David Chang’s joints are the hippest in New York – but why has he now declared a pointless war on desserts?

Má Pêche, 15 West 56th Street, New York (00 1 212 757 5878). Meal for two, including wine and service £140

New Yorkers like to think their restaurants are better than those in London. Actually they like to think everything in New York is better than in London. Except for the taxis. They might just give us those. But in the matter of dinner they are certain: they have more and better of everything. This is profoundly irritating, not least because it just might be true. What’s more, millions of us flock there every year to find out. More of you are likely to make a special trip to Manhattan to eat than you are to, say, Birmingham where I was reviewing last week.

One of the chefs whose food you might want to try is David Chang, a Korean-American, who is hot in a very New York, Ow!-My-fingers-are-burning, sort of way. Chang made his name on the back of soft buns filled with roast pork belly. My kind of guy. His informal Asiatic restaurants – Momofuku, and its siblings the Ssäm Bar and Ko – are held up as a very particular kind of hip. There are lots of communal tables and counter-eating opportunities; steamy bowls of ramen full of big deep stocks and great bits of seafood. I have eaten his food and it’s great. Whether it really does declare war on thick-linened, high-end dining, as some have claimed, is a moot point. Last year one of his establishments popped up in the world’s 50 best restaurants. I’ve no idea what it was doing there.

Now he has a place in Midtown Manhattan called Má Pêche, and it represents all the vices and virtues of New York Dining. There is no doubt that, were this in London, at this price point, the whole experience would be ramrod stiff and formal. The design of the room is spectacular in an understated way that we don’t do well. On the upper floor is a bar. The back of this area is a big curve, a kind of lip jutting out over a vault at the bottom of which is the restaurant. The walls look like a stage set hung with huge flat golden drapes. It’s dramatic without being contrived.

And so to the vices, which become obvious once you get below. It is horribly self-aware of its coolness. The waiters do the tiresomely chummy “and may I introduce to you the specials” thing. Where it sticks to the Asian agenda the food can be great, as in a salad of king crab with apple and puffed rice, or better still another of baby squid, splashed with fish sauce and peanuts and lots of green herbs, Vietnamese style. A side dish of crunchy, shredded Brussels sprouts with spring onions and chilli vinaigrette is a revelation. I now really like Brussels sprouts. We also enjoyed a tranche of cod with leeks and coconut in a shellfish ginger broth. There is a bottle of terrific chilli sauce on every table which gave everything a nudge, including me.

But there are also European dishes on this menu and they are duds. A plate of snails meant to be taking its cue from Burgundy, turns up with a length of pork sausage that’s a waste of dead pig. There’s a sticky jus which would be better used to varnish tables and a tarragon mustard with no power or kick. Worse still is their steak frites – every New York menu has to have one – flabby beef with chunky, squared-off lifeless chips.

And then to dessert. Oh hang on. They don’t do dessert. As their waiter says “we prefer to spotlight artisan cheeses”. Really? Do you? Why? Courtesy of a rule banning all unpasteurised cheeses unless over 90 days old, America is where cheese goes to die. What’s weirder is that, as you enter Má Pêche, there is a huge dessert bar, bulging with cakes and cookies. But it’s only for take away. You’re not allowed to order from it in the restaurant. I have to beg our waitress to slip us some cookies and she agrees, though with little enthusiasm. This is very silly. It’s very irritating. And utterly New York.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

Three unusal wines to suit three different budgets

Luis Pato Maria Gomes, Bairrada, Portugal 2010 (£8.99, highburyvintners.co.uk; corksof.com)

Luis Pato has for some time been one of Portugal’s best winemakers, a moustachioed maestro who has helped transform the reputation of the sleepy Bairrada region to the north of Coimbra. He specialises in indigenous Portuguese grape varieties such as the wonderfully named Maria Gomes, which here makes for a mellow but fresh white, which is full of apricots and orchard fruit.

Bellingham The Bernard Series Roussanne, Paarl, South Africa 2010 (£9.99, Sainsbury’s)

Here’s a wine that provides yet more proof that the grape varieties of the Rhône are well-suited to some of South Africa’s warmer regions. In this example it’s roussanne, most commonly encountered in white Rhône blends, that has had a successful relocation to the Cape, in a full-throated, powerful but beguilingly exotic white, with notes of fresh tropical fruit salad.

Pinot Noir Edoardo Miroglio, Thracian Valley, Bulgaria (£12.50, swig.co.uk)

In their 1980s heyday, Bulgarian wines, especially cabernet sauvignon, were a cheap supermarket staple, the kind of thing people served at dinner parties to undermine wine snobs’ commitment to all things French and expensive. The arrival of first Australian then Chilean wines rather stole the Bulgarians’ thunder, but this exceptional pinot noir – bright, earthy, complex, satin-textured and, yes, great value – points to a much brighter future for the country.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

The antidote to man-flu

As Victoria Moore puts it in How To Drink: “The vitamin C for health, the honey to soothe, the alcohol to numb.” This steamy mixture of whisky, cloves, cinnamon, lemon juice and honey is the perfect answer to man-flu or the end-of-winter cold – and is far more palatable than those bitter over-the-counter potions.

THE RECIPE

Put 1tsp of honey and a measure of whisky in a mug or heatproof glass. Add two cloves and half a cinnamon stick then top up with just-off-the-boil water. Stir in a slice of lemon and just enough lemon juice to balance the sweetness of the honey. Drink as soon as it doesn’t burn your lips.

THE TRICK

Go easy on the cloves. Use water that is just off the boil. Putting a spoon in the glass will prevent it cracking as you pour the water in. Use a lightly flavoured honey so it doesn’t make your toddy taste like cough mixture. Drink while it is still quite hot – it will be more soothing that way. Do not take at the same time as any other medicine.

