Forage York is part of the Yorkshire Bartender Group, which offers bar services for events, as well as the Yorkshire Explorer distillery which makes spirits using Yorkshire produce. Unsurprisingly this broader expertise can be felt at Forage through the presence of what must be one of the most original cocktail menus in York. With that side of the business clearly increasingly well established, the emphasis at Forage seems to have shifted a bit, taking the food service side of things in house rather than using a partner to run the kitchen, as Kieran Duffy takes charge of the food side of things. With stints at Roots and Le Cochon Aveugle under his belt and a menu with some intriguing options, I was very keen to pop by and see for myself how things were going.

True to its name, the interior of the restaurant and bar area are splashed with foliage amongst smartly laid tables which are just distressed enough to have character without looking tatty. Our friendly server had us seated with no fuss and suitably furnished with a pint from Brew York and a refreshing mocktail as we paid lip service to making it appear we’d not chosen from the online menu hours earlier. The menu hits a number of notes that speak of a variety of quite diverse influences, from which we opted to begin with pigeon and mackerel. The mackerel had been cured with soy and paired with pickled fennel as well as a tease of dill, all of which played nicely and worked in to a very pleasant dish. While fennel is something we really don’t see enough of on menus, pigeon is an even rarer treat which I wasn’t going to miss when offered alongside a duck fat rosti and served with a “devilled sauce”. This was all rather reminiscent of devilled kidneys but with a pleasantly game-y twist and a parmesan crisp to throw more seasoning into the mix along with the pleasant heat of the sauce, a definite winner.

With starters successfully squared away, it was quickly onto rather contrasting mains of stone bass and fried chicken, which we were alerted would use thigh meat rather than breast. I do wonder if that would actually put anyone off given how much more flavour is in thigh but it was clearly suggestive that the server knew the menu well too. Stone bass was paired with some good punches of allium courtesy roscoff onion and onion puree with wild garlic splitting a fish sauce for good measure too. All this came together very nicely indeed and didn’t overwhelm the plate, or the fish for that matter, and was a real highlight of the evening. Fried chicken was a little more eccentrically paired with not just a garlic aioli but also a tub of caviar, a first for me and arguably unnecessary but it certainly didn’t detract from the well executed fried chicken (thigh) or the aioli. To add a bit of light relief to that chicken dish, we also grabbed some baby leeks that had a nice acridity of char across them and a truffle emulsion for a bit (more) luxury.

Generally this would be the point in a meal at which my appetite would give up but, sufficiently intrigued, a black sesame financier caught my eye and turned out to be a well judged portion size that rounded things out nicely with a generous amount of rhubarb involved too.

I may not have had my ear to the ground as effectively as usual for this one but one visit was enough to really get a sense that Forage is already a well resolved concept that has a good idea of who its customers are and what its product is. It’s early days here but this selection of refined dishes that aren’t afraid to have fun and aren’t surrounded by over-bearing trappings of fine dining really makes its mark. It’s going to be fun watching them develop after this assured start. Oh and don’t forget to look for the hidden room when you visit…

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Sol Ast at The Principal
The team behind THOR’S tipi bar will once again open their doors on Friday 10th July when they return with their summer operation, SOL AST.

Hosted in collaboration with The Principal York Hotel, SOL AST will be situated in the sumptuous gardens of the hotel and looks set to be the biggest beer garden in York this summer.

A larger, ‘socially distant’ layout will be in operation, with a brand-new table service system. You’ll be able to pre-order and pre-pay using a mobile phone, reducing the contact and offering service from the comfort of your chair. Walk-ins will be welcomed, but you’ll also be able to book in groups, making customers feel more at ease when visiting the bar and also giving them the guarantee they will have a space when they arrive.

Co-Founder of THOR’S tipi bar, Maria Farrugia, explains how things may work in this new era for hospitality. “We have been keeping abreast with how our industry plans to return and what our future customers will be looking for and the key things to come out of this are ensuring tables are kept apart in line with social distancing measures, offering free hand sanitiser and an enhanced cleaning protocol that can be easily viewed by anyone visiting us. We’re an outdoor venue, which means we’re already low risk and that will give reassurances to all our customers. All of these measures will be part of our operation from the day we open and we continue to monitor closely any new guidelines set out by Public Health England. Introducing our booking system will allow groups wanting to meet up the comfort of knowing they have an area reserved for them. We cannot wait to help people get together and celebrate with their friends and loved ones”.

