham and cheese whose cross section shows in geological detail the layering and structure of the bread.

With the savoury selection taken good care of, I moved onto the sweet section to try the “T’art Rocher”, a striking dish that’s surely set to become a key part of the T’art identity. This gluten free chocolate sphere wraps a chocolate & hazelnut crust around a chocolate mousse layer that further encases a salted hazelnut praline, a brace of biscuits add to the presentation. This is already available at another restaurant who loved it so much they added it to their own menu and it’s easy to see why. There’s a lightness of touch to each component that helps it live long in the memory after the temptation to crack it open is succumbed to. Speaking as someone not blessed by a sweet tooth, I can’t wait to try another of these.

It’s entirely evident that T’ART is quite deserving of its own location. I’ve no doubt at all that they’ll attract a loyal and large following while resident at The Fossgate Social but the real fun will be in seeing how they build on the work that this pop-up will do for them. I can’t wait to try more examples of their dishes at T’ART at The Fossgate Social.

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Sara Danesin is pretty well known around York these days thanks to her 2011 appearance on Masterchef which took her oh-so-close to winning. Since then, she’s built a successful business as a chef consultant and hosts a successful supper club from her home in the city. I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy her food a few times, so when Super Break got in touch to ask if I fancied a couple of hours learning about pasta with Sara, I leapt at the chance to try a Super Break with a Masterchef.

Super Break now offer the opportunity to come to York and enjoy a Masterchef experience with Sara as part of a city break centred around staying in a prestigious city centre hotel, also offering a dinner during your break. Sara’s house is close to the centre of York so is convenient for your stay, as it was for me to stroll to on a sunny morning.

Before this class, I’d actually never attempted to make pasta before, assuming that the legion of abandoned pasta machines that infest kitchens around the country suggest it’s too involved to be a regular occurrence in my kitchen. Sara’s spotlessly clean kitchen was ready and waiting for the lucky participants when we arrived and, after a sensible interval for caffeine, we were following instruction on mixing egg and flour to create pasta dough ready to knead. As stated, this was the first time I’d made pasta dough and it certainly didn’t merit the fuss associated with it. Before long we’d knocked up enough dough to try several different types of pasta and were rolling it through the pasta machine like seasoned pros.

Our efforts quickly yielded lustrous ribbons of pasta that Sara quickly knocked up a mushroom sauce for before expertly twisting the sauce and pasta together into a delightful tower that we wasted no time in getting stuck into. Spaghetti in a simple olive oil sauce with olives was next up for us to quickly dispatch before fiddling our way through constructing ravioli and tortellini. This was a task that was reduced to greater simplicity than one might expect, requiring only a few neat folds to end up with some delightful parcels that required only a few short minutes in water.

I was a little taken aback at how easy Sara made the experience for us. The course was great fun and informal while still packed with tips and easily repeatable recipes to go away with. The real acid test of a course like this is how easily one can repeat the dishes at home without expert instruction, so I grabbed myself a pasta machine and did exactly that. Admittedly my first attempt lacked some of the finesse borne of Sara’s great experience, but I’ve successfully knocked up several fresh pasta dinners since this course and expect that to remain a staple in the Fork household. Thanks to Super Break and Sara for a great couple of hours!

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance, opinions are as impartial as always. More info below.

MasterChef Travel Breaks – Starting from £170 per person

“Perfect for foodies, the Super Break MasterChef Travel breaks let you explore flavours and tastes and discover new culinary techniques. Learn the secrets of Italian cooking with Sara Danesin, finalist on MasterChef in 2011 and the audience’s favourite to win! This exciting break will take you into the heart of her very own kitchen, where she’ll show you how she combines her Italian roots and British food discoveries to create wonderfully delicious food. Passionate about both cooking and teaching, Sara champions one clear message – you are what you eat – so get stuck in for a masterclass like no other! What’s more, with seven packages to choose from as part of Super Break’s MasterChef break offering, there’s a food and drink inspired getaway that will suit everyone’s palate!

PRICE: Starting from £170 per person for two nights’ Bed and Breakfast accommodation, dinner in the hotel included, food or drink inspired experience and MasterChef merchandise.”