THE TWIST

Some people suggest rum as an alternative. A couple of crushed juniper berries will add an aromatic citrus hit. Try a slice of apple in the drink. It will soak up the flavours, soften in the heat, and can be eaten when you get to the end – a bit like mulled cider. Allspice berries can be included with the cloves. Brown sugar is the answer for those who don’t like honey. I have heard of some who add a slice of butter to their toddy. Not sure I could swallow that, but friends swear by it to calm a sore throat.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

Plump, unwaxed and adorned with a leaf or two, lemons add a zesty hit to a spring soup and a punchy pudding

I used to think a lemon was just a sour yellow fruit to add a touch of acidity to cooking. But there is more to it than that. There are cheap and useful everyday lemons, unwaxed lemons, organic lemons, Amalfi lemons and the charming Bergamot, which look like small, dumpy clementines.

The difference, and whether it is worth the extra expense and effort, depends on your recipe. Any involving grated lemon zest, the fine outer skin of the fruit where all the essential oils are stored, is more wisely made with a lemon that has seen no pesticides and waxes, be it a sorbet, old-fashioned mousse or vibrant sauce for pasta.

Most everyday lemons are coated with an edible wax to keep them longer and to make them shine on the supermarket shelf. No matter how safe the wax may be – and I am sure it is – I really don’t want it in my posset or forming a scum on my G&T. I have read suggestions to scrub the fruit with soap and water before using. I’m not sure which is worse: a mouthful of bitter wax or the faint whiff of Ecover.

Unwaxed and organic lemons have a softness of colour that makes them look more like the fruit you see growing on the tree. They are twice the price, which means a considerable difference if you are using four in a lemon cake.

The beautiful Amalfi lemons, plump, leaf adorned and heady, are here, and will remain at their best until July. Expensive, fragrant and heavy in the hand, they are sweeter, brighter and more refined than the economy fruit. It is their fragrance that hooks me. I feel a temptation to pierce their skin with my thumbnail and inhale every time I walk past them in the kitchen. They smell more of their blossom than any of the fruit we know so well. Anyone who has seen the trees in bloom (buds, flowers and fruit all appear at the same time) lining the route along the Amalfi coast will know that smell and its spirited freshness. I like the subtle sourness they bring to my cooking – I often just squeeze them over spring greens or purple sprouting.

Yet even these babies are not my absolute favourite. It has been a treat this winter to get hold of the tiny, rare Bergamot lemon, with its dry, spicy notes. The fruits have a dry, sweet muskiness and darken to a glowing egg yolk yellow as they age. Infuriatingly difficult to get hold of, these are the lemons you need for making the Moroccan preserved lemons that perk up dark and mysterious tagines.

This week, I made a glorious lemon tart, softening the sourness with the zest and juice of a blood orange. And a big pan of soup, too, its depth flecked with shredded green and lemon zest, a taste of the season that will be upon us any day now.

SPRING GREENS AND LEMON SOUP

A lovely, fresh-tasting soup for a winter-spring day.

Serves 4
Leeks 3, medium
butter 30g
carrot 1, medium sized
celery 1 stick
vegetable stock 1 litre
bay leaves 2
spring greens 4 handfuls
lemon 1, small

DIRECTIONS

Trim and wash the leeks, and slice them into thin rings. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the leeks, leaving them covered, to soften over a low heat. They should not colour.

Finely chop the carrot and celery and add to the pan. Pour in the vegetable stock, add the bay leaves, salt and pepper and leave to simmer for 20 minutes until the vegetables are soft but the colour is still bright.

Rinse the greens, place the leaves on top of one another and shred into thin ribbons.

Finely grate the lemon zest and add to the soup with the greens. Taste as you add, stopping when you feel it is sour enough. Simmer for 2 or 3 minutes until the greens are just tender. Check the seasoning, squeeze over the lemon juice and serve.

LEMON TART

The tart case needs to be made with care, so the edges don’t shrink as they cook, otherwise it will leak once the filling goes in. I keep a little bit of pastry aside for patching, so that if any cracks or gaps appear I can patch them before I add the lemon custard mix.

Serves 8
For the pastry:
plain flour 180g
butter 90g
caster sugar 1 tbsp
egg yolk 1, large
water a little

For the filling:
eggs 4. plus 1 extra egg yolk
caster sugar 250g
finely grated zest 2 unwaxed lemons
finely grated zest and juice 1 small blood orange
lemon juice 160ml
double cream 180ml
You also need a round 24cm tart case with a removal base and beans for baking blind.

DIRECTIONS

Make the pastry by putting the flour into a food processor, adding the butter, cut into pieces, and blitzing to fine breadcrumbs. Or, rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips. Add the sugar and egg yolk and just enough water to bring to a firm dough. The less water the better – too much will cause your case to shrink as it bakes.

Tip the dough on to a floured board then roll to a little larger than your tart tin. Lift the pastry carefully into the tin, pushing into the corners, making certain there are no tears. Trim away any overhanging pastry, then put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Put a baking sheet in the oven to warm. Line the pastry case with kitchen foil and baking beans and slide on to the baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove and carefully lift out the beans and foil. Return the pastry case to the oven for five minutes until the surface is dry to the touch. Remove from the oven and set aside. Turn the oven down to 160C/gas mark 3.