Providing the food this summer, will be the renowned local company, The Hog & Apple Food Co. Owner, Ged Dillon, promises to be serving up some tasty treats

SOL AST will open from Friday 10th July at 4:00pm and from Saturday 11th July and throughout the summer, 11:30am to 11:00pm daily. Advanced bookings can be made by calling 07483 339119.

Grays Court Ready to Welcome Guests to an English Country Garden Experience
The walled gardens of this exquisite and historic townhouse hotel in York will host an outdoor bar experience, from Saturday 4^th July, that guests can indulge in secure in the knowledge that their safety has been taken care of.

After over 3 months of being closed, Gray’s Court, one of York’s most magnificent hotels is springing back to life by welcoming guests back into its beautiful walled garden to help people escape the outside world and relax.

“Service is at the heart of what we do at Grays Court and I can’t wait to welcome guests back to experience our new Garden Bar. People need somewhere to relax and where better than in an English Country Garden, in the heart of the city! With our views of York’s stunning city walls and the beauty of Grays Court itself guests are sure to have an exceptional experience during a summer like no other.” Commented Helen Heraty, owner of the multi-award-winning hotel located in the shadow of York Minster.

This new venture, The Garden Bar at Grays Court, will offer a refined selection of refreshing drinks, including specially crafted cocktails using ingredients sourced directly from the garden.

It’s not just the menu that has been thoroughly thought through. The safety and enjoyment of both guests and staff have been a key consideration for the team at the hotel. New measures have been introduced including:

●     A new entrance to the walled garden via the gates in the Courtyard
●     New directional signage across the site
●     Social distancing measures, including a queuing system for the bar and the installation of plastic screens

“We have taken the safety arrangements seriously, whilst ensuring we maintain our award-winning service standards. This is a fine balance but we are committed to offering the best experience and guests can discover everything we have put in place via our website. We will be continuing to monitor these measures and ensure that we are following the latest guidance from the government.”

A full list of measures and information on visiting can be found at www.grayscourtyork.com/gardenbar

“This is the first step in the full reopening; we expect to open our doors on 17^th July when we can once again welcome our resident guests to stay in one of the twelve luxury rooms.  Guests and visitors are encouraged to sign up for the latest updates online.”

The Garden Bar at Grays Court opens on Saturday 4th July from 12pm to 8pm and will be open every day, weather permitting. There is currently no requirement to book and please follow social distancing guideline on arrival.

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Key to the kitchen here is Jonathan Hawthorne, whose working relationship with group director Luke Downing seems to be paying dividends for both parties. Jono is known for not so much pushing the boundaries of convention as failing to see them entirely, leading to dishes such as cheeseburger spring rolls and the “hangover cone” that has become something of a signature for him. In that context, it’s not a surprise to find the menu at Dough features some unexpected ingredients such as Dairylea. Previous form suggests that, while Hawthorne clearly likes to shock, that’s not at the expense of enjoyable food. I went along to the preview evening for Dough to make sure.

On the night I attended, it was clear that the next few days were going to be key to the opening of Dough, with more than a passing resemblance to a building site. I’ve seen that the full opening happened on time though, no doubt a result of the kind of work ethic that opens restaurants with impressive speed. We were due five courses to showcase the range of things one can expect from Dough in the City, first of which was a chicken bhuna samosa with a minted Dairylea dip. With a cold beer paired, this one would be ordered by the bucket load as a bar snack if it was available in my local, something I seem to remember also saying about the cheeseburger spring rolls at Feed.

This was followed up with a fried chicken dish that used pickled mooli and coriander to drive out more flavour along with, potentially divisive, fermented pineapple. This was followed up by smoked flank steak with roast onions and chimichurri, both plates coming together well and the pickles/ferments only adding to things without jarring. At the side of all this came dauphinoise potato that really brought the beef to life. Shot through with gremolata, the paper thin slices of potato were topped with pumpkin seeds and topped generously with parmesan then cut with perfect right angles to present neatly.

