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Nick on restaurants

Nick Lander (my saintly husband) writes regularly about food and restaurants for the Financial Times, where he is known as the restaurant insider because he is one of the few restaurant critics who have actually owned and run a successful one: L'Escargot in its glory days in the 1980s. Find out more at www.nicklander.com.

Soho by the Mediterranean

4 Feb 2012 by Nick Lander/FT

The restaurant business harbours very few secrets. Its sales prices are widely published via its menus and wine lists. The wholesale prices of any restaurant's main suppliers are invariably widely known to the competition, as are the general pay rates required to hire all the necessary. More...

The best and worst of Chinese service

28 Jan 2012 by Nick Lander/FT

At Pearl Liang , in the lower concourse of Paddington Central, west London, the Chinese waiter could not have been friendlier as he took our order for salt and pepper bean curd, Shanghai dumplings, soft shell crab and stewed pork belly, among other dishes, without pen and paper. He then repeated. More...

The splendours of Seasalter

21 Jan 2012 by Nick Lander/FT

After we had all devoured four very different appetisers - a plate of authentic pork scratchings; cubes of herring on soda bread wedged together by an apple jelly; and two local oysters dishes, one based on wild oysters - our heavily pregnant waitress approached our table with a smile and two more. More...

Troisgros style, cafe prices

7 Jan 2012 by Nick Lander/FT

No sooner had I walked through the door of Le Central, the café/épicerie operated by Michel and Marie-Pierre Troisgros in Roanne, south-east France, than I was relieved of my suitcase by their long-standing maître d', Patrice Laurent. We exchanged handshakes and pleasantries. More...

Laying a ghost in San Sebastian

31 Dec 2011 by Nick Lander/FT but this is longer

I accepted the invitation to speak at the recent Gastronomika in San Sebastian, an hour east of Bilbao, northern Spain, for several reasons. Firstly, the audience I was asked to address about the future of restaurant service was an array of young, passionate and enthusiastic chefs.. More...

Russians, restaurants and roubles

17 Dec 2011 by Nick Lander/FT

When my Russian grandfather finally arrived in the UK in 1910, at the impressionable age of 15, he did so with a very different view of his former countrymen than the one he had set out with. On the last stage of his journey, by boat from Hamburg to Hull, he had watched as his. More...

Food, wine and generosity

10 Dec 2011 by Nick Lander/FT

Three very closely related events have just taken, or are currently taking, place in the restaurant and wine worlds that reveal an aspect of both that is unique but rarely discussed. The first event was the 151st Hospices de Beaune wine auction organised in Burgundy in late November. More...

Look back in hunger

3 Dec 2011 by Nick Lander/FT

It has been a year of eating excitingly, of memorable introductions interspersed with the odd, sad, farewell. Over the course of a fortnight, I managed to experience my first meal at Noma , Copenhagen, to taste René Redzepi's extraordinary approach to nature's bounty as well as my. More...

New York's vital ingredient

26 Nov 2011 by Nick Lander/FT

Joe Bastianich, with whom chef Mario Batali has opened over 20 restaurants in New York, Las Vegas and Singapore – and they now have their sights set on opening in Hong Kong – was in typically feisty mood after lunch at Esca, their seafood restaurant on W 43rd Street. 'I still believe. More...

A Frenchman in Cambodia

19 Nov 2011 by Nick Lander/FT

I was introduced to the particular ingredients and cooking techniques of Cambodian cooking by two very different chefs in three very distinct locations. The first was the petite, charming and memorably named Vandy Van, who is in charge of the cookery school attached to the Amansara hotel at. More...

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