Make the filling by breaking the eggs into a bowl then adding the egg yolk and caster sugar. Grate the lemon and orange zest into the eggs. Pour in the lemon juice. Whisk until thoroughly mixed then stir in the cream. Pour the mixture into the baked tart shell and slide carefully into the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the filling is lightly set. Ideally, the centre will still quiver when the tray is shaken gently.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

The ‘nose to tail’ chef is ready to open the St John hotel, an ‘oasis of calm’ with 2am dining and Toblerone in the minibar

Try Fergus Henderson’s recipes from the St John Hotel menu

When is a hotel not a hotel? When it’s built by a pair of restaurateurs who have made their name preaching the joys of offal, the glory of chitterlings, the meaty delights of pig cheeks and lambs’ brains. Possibly. When the dining room stays open until 2am. When the bar never shuts. When there’s Fernet-Branca and Poire William in the minibar, and when the bedrooms come with green rubber floors “because it’ll be like sleeping in a pond – very calming”. Oh yes, there’s not much that’s hotel-like about Fergus Henderson’s and Trevor Gulliver’s new venture. Apart from the fact that it is actually a hotel where you can actually stay, although with just 15 rooms, above what promises to be a world-class restaurant, just one step away from Leicester Square, with the £5.5m cost funded by investors that include art world luminaries such as Tracey Emin, Sadie Cole, Sarah Lucas and Peter Doig, you may have to form an orderly queue.

What marks out the St John Hotel is that it’s not saddled with the usual hotel logic. Gulliver calls it a “hostelry” and Henderson says that “the spirit of the place is ‘yes’.” And it’s already a part of London history, housed in Manzi’s, the fish restaurant on the fringes of Chinatown that had been there forever, until suddenly it wasn’t. Begun in 2007, and arriving a respectable six months behind schedule, it’s the latest adventure for the pair, who nearly two decades ago opened St John, the bare bones restaurant next to London’s Smithfield meat market, founded on the concept of “nose-to-tail” eating. If you’re going to eat meat, Fergus Henderson has always said, it’s only polite to eat the whole animal. The new concept is table-to-bed. “Like Isambard Kingdom Brunel,” he says. “He built the Great Western Railway then arrived in Bristol and saw the Atlantic and thought ‘A ha! I’ll cross that next’ and built the SS Great Britain.” Here, Henderson explains how it happened:

Fergus Henderson: “It all started in Beirut. I went to the wedding of a friend there, and he said, come and do something here in Beirut. It was based in a palace which had been a hotel and I rather saw myself in a white dinner jacket like Humphrey Bogart in Rick’s Cafe: just smoking and watching the scene. That fell through but the seed had been sown and then Trevor spotted that Manzi’s was empty. Now Manzi’s has been a feature in my life since the word go, almost. I remember going there the night I had my wisdom teeth out: I had oysters and lobster soup because I couldn’t chew anything.

“It was a real institution, and it always had a little hotel above. In the 80s if you worked in advertising and the boss asked you to Manzi’s for lunch, you sort of knew that your afternoon was destined to end upstairs. It needed a new start so we gutted the whole building, there were just two walls left, and it’s been fun watching it take shape. It’s looking really cheeky. We’ve got some colour, which is an adventure for me, but I have to say I think it’s worked very well.

“It will be cheeky in a nice way. Cheeky could be saucy, which a hotel should be, but not too saucy, because if you’re alone it could be rather sad. There’s no art on the wall and there are no wooden ducks. Because you’re only there for a few days, why would you need a wooden duck? Or a bedspread where you wonder how many people have put their naked bottoms on it. Our idea which we’ve followed quite closely is Miniature Grand Urban Hut. Because if you go to a grand hotel and you get into any kind of trouble, you know they’ll sort it out and it’ll be OK. And a hut because in the mountains you go into this marvellous space and it saves you from the elements.

“The bathrooms are in the rooms because otherwise, in small hotels, you have those weird cubicles which cut into the room. And also you can’t watch the telly in the bath. There’s a separate room for the toilet, though.

“There aren’t going to be pig trotters in the minibar, no, no, no. But there will be carefully selected spirits with nips to cheer you up like Poire William and Fernet-Branca. And Toblerone. Of course. It hurts your mouth as you bite in, and reminds you that everything’s not perfect. Which is good because sometimes you can feel a bit too smug in a hotel.

“The restaurant will be open till two in the morning. No one else is, which is a good thing. There could be a reason, of course, why restaurants aren’t open till two. Oh well. We may have to work that one out. And the residents’ bar, well, there’s no reason it should ever shut. It is the hotel of my dreams, basically. There’s no point in doing it otherwise.

“We’re hoping the clientele will include chefs after work, and the drummer from some orchestra or other. The place has a foodie vibration so hopefully that will put off the people looking for a fast food burger. But then again, everyone’s welcome. I started off working in dodgy members clubs. And I hated that. People not being allowed in. What we do is open our doors and see who comes in.

“The menu is going to be like the hotel, a little oasis of calm, a brow-stroke, you know: good food, good wine, all is well. There’s a GK Chesterton book where a character goes, “Landlord! Some beans and bacon and a bottle of your finest Burgundy!” I like that idea, that you could walk in and say that. And there’ll be lots of buns, of course, perfect for dunking in coffee.