Last up was another dish that’s likely to split audiences, the Dough Ice Cream Sundae.This one is described as “f**king mental” and is just as chaotic as the hangover cone that it shares themes with. I couldn’t keep track of the number of elements in this one, a whole bunch of indulgences in one glass featuring doughnut profiterole and ice cream…with a (literal) cherry on top.

I need to go back to Dough in the City and make sure it feels as welcoming and friendly to its neighbourhood as a pub should, but the food is a lovely combination of comforting flavour against strong technique and unconventional combinations. Dough has all the hallmarks of serving its audience brilliantly and all the signs of more newsworthy openings in the future.

Disclaimer: no charge was made for this meal. Opinions are impartial.

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Two linked canvas tipis will form the bar, festooned with lighting and decked out with wooden tables and benches, cosy furs and an open fire pit, around which customers can soak up the Viking hygge.  The tipi has been given a makeover – bespoke timber walls adorned with Thor’s very own Viking shields bring an additional Norse touch as well as an increased capacity, allowing more people to enjoy a drink. 

A brand new drinks menu offers exciting new lagers, pale ales and Guinness whilst festive favourites such as mulled wine and hot cider will ensure there is something to warm everyone’s cockles. A new range of flavoured hot chocolates allows kids, big and small, to tailor-make their own drink, or adults to enjoy a sweet hit with a kick by adding a delicious shot such as Salted Karamel Vodka or Rhum Orange! Teas and coffees as well as soft drinks are also available to revive busy shoppers.

Shambles Kitchen will be returning with a new cabin accessible to customers already inside the tipi, allowing them to order easily from the exciting Christmas savoury menu, while a private outdoor heated terrace hidden round the back enables customers to soak up the festive atmosphere whilst watching the hustle and bustle in the Christmas market.

THOR’S tipi bar will be open from 10am to 11pm daily from 14 November 2018 through to 1^st January 2019 (closed Christmas Day). For details visit www.thorstipi.com or call 01653 610029.   

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Taste Trail
I’m hugely excited to announce that this year’s Taste Trail is a collaboration between York on a Fork and The York Food & Drink Festival. I’ve been working hard with the Festival to organise a great selection of businesses to offer samples and discounts to trail participants. Make sure you preorder your booklet from the festival site for only £5, or two booklets for £8, or collect it/them from the Festival Information Point.

Food Factory
This is your chance to get stuck into a range of activities that’ll get into the detail of where some of our favourite foods come from. You’ll have the opportunity to make bread, butter, pasta and ice cream along with preserving fish and making cheese. You’ll also get a chance to try a chocolate activity at York Cocoa Works. A family ticket for four (including up to two adults)​ which offers all of these activities is £15. You can book places here.

Gin, Fizz & Ale Trail
This year the Ale trail is being broadened to include options for gin and fizz too. Grab your booklet from the Festival Information Point and after visiting six venues you’ll be eligible for entry to a prize draw!

Chef Demos
As always, there’s a packed schedule of chefs ready to show their stuff in the demo tent. Amongst many others this year features:
Rafi’s Spicebox
James McKenzie from the Pipe & Glass
Craig Atchinson from Hudsons at The Grand
Adam Jackson from The Park
Neil Bentinck from Skosh
​Tommy Banks from The Black Swan and Roots
Matt Hunter from The Star Inn the City

Taste Workshops
This year’s Festival features a series of “Taste Workshops” that offer the chance to take advantage of specialist knowledge from some of the city’s food experts.  Details of them all can be found here. As well as these, there’s the chance to enjoy a Pinot Noir tasting at The Chopping Block (The new restaurant at Walmgate Ale House from Michael Hjort) which also hosts a charity “Call my Bluff” dinner on September 25th. Check out the full list of food events here.

​Beer & Cider Festival
York Knavesmire again hosts the Beer & Cider Festival from 19th- 21st September as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. There’ll be over 500 beers and 100 ciders to choose from, live performances, expert briefings, cooking demonstrations and tastings.