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More pertinently to this site, The Schoolhouse Gallery also offers food from Cardamom and Dill Thursday to Saturday from 1230-1400. Cardamom and Dill is a one-woman, hard-working pop-up that focuses on vegetarian food inspired by the chef Kiki who prepares the food herself. Each week reflects a particular theme or location but regardless of the chosen inspiration, all of the pictures on social media of her food look superbly tempting, so we dragged along Baby Fork on a Saturday lunchtime to see what it was all about.

The gallery is easy to find, nestling between Arras and the city walls with wonderful gardens as a buffer between the two. The spacious room contains a selection of attractive furniture that’s all complementary and comfortable, with a sideboard containing the day’s treats acting as a focal point. The food can be ordered as a combination of mains, salads and dips, but to make sure you get a good mixture, it’s easier to select a Tasting Plate for £10 then throw in a flatbread for £1 extra.

The theme on our visit was “A walk in Istanbul” which led to a tasting plate featuring a feta and spinach filo tart, a white bean salad, sweet potato hummus, sweet potato croquettes, a rice salad and a yogurt dip. The filo tart was livened up with orange, pistachio and oregano for a well judged centrepiece while everything on the plate could hold its head up high. Both presentations of sweet potato balanced the inherent sweetness with well judged spicing and the salads were both superb. The white bean salad in particular was delightfully dressed and delivered one of the few occasions on which I’ve wanted a second helping of a salad. For dessert, Mrs Fork chose a slice of orange polenta cake that was good enough to prevent me intercepting a taste.

The section of the walls running from Peasholme Green to Monk Bar features views of a landscaped garden tucked away from the public that for years I’ve wanted to have a stroll around. I hadn’t released that this was attached to this building and actually features some outside seating. On a sunny day this would be a blissful place to enjoy good food.

We grabbed a glass each of the house wine to take the bill to £33 including the flatbread and tasting plate each and one dessert. To enjoy such lovely surroundings with vegetarian food that’s made with such passion, this is an essential bargain that should be on everybody’s list. Cardamom & Dill also put on a monthly supper club that’s sure to be worth a visit and is understandably popular; the June event being sold out already. July looks like a hot bet!

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Radix Dining is the brain child of Craig Rogan and Monty Kanev whose combined CVs feature plenty of serious names including L’Enclume, Fera, The French, Alimentum and Van Zeller. Radix is Craig and Monty’s joint endeavour to offer a relaxed dining experience with an experimental menu that sited its first event in the new FortyFive cafe to reinforce its casual atmosphere. With those entries across their CVs I was more than keen to head along to check out how the first pop up went despite the entrance of baby YoaF to this world two weeks previously. Fortunately the sleep deprivation didn’t keep me from enjoying the food!

The FortyFive Vinyl cafe is a comfortable spot on Micklegate that’s been making a name for itself since its recent opening. The daytime offering focuses on comforting toasties (that are on my hit list) but the space lent itself perfectly well to casual dining with the tables set appropriately for our arrival and enough space left to prevent each party invading one another’s space. The six course menu read well and the onion based snacks we paired with gin cocktails from Defiance gin helped prepare us for our first course.

First to the table was a dish described as “violet potato, lovage, cheek and leek”. The reductionist naming left me a little concerned about the inclusion of purple potatoes but the guys managed to create a dish that allowed me to enjoy that ingredient for the first time. Purple potatoes have a mixed reputation for turning to starchy powder if cooked anything other than perfectly but their use as a base to complement rich seams of ox cheek and sharper lovage was a reassuring change here which augured well for more innovative dishes.

Next to get to grips with was a vegetable “tagliatelle” of roots with hen of the woods mushroom and Lincolnshire Poacher. The threads of root vegetable in the bowl were softened to just the right degree and had their earthiness perfectly complemented by the sharp cheese running through the plate without getting into one’s sinuses as you might fear form a strong cheese. The following fish course of barbecued halibut was more conventional but accented with superbly crisped shards of chicken skin (I want these as bar snacks everywhere from now on) before we were hit with the meat course that paired venison with black pudding and various presentations of beetroot. A potential pitfall for pop-ups is hitting the standards desired despite facilities that aren’t necessarily intended for this style of food, but there was no hint of compromiuse in the presentation. The venison came to the table perfectly and hit it off well with the various textures of beetroot and black pudding to make a seriously satisfying plate of food.

Before the final sweet dish, we had the chance to take down a pre-dessert of a mini cheese and citrus cornet. With palates suitably refreshed we finished the meal with a chocolate and red grape gateau. I’m not entirely convinced that red grapes are essential to chocolate gateau but the chocolate put a nice full stop against the meal.