“A kitchen is very like an 18th-century man o’ war, I think. It’s like Master and Commander. I’m not sure what book expresses the hotel, although I do like Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans. He tells the story of a wedding in the main ballroom where these dwarves come out of the cake and then row it across a lake. Which is a million miles from anything we could achieve, but I quite like his ambition. Gosh, yes.” OFM

St John Hotel, 1 Leicester St, London WC2H 7BL, opens on 31 March; rooms from £200 pn; 020 3301 8069; stjohnhotellondon.com

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

Meet April Bloomfield, the girl from the Midlands who’s head chef in New York’s hottest restaurants and counts Jay-Z and Bono among her best customers

Try April Bloomfield’s oyster pan roast and other recipes

Is it possible to know you adore someone before you even meet them? I think not, generally. If a girlfriend told me she had the hots for a man on whose face she had never clapped her eyes, let alone planted her lips, I would say: keep calm, dear, and step away from the pinot gris. On the other hand, it occurs to me, this freezing cold morning in New York, that I’m rapidly developing a powerful crush on a young chef called April Bloomfield. This woman is, I am increasingly certain, my idea of heaven. How do I know? It’s her cooking. Believe me when I tell you that her food is extraordinary. I don’t mean extraordinary in a Michelin-starred look-at-these-truffled-potatoes kind of way (though she has two Michelin stars: one for the Spotted Pig in Greenwich, the other for the Breslin, in the Ace Hotel in Midtown). Nor do I mean extraordinary in a Heston Blumenthal this-mackerel-pops-like-Space-Dust kind of way. I mean only that it is extraordinarily delicious. You eat her burgers and her scotch eggs, her sweetbreads and her chowders, and all you can think is that you will never taste their like again anywhere else. It’s a thought that is distinctly misery-inducing, given that I live in London, and she works here, in Manhattan.

I am going to meet Bloomfield tomorrow. Today, I am in the John Dory Oyster Bar, the newest of her three Manhattan restaurants (it, too, is in the Ace Hotel), where I am eating lunch with her business partner, Ken Friedman, a tall, rather haphazard man who used to manage bands including the Smiths and UB40. Friedman has a somewhat wobbly attention span. Last night, for instance, when I was eating my supper in the Breslin, alone, he sought me out, ordered a glass of wine, and told me that he would keep me company (when he arrived I was in the middle of my starter, a superlative salad of pears and candied walnuts). Five minutes later, though, he excused himself – “I just need to talk to someone for one moment” – and never returned. But on one subject his focus is never less than laser beam sharp. Friedman thinks that April Bloomfield is a genius, and he would like the whole world to know it. Which is why he is insisting that I try the entire menu.

And what a menu it is. Sam Sifton, the picky restaurant critic of the New York Times, has said that Bloomfield’s chorizo-stuffed squid is among the best things you can eat in the city and, having tasted it, I cannot think that he could possibly be wrong. Bloomfield stuffs her squid with paella rice which she has first cooked with chorizo, red pepper, onion and saffron. The squid is then seared to give it a crust, and placed on a soft bed of white beans – Bloomfield is “obsessed” with beans – dressed in creme fraiche, and topped with coriander and smoked tomatoes tossed in sherry vinegar, olive oil and palm sugar. It’s incredible – though not, perhaps, quite so punchy and addictive as her toast piled with anchovy paste, or her escarole salad, made of raw hearts and pickled outer leaves, both of which bedazzle with top notes of lemon, anchovy and parmesan. I could go on and on like this. The oysters. The razor clam ceviche. The Nantucket Bay scallops. And its crowning glory? That would have to be her oyster pan roast, a homage to the famous dish served at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station. A pan roast is a soup, cooked in an old-fashioned metal contraption; Bloomfield’s version turns oysters, their liquor, cream and tarragon into a nectar so heavenly, you sip it and expect to hear harps, and comes with a thin, crisp slice of toast over which is spread unctuous but golden sea urchin butter in rolling waves (“the sea urchin roe butter is to make the dish more oceanic,” its creator will tell me later, “because cooked oysters don’t really keep that cucumber-y taste”).

The story of the odd couple, Ken and April, and how they rose to the very top of New York’s dog-eat-dog restaurant scene is the stuff of legend by now (or if not legend, then at least of long profiles in the New Yorker). Friedman is 52, and grew up in California, where he attended Berkeley until he dropped out to become first a concert promoter, then a manager, and finally a talent scout for Arista. It was during his years in the music business, entertaining his artists at New York’s best restaurants, that he grew passionate about food. Sometimes, observing this passion, his friends would suggest that he open a place of his own. A few of them – Michael Stipe of REM was one – even said they would invest. One day, he finally took them at their word. He had turned 40; he no longer got off on music the way he used to; hell, he had nothing to lose.

In 2003, then, Friedman began his new career. Another of his investors was Mario Batali, chef patron of Babbo and other celebrated joints, and good friend of Gwyneth Paltrow and other foodie stars. It was Batali who spotted Bloomfield’s talent. Well, sort of. It happened like this. One day, Jamie Oliver flew in. Batali, a pal of his, and Friedman, a keen anglophile, took him out for the evening. According to Batali, Oliver was their man. The plan was to put the alcoholic thumb screws on him. Alas, even after a few drinks, Oliver could not be persuaded. He did, though, suggest that they meet a young British sous chef at his old employer, the River Cafe. Her name was April Bloomfield.

Bloomfield flew out to New York, which she had never visited before, for an interview. A little to her surprise, this consisted of a 10-hour marathon during which she and Batali and Friedman ate at some of the city’s best known restaurants, among them the Union Square Cafe, the Carnegie Deli, and Batali’s own Babbo. No doubt Batali was impressed by Bloomfield’s appetite. Mostly, though, it was her war wounds that pleased him: a missing fingernail, scars on her arms. “It means she’ll sacrifice her body,” Batali is supposed to have said. “She’s a star. I can tell.” They offered her the job.