Little Vikings Recipe Trail
York Food & Drink Festival 2018 is absolutely for all the family. This year, Little Vikings have put together a free recipe trail that allows children to collect recipes from ten locations around the city as you explore. Book here to reserve your recipe hunt pack to collect from the Festival Information Point.

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The new upstairs beer hall will serve 40 beers at a time and will also include the new Born To Lose Burger Kitchen run by street-food chef Mark Hill, known in York for his Street Cleaver business.

The venue will open to the public on Friday 24th August, following a private event the night before for some of the 661 people who invested in the brewery’s crowdfunding drive, which helped make the expansion possible.

At the public launch, there will be 60 beers: 40 in the new hall and 20 in the original downstairs bar. Half will be from Brew York, with the rest carefully selected from other breweries. There will also be live music from the Disco Daze DJ collective, customers will be able to try the new ‘hoptails’ (beer cocktails), and visitors will get a sneak preview of the Brew York shop, which will open at the front of the building in a few weeks.

Mark’s opening menu will have three main burger options: The Bourdain, The Big Cheese and The Reuben, with vegetarian and vegan options also available. His eclectic range of small dishes will include kimchi mac cheese, pig’s head crubeen donut, chicken skin tostadas, and a sharing platter of Korean-inspired dishes.

Lee Grabham and Wayne Smith, co-founders of Brew York, are looking forward to welcoming existing and new customers.

Lee said: “We’ve had a fantastic first two years, and now we are building a venue that any city would be proud of. Places like Leeds and Manchester have some incredible venues, and this will be up there with those. To have been able to do this so soon, here in the city-centre, is a dream come true.”

Wayne said: “It’s going to be really different from anything else in York, and will be fantastic. Because we have direct relationships with lots of other breweries, we will be able to get hold of exclusive and very rare beers that people will really want to try.”

For the Friday and Saturday, admission is by ticket only, to manage capacity. Tickets are £5, which includes a glass and a £3 drink. To book, visit buytickets.at/brewyork

The beer hall will also be an evolving street art space, in collaboration with The Art of Protest gallery in Little Stonegate. Giant works will be painted on the hall walls, before eventually being painted over with new pieces.

Mark said: “This will be something completely fresh for York. I’ll be using local suppliers and ingredients and people will be able to see everything we’re doing. Venues like this are working all over the world but there hasn’t been one in York yet. But there should be no reason York should be any different to places from LA to Leeds, where you can get a great burger, amazing fresh food and a brilliant local beer. We will be working together and with other businesses to really get the best out of our industries and doing a lot of work to showcase the best beer and food pairings.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure this is the right thing for York as well as for us, and feel York really needs something like this. And we won’t be secretive about what we’re doing. If people want the recipes, they can have them.”

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The Nook in York has been based on Castlegate for the last five years, offering drinks and live music, but has now been refurbished into this new identity to offer a range of street food. The layout remains unchanged but the space has been smartened considerably with bright murals and comfortable seating dominating. The menu now is, somewhat unsurprisingly given that self identification, based around a variety of street food. Rather than choosing to specialise in one particular dish, the menu takes a tour of various global dishes such as tacos, po’boy and fattoush along with toasties and burgers.

We kicked things off with a Cambodian beef Lok Lak and a French steak baguette. While I’m a little unconvinced that the residents of Paris stroll around munching on steak sandwiches, the French themed elements worked well here with baguette, red wine-cooked beef and Roquefort as compelling a combination as that sounds. Lok Lak was a new one to me; a Cambodian dish that places marinated beef strips on a bed of lettuce, cucumber and red onion then wears a fried egg for good measure. The beef was tender and the marinade well judged while the fried egg improved things, as a fried egg tends to do! It’s worth noting that all these dishes are priced the same, at eight pounds. That’s a fair amount but bear in mind that some are more filling than others, the baguette being a much weightier meal than the Lok Lak.

Our appetites could stretch to one more dish so we grabbed a “True American” burger before we left. With its assigned role being to represent America, the bun was predictably packed with salad and cheese along with the beef patty. The bun had been shown the griddle too and the whole affair was appropriately messy to work through.