There really is loads of great stuff happening in York at the moment so it’s nice to hit something with the potential to make a significant mark early in its development. There are serious challenges to presenting this style of food in a venue that takes in one evening at a time and the guys bested them with aplomb. I’m happy that media such as the Sunday Times recognise the great stuff happening here, but it’s even more fun to check out the early gestation in the next stage. Thanks for a lovely evening guys. Check out here for future events.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance, opinions remain impartial.

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Cox & Co was a nice surprise given my unfamiliarity with the area. A nicely formed coffee shop that looks like it’s well worth a visit when in normal service. The venue had been simply decorated with place settings by the guys from Origin York, who are branching out from their day jobs in catering and hospitality to take the opportunity to cook the food they love for people who appreciate it.

The menu listed four courses that would be supplemented by a few snacks through the course of the evening, starting with a basket of bread for the table to share. Of the three loaves, we enjoyed the parsnip bread the most, something I’ll be having a stab at sometime! Parmesan and nut breads came too and were nicely done, if a little over facing. I think we’d have struggled to finish the rest of the meal if we’d worked our way through the lot!

The first warm plate was a foam of curried carrot covering beautiful mushrooms and topped with pine nuts and tarragon oil. Foam can be a tricky one to pull off, but the texture fared well against the softened mushrooms and set a high standard for the rest of the evening as we went into the first dish on the menu, “Weekend Waffles” with goats curd and onion.

The different textures of onion cut well against the goats curd with the soft waffle underpinning the dish and giving a sensible backdrop to the strong flavours. The next dish, named “The Spanish Lady” showcased octopus with flavours of chorizo and peppers. Octopus always represents a bit of a textural risk, but was perfectly cooked and presented here, another well balanced plate.

Moving onto the meat course we received plates of “Cheeky Veal”, a pun that the chef (surname “Veal”) couldn’t resist. Given my love of bad jokes, also one I’d have succumbed to. The veal was served with fresh horseradish that gave a tremendous, fresh contrast to the three pieces of meat on the plate. The fillet was cooked to do the ingredient justice and the tongue soft, while the braised cheek fell apart as it should to round off a great sequence of savoury dishes.

The first of two sweet dishes placed paw prints across the table, something that I’m painfully familiar with as the custodian (definitely not owner) of three cats. My position as a soppy pet owner also causes me to sympathise with the dish being presented above a picture of the dog that Origin wanted included in the meal, perhaps a sympathy that others would be less likely to extend. Regardless of canine affectations, popping candy livened up the chocolate parfait that also featured peppermint.

Last dish up was “Queen of Hearts”, featuring lemon and strawberry in a pastry case. I enjoyed the lemon filling that underpinned varying presentations of strawberry. The pastry element of the dish would have benefited from a touch more delicacy but, on balance, this was a fine place to end the sequence of dishes. We finished up with coffee, accompanied by coffee-filled chocolate spheres.

At £38 a head, this represents good value and the guys at Origin York are showing confidence and skill in both menu creation and the logistics of running an evening like this. The small, but well chosen, drinks menu worked well with the food, though would have benefited from a couple more accessibly priced wines with the only white on offer by the bottle being £30. I’ll be keeping an eye on these guys and wish them the best of luck with future events!

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Shoe-horning myself onto a table to share with the illustrious Jill Turton, I grabbed a look at the menu and decided to start with the Fourme d’Ambert with lavender honey paired with a Pinot Gris. The plate was garnished with a few pine nuts and was absolutely delicious. The combination of blue cheese, sweet honey, soft lavender and light Pinot Gris was wonderfully judged so I didn’t hesitate in selecting another pairing: venison with eucalyptus and sage paired with a Beaujolais gave a lovely combination with an interesting mystery ingredient, the identity of which will remain secret of course!

Before long Jill made her way into the evening between the heavy showers and I was joined by the Puboholic, who provided enough appetite to get through the majority of the combinations on offer. Each of the pairings we tried demonstrated a deft ability to combine flavours and textures with the accompanying drink. It must be said that the event didn’t run entirely smoothly, yes it was a crush and a few minor things were overlooked, but equally so, the offering was extremely enjoyable and prices fair. I don’t doubt that the A Pair of Dirty Pigs guys have learnt a huge amount from this experience and that they’re already plotting the next event, which I’m equally confident will be a great success.

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