Bloomfield handed in her notice, and moved to the US, where she spent the summer working at Alice Waters’s restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, to familiarise herself with American ingredients. Then she headed to New York where, in the fullness of time, she and Friedman opened their gastropub, the Spotted Pig. The menu was meaty, and rather British. But the house speciality – cheeky, this – was a burger served one way: rare, on a brioche bun, with roquefort. Did the punters love it? Yes, they did. Pretty soon, the Spotted Pig was rammed: a favoured hang-out of hipsters and celebrities alike. To this day, bagging a table requires the patience of Job. April Bloomfield, a quiet, unassuming girl from Birmingham, had succeeded where the likes of Gordon Ramsay and countless other shouty, macho British chefs had always failed: she had taken Manhattan by storm.

April Bloomfield is small, preternaturally cheerful, and extremely single-minded. This is not to say, however, that she was determined to be a chef right from the start. She was born in Birmingham, in 1974. Her stepfather was an engineer, and her mother, who worked at home, painted china bonbonnieres for the West Midlands enamel firm Halcyon Days. Safe to say that it was not a foodie household. “I grew up with cheese sandwiches,” she says. “And my mum’s steak, which she would fry without any salt; it always came out grey. My nan’s cooking was my favourite: loin of pork with crackling and stuffing. We would eat the leftovers, the pork cold, the stuffing hot. Even today, I love that contrast between hot and cold.”

At 16, April decided to join the police force, a decision based mostly on her love of Cagney & Lacey. It was only when she realised she’d left it too late to apply to the cadet scheme that she changed her plan. Just as her mother was asking her what she planned to do with her life, in walked April’s sister, who was at catering college, in her chef’s whites. Maybe I could give cooking a go, she thought. “But when I walked into college, and saw the kitchens and smelt the spices, I knew I would give it 110%. I was just blown away.”

Her first job was at a Holiday Inn in Birmingham. By this time, her sister was working at Launceston Place in London. “I knew I didn’t want to stay in Birmingham,” April says. “I wanted something more. I asked my chef: ‘Could you give me a few double shifts? I want to know what it’s like to work really hard.’” Apparently, it was rather enjoyable, and six months later, she left, having landed a job at Kensington Place, whose kitchen was then in the hands of Rowley Leigh. She followed that with a job at Bibendum – she still talks of Simon Hopkinson, “such an elegant cook, so particular and clean and efficient”, with deep reverence – and another at Roscoff in Northern Ireland. By the time she returned to London. for another stint at KP, and then a job at the Brackenbury, she knew both that she had progressed amazingly, but also that she still had a lot to learn. Where next? “I used to lie in bed thinking about the River Cafe, because I’d watched their TV programme. I remember watching Rose [Gray, the restaurant's co-founder] cooking cavolo nero. She pureed it with the best olive oil and cheese. I went to work the next day and immediately made it.”

A friend worked at the River Cafe, so Bloomfield called her, and said she wanted to move. “They told me to come in, and I loved it from the moment I tasted the food. It was this pasta… I had to peel these walnuts. I’d never seen a wet walnut. My fingers were burning, but I was so happy. We made a sauce from the walnuts, some bread, the water I’d blanched them in, some pesto and some spicy oil. Tossed it into some tagliatelle. When I tasted it, my palate moved to a higher consciousness. I actually thought: what have I been doing for the last 10 years? I was so worried I wasn’t good enough to get a job there.”

We are talking in the back of a car, on our way back from visiting a farm in the Catskills. One of the legacies of her time at the River Cafe is a reverence for ingredients, and April is convinced that, in the long term, the only way she can get her hands on the very best produce is to grow it herself (New York’s top chefs fight ruthlessly for veg at the Green Market in Union Square). So, she is looking to buy a farm: “It’s important for my soul, and for my passion.” Driving the car is Scott Boggins, who was the “culinary farmer” at the French Laundry in California, and now works for April full-time (he will manage the farm once they find the right place). Also, Ken, who is staring hard at his Blackberry (a couple of movie stars are having a party at the Spotted Pig tonight, but they have demanded that staff sign a non-disclosure agreement, and Ken is furious).

Did she and Ken agree right from the start on what kind of food they would serve at the Pig? “Not really. He wanted to do tofu hot dogs. I was very concerned. I sent him an email telling him what I was most passionate about, and I ended it by saying: look, I might not be the right chef for you.” Ken promptly backed off, and has left her alone ever since. He deals only with front of house, leaving April, who is emphatically not a schmoozer, to get on with her work. This suits them both.

Is she as severe as people say? The mythology is that Ken has a secret store of mayonnaise, which he dispenses surreptitiously to customers who want it on their burgers. She laughs. “I did once tell a customer that they couldn’t have a burger without cheese. I’m not severe. I’m just firm. I’ve learned to be OK about it if they want their dressing on the side. But I won’t substitute or add anything; I don’t mix and match. It slows down the kitchen, and it’s not how I want to work.” From the front of the car, comes Ken’s voice. “I know now that mayo on a burger is naff, unless you’re from Montreal or Belgium,” he shouts. Then he goes back to stabbing at his Blackberry.

Last night, I spent the evening in the kitchen at the John Dory watching April during service. She made for an amazing sight: quiet and smiling, but also about as finickety as it is possible for a chef to be. I could watch her clean whelks all day. At one point, dissatisfied with their taste – she is an enthusiastic rather than a merely dutiful taster – she tipped seven plated servings of scallops back in a basin and began seasoning them all over again. Most impressive of all, though, was her relationship with her young, hipster staff. Bloomfield doesn’t bark orders; she makes suggestions. Is her relationship with her chefs as good as it seems? “I think I’m probably a control freak, but if I trust them, it’s collaborative. They’re all hugely talented. I can’t be everywhere, but I’m always in one of my kitchens, and hopefully I’m motivating and inspiring. We want to grow with our chefs. If one of them has an idea, and we can help them, well, I think that would be good.” She is an American citizen now, but she longs to do a restaurant in London; certainly, there will be more restaurants, and thus more openings for her staff, in the future.

Naturally, I put her calm, kindly manner at the pass down to her gender. But she isn’t so sure. Nor does she have a view on whether it is more difficult for women to succeed as chefs. “You just have to work hard; it doesn’t matter whether you are a man or a woman. I didn’t come in to this thinking I was a woman in a man’s world, and if I was ever on the receiving end of anything [sexist], I probably just pushed it to the back of my mind and got on with it. The only thing I would say is that when I was offered [a stint on] pastry, I said no. I didn’t want to be stereotyped.”

Our conversation begins to tail off: the gloaming and the sense of anti-climax in the car are doing their work (the farm, all clapboard and rickety outbuildings, wasn’t right for April and Ken; they want a beautiful place, so people can stay and attend cookery classes). But then April perks up. “Why don’t we go to Blue Hill Stone Barns for dinner?” she says. This is an exquisitely swanky restaurant and farm on an old Rockefeller estate just outside New York; its chef Dan Barber is a pioneer of the farm-to-table movement.

So, this is what we do. When we pitch up, it is 5.20pm. The restaurant opens at 5.30pm. We wander in. None of us is dressed for fine dining. April is in a parka, jeans and her beloved Birkenstock clogs, Scott is in his lumberjack gear, Ken is in sneakers as per usual. But April has decided: we are going to have a great treat. While we wait, we sit in the bar and drink cocktails. In her deep leather armchair she says: “I’m so happy.”

We go to our table. By now, April has been recognised; several staff tell her how happy they are to see her. Obviously, we will be having the tasting menu, and no arguments. Dan Barber appears, and shakes her hand ecstatically. It’s as if the pope is visiting the archbishop of Canterbury, or something. Then the food starts arriving: innovative and ravishing. But I can’t take my eyes off April. I’ve always found it peculiar how few chefs seem truly to like eating. April, though, treats every dish with the relish of a child opening an Easter egg. First, she examines it, pondering what tricks are involved in its composition. Then, she tastes it, very carefully. Finally, once she has its measure, she scoffs whatever is left. I wish I had a camera so I could photograph her delicately picking the cheeks from a cod’s head. “Isn’t this beautiful?” she says, over and over. After our feast, we walk to the car, ice crackling, smiling and replete. What did you think? I ask. “Amazing,” she says. I am struck by her Brummie accent. It has emerged at last, released by a good dinner, like a genie from a lamp.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

It’s morally right to eat leftovers. But more to the point, it’s a great way to eat

In the silted depths of a recession it would be entirely possible to structure a sturdy argument, heavy with lexicographical sinew and bone, about the moral imperative to eat leftovers. We waste too much food in Britain. We need to reduce costs. Doing otherwise is an obscenity. And so on. All of that is true, in a water-is-wet, let’s-state-the-bloody-obvious sort of way. But underlying that is another far greater truth: you need to be proper greedy to do leftovers well.

For a start, leftovers don’t happen unless you know how to over-cater. Portion control may be a vital skill if you’re running a restaurant, but I’m not running a restaurant. I’m feeding people at home, and there, courtesy of something buried deep in the Jewish DNA, a nagging tension which insists that the Cossacks are probably coming tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then certainly the day after so you need to eat NOW. I live in fear of the phrase “just enough”. I regard just enough as nowhere near enough. Just enough means too little. It means one each. And only one each. That is plain wrong.

So you cook twice what you need, and are left at the end of proceedings staring at piles of food, not with self-disgust but with the anticipation at the prospect of good meals to come. For here is one of the great food rules: almost all dishes made from leftovers are far less virtuous than the dish which begat them. Sure, there are exceptions, the boiling up in stock and the blitzing of vegetables to make soup, the shredding of roast chicken for a salad. These are all the fallbacks of the hard-browed cook simply trying to make room in the fridge. They have their own virtues but they show a lack of imagination and appetite.

Almost all proper leftovers require a hot pan, and a knob of fizzing butter. Or a white sauce flavoured with hard cheese and Dijon mustard, and a glazed dome of puff pastry. Or a well-seasoned wok, thin egg noodles, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and the brisk slap of chilli. Think leftover potato and cabbage, crusting up nicely in a nimbus of frothy butter for bubble and squeak. Think a mushroom and ham pie, from what remains of your huge baked gammon, or a stir fry of indeterminate provenance, designed to use up fragments of last night’s bird, flavoured with the contents of almost every bottle in the cupboard.

My love of leftovers has reached such a point that regularly I miss out the original dish stage and go straight to its leftover incarnation. Once, having made a linguine with mussels, the seafood opened in a generous glug of wine, I found at the bottom of the serving bowl a boisterously rich fishy, boozy liquor. I couldn’t throw that away. I added chicken stock, fresh ginger, sliced spring onions, lemon zest, noodles and handfuls of fresh coriander and realised I had invented an Asiatic soup dish of genius. I no longer make the pasta dish. I cut straight to the soup. Likewise, while I love long-braising ribs of beef in a sauce of red wine, chorizo and brown sugar, eating them after five hours in the oven now seems a waste. They need to go in the fridge overnight, like all great leftovers, only to be sliced up the next day and then grilled over fierce heat for a minute or two, ideally on a barbecue. My only problem: what to do with the leftovers. Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. All it takes is imagination. And a big, fat dollop of greed.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

John Briffa is mostly impressed by the novelist’s diet – although the tinned custard isn’t a winner…

Growing up during the war meant that our meals were dictated by food ration books and coupons – I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw an orange and a banana! My mother was a very good cook, though, so we always ate well – she’d do chicken, roasts and stews, and taught me how to make them all. Those are the kinds of foods I tend to make now. My husband always laughs at me when we talk about going out for dinner because I always suggest going to Le Caprice – he says, “That’s because you want to have fish and chips, Barbara,” and it’s true. You don’t lose the taste for staple foods like that.

In winter, I make lamb stew a lot. Liquidy, slow-cooked things are good for me because, if I’m in the middle of a book, I have a habit of burning pans – I’m always wandering back to my office. For the stew I’ll use shoulder and neck cuts from the butcher, and the secret is not to just throw the meat into the pot – I do it the way my mother taught me, which is to roll the meat in flour, then sauté it to seal in the flavour. I use a chicken broth – from the same butcher – with it, and add carrots, onion and a bouquet garni. Delicious.

Cooking is a very relaxing thing for me, especially if I’ve been writing all day. It makes me feel domesticated, and I forget the career woman side of me for a little while. Over 40 years of marriage I have had to cater to my husband’s tastes, too. He’s never been a big fish eater, but I’ve forced him. He’d much rather have meat. I do a lot of cod and Chilean sea bass – what he calls “soft fish”. I either bake or sauté it in a little butter – not too much, else it would defeat the purpose.

I am weight-conscious all the time, and try to keep it under control (the deep fat fryer I bought to make good chips a while back very rarely sees the light of day) because, while I’m not fat, I wouldn’t say I was thin, either. And I avoid salt altogether in cooking – I’ve never been a fan, and can always taste the difference when I eat out. Also, I rarely serve dessert because I prefer fresh fruits – blueberries, strawberries and cherries when they’re in season.

That said, I do sometimes, as a treat, buy a tin of creamy custard from the English food shop in New York. That, and some salad cream.

I think the way I eat keeps me very healthy, and I wouldn’t change it. I look pretty good. I may be in my 70s, but what’s a number? I feel 30 inside.

Dr John Briffa’s verdict

Fish & chips Fish gets my vote, but I’m less enthusiastic about the batter and chips. They are rich in carbohydrate and omega-6 oils, which we should avoid in excess. However, this dinnertime treat needs to be taken in the context of Barbara’s general diet, which overall is nutritionally balanced.

Lamb neck A good protein-rich “primal” food. Like butter, we’re often encouraged to be wary of lamb on account of its rich content of saturated fat. However, there really is no good evidence incriminating saturated fat from a health perspective, and besides, the predominant fat in lamb is actually monounsaturated. 

Chicken broth Broth or stock is generally a healthy brew, rich in a range of nutrients (including calcium and magnesium) as well as building blocks of cartilage and tendon that just might help keep Barbara’s joints in good nick. This golden liquid is a good hearty basis for a soup or stew.

Sea bass Fish is always generally going to rate highly from a nutritional perspective, being a natural, protein-rich food. Other forms of fish such as sardine, mackerel and salmon will offer more in the way of health-giving omega-3 fats. The problem is, such species tend to be very “fishy”, and are therefore likely to be a step too far for those like Barbara’s husband who are not naturally inclined to eat fish.

Fresh fruit Fruit is a generally nutritious food, but does comes with a lot of sugar which isn’t always a good thing. One of the good things about Barbara’s fruit choices is that they tend to be highly nutritious but relatively low in the sugar stakes. Nice choice.

Tinned custard This comfort food is too sugary to be healthy, but as with the fish and chips, as an occasional item it does not detract too much from Barbara’s generally healthy diet.

Butter Butter’s main constituent is saturated fat, which science has now exonerated regarding its purported role in heart disease. The rest of butter comes mainly in the form of monounsaturated fat which, if anything, has benefits for heart health. Bearing in mind these facts, it’s perhaps no surprise that studies do not link butter eating with enhanced risk of heart disease. Gets my vote.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

But who’s to say it would taste any better than one made in Devon or Dorset. Rachel Cooke on the pasty’s protected status

I keep thinking about Cornish pasties, which have just been given protected status by the European commission, and every time I do, I come over all Nigel Farage. I just don’t understand it. What’s the point of a system that gives a pasty cachet for being made in Cornwall rather than for the quality of its ingredients, or the skill with which it is made? Cornwall is replete with inferior factory-made pasties. Meanwhile, in Devon – and in Cumbria, Norfolk and Essex, too, for all I know – people are making perfectly delicious Cornish pasties which they are now forbidden to connect with the county where they were invented. As Nigel would say: “This is European bureaucracy gone mad!”

The EU Protected Food Names Scheme protects regional foods against imitation, and doles out, to those who meet the criteria, three different kinds of award: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO); Protected Geographical Indication (PGI); and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). It is the second of these that the Cornish pasty received. Of course, on paper, legally protecting regional foods is a fine idea; it’s another weapon in the battle against homogenisation. But of these three, only PDO protects foods whose characteristics are connected to the place in which they are produced (PDO is basically Euro-speak for terroir). The characteristics of Swaledale cheese, for instance, are dependent on local milk: in Swaledale, animals are pastured in herb-rich grassland, and this contributes to the fresh taste of the cheese. But PGI and TSG are pointless. I won’t bore you with the details – read the commission’s terms and conditions and lose the will to live – but, in essence, they’re merely a means of distinguishing one product from another. Terroir has nothing to do with it.

I think the term PDO should stay, and the other two should go. That way, the award-winning pasty makers of Devon and elsewhere could continue to sell their delicious Cornish pasties – and we could still protect our regional foods. The question is: which ones? You can see why the smokehouses of Arbroath wanted to protect the reputation of their salty fish; Arbroath smokies are so famously delicious, there is serious cash to be made in passing off fakes as the real thing. But are Dittisham plums (Devon) and Cotherstone cheese (Co Durham) truly famous enough to require protection?

Oh, well. There is fun, and a certain amount of madness, to be had in coming up with a list. If you’re strict about it, so very few things count. Take Yorkshire, county of my birth. Most of its greatest treats could be made anywhere: Yorkshire relish, curd tarts, parkin, Pontefract cakes, dandelion and burdock (the world’s best dandelion and burdock is made by Mr Fitzpatrick’s in Rawtenstall, Lancashire). Most of Yorkshire’s cheeses are already protected. Do Ribston Pippin apples count? I don’t know. Their history began in Ribston Hall, Knaresborough, 300 years ago, when Sir Henry Goodricke arrived from France with a pip, but now they are grown everywhere, and I have no idea whether a Ribston Pippin from Yorkshire tastes better than one from Surrey.

I became obsessed with my list but, even after hours of swotting, there were just two things on it: Evesham asparagus (increasingly rare, but still the best) and Morecambe Bay potted shrimps. In The Taste of Britain by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown (the best book about British regional food I know), I found a section on Orcadian razor clams, a delicacy known locally as “spoots”. But since I have never visited Orkney, let alone tasted spoots, I felt it was cheating to add them.

The only way I could think of increasing the list was to include dishes made from “secret” recipes, on the grounds that, while such formulae have little to do with terroir, their classified nature means they cannot be replicated precisely. If the commission was to start protecting ancient recipes, you could include various sausages, and all sorts of sweet things: I would choose the Whitby lemon buns you can buy at Botham’s of Whitby – though sadly it is already too late for the sweets I ate on holiday in Northumberland as a child. Cowe’s, maker of Berwick Cockles, a soft-ish striped mint, shut up shop last year after 200 years in business. As Nigel Farage would no doubt say: “Another great British business sold down the river!” Poor Nigel. He wants it both ways, and I’m embarrassed to admit I know exactly how he feels.

rachel.cooke@observer.co.uk

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink

Bacon and beans, pike and leek pie, grilled steak and chips, and chocolate ice cream recipes from the hotel menu

Lunch: Bacon and beans

SERVES 2

cooked cannellini beans 500g
onions 50g, minced
sage leaves 5, chopped
bay leaf 1
duck fat 1 jar
chopped peeled tomatoes 100g
black treacle 10g
Dijon mustard 15g
chicken stock 200ml
trotter gear (see below) 50g
pig’s cheek, buy it brined from your butcher 1

Trotter gear
pigs’ trotters (all hair removed) 6
onions 2, peeled
carrots 2, peeled
celery 2 sticks
leeks 2, split
garlic 1 head
thyme a bundle
peppercorns a handful
Sercial Madeira ½ bottle
chicken stock to cover the trotters

First make the trotter gear. Place the trotters in a large casserole. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes then drain. Now place the blanched trotters in the pot with the vegetables, thyme, peppercorns and Madeira and cover with the stock. Cook for at least 3 hours until the trotters are totally giving. At this point, strain the cooking liquid and keep. When the trotters are cool enough to handle, pick all the flesh, fat and skin off them tearing the skin to shreds. Add to the cooking liquid, seal in a jar and refrigerate. You now have trotter gear – giving, wobbly trotter captured in a splendid jelly.

To prepare the beans, sweat minced onions, sage and bay leaf in some duck fat until lightly caramelised and aromatic. Add tomatoes and simmer till soft and the fat has started to split. Add the cooked white beans and fold in the black treacle and Dijon mustard. Cover with chicken stock and trotter gear and simmer.

To prepare the brined pig’s cheek, poach the cheek in water till tender to the fork, about 1½ hours. Remove from its bath and press under a heavy weight. Trim edges and slice into thick rashers.

To finish, fry pig’s cheek rashers till golden. In an ovenproof pot, layer beans and bacon finishing with beans. Add extra stock if the beans are looking dry and bake until deeply browned and bubbling.

Pike and leek pie

A magnificent pie. The size of your pike might influence the size of your pie.

SERVES 4

small pike 1
white wine 50ml
white wine vinegar 10ml
carrots 100g
celery stalk 100g
onions 50g
bay leaf 1
parsley stalks a few

For the pie
butter 75g
leeks 300g, chopped
flour 50g
white wine 100ml
hot bouillon 700ml
puff pastry 1 block
beaten egg 1

Find a pan large enough to hold your pike and fill it with water. Add all the court-bouillon ingredients and bring to a simmer. Add the pike and poach gently until the flesh comes easily from the bones, about 20 minutes. Remove the pike from the court-bouillon, which is now a delicious fish stock. Once cool, remove all bones and skin, keeping the pike in fairly sizeable pieces.

To make the pie, sweat the chopped leeks in 25g butter until soft and fold into the pike. For the sauce, melt 50g butter and add the flour. Cook until it smells biscuity. Now add the white wine and then hot bouillon – a whisk is a good thing at this point. From there on, whisk until silky springs to mind. Check for seasoning and pour this sauce over the pike and leeks and leave to cool. Fill your pie dish. Roll your pastry and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Then cover your pie with the pastry and brush with beaten egg. Bake in a hot oven 180C/gas mark 4 for 30-40 minutes until well browned.

Late supper: Grilled skirt steak, chips and mustard

SERVES 2

skirt steak (trimmed of all the sinew) 2 x 250g

For the steak dressing
minced shallots 15g
minced capers 15g
minced parsley 5g
Dijon mustard 15g
olive oil 75ml
red wine vinegar 10ml

For the chips
maris piper potatoes 1kg
beef dripping 