I thoroughly enjoyed sampling these dishes at The Nook in York. There’s a bit of variance in terms of the number of calories per dish so make sure you order with that in mind if you’re hungry. All of the dishes we tried did themselves justice and I’m keen to pop back to try out some more of the menu. Castlegate is another of York’s hidden gems, discreetly tucked between Castle car park and Coppergate. The Nook is a real asset to the street and another reason why it’s unlikely to remain hidden for too much longer.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for the food featured here. Opinions are as impartial as always.

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I was attending by myself, so was very glad to be made welcome by two friendly couples on the communal table with whom I checked over the menu and wine selection, kicking off with a San Marzano Verdeca and some salmon canapés. The Verdeca was unfamiliar to most of us around the table and, thanks to a generous serving policy, remained a favourite when paired with all the courses.

The Melton’s at York Food Festival evening was introduced by Lucy Hjort from Melton’s who presented the next of her wine pairings as a Labguedoc Viognier to go along with a dish of blowtorched mackerel presented with beetroot and horseradish. Fresh mackerel is always a joy and paired nicely with chunks of beetroot, beetroot jelly and well judged horseradish. The Viognier did a superb job of softening the strong mackerel flavours.

After our main was introduced by one of the chefs from Meltons, Lucy set her merry band of helpers to pouring out a Turkish Kayra Blanc de Noir” rosé to go with a bouillabaisse featuring red mullet, salmon, coley and mussels. The dish was served with a ‘rouille’ (a saffron, pepper, garlic and olive oil dressing) to pair with some charred bread. The table felt that rosé perhaps wasn’t strong enough to fight through the rich bisque, but it’s possible we were guilty of polishing off the samples before giving it a chance with each individual element.

The final pairing of the evening was a dessert of pear and tonka bean baked cheesecake with an Australian Berton Reserve Botrytis Semillon Riverina 2015. This was the highlight of the evening for me despite my general tendency toward savoury courses. The subtle tonka beans weren’t overwhelmed by the sweet wine and the pear element was well judged. I’d have happily eaten twice as much.

The evening pop ups in the demo tent were a great asset to this year’s Festival and well received by those that I spoke to. As with the Festival in general, it could have done with better toilet facilities, but working in a temporary venue had no obvious impact on the standard of the food and there’s no faulting the suitability of the wine pairing. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the schedule next year and hoping for more of the same.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for my attendance, opinions are as impartial as ever.

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Tucked away on Walmgate is a York success story that deserves the many plaudits it’s earned since opening less than two years ago. After being caught up in the buffeting York received during the Christmas 2015 flood, Brew York made sure they didn’t succumb to the sort of setback that could have finished a less well planned business. They regrouped and made sure the quality of their beer would stand the business in good stead in the longer term. Since its opening, the tap room in Brew York has established itself as one of the best places to enjoy great beer in the centre of York, notably being somewhere that buzzes on a Friday and Saturday while not attracting the races and stag do crowd. With that hyper-local market locked in, a part of the focus has shifted to spreading the word wider, which has led to their beers being stocked by Tesco in 49 of their Yorkshire stores. The headliners in those shops are ‘Big Eagle IPA’, ‘Brew York, Brew York’ and ‘Little Eagle’, all of which are absolutely packed with flavour. Having had first hand experience of their beers already, I was happy to accept an invitation from Tesco to pop down and join a Brew York brewery tour.

I joined the Brew York brewery tour on a busy Saturday hosted by co-founder Lee Grabham, who spent an hour of his time walking through the brewing process for us in a refreshingly unvarnished manner. I’ve attended plenty of brewery tours that have involved lots of talk about how hard it is to brew great beer but little detail; Lee’s enthusiasm for the discussion of the chemistry in the process was a welcome change. We tried a variety of the beers on offer that undoubtedly were crowned by the award-winning Tonkoko milk stout. The challenges around brewing this one in volume make it sound like a tough ask to get into a retailer such as Tesco, but fingers crossed it will happen as this is a drink that deserves the widest possible audience.

Coincidentally, next weekend is the Brew York Summer Bash. What better excuse could there be to pop along and celebrate the success of a real asset to York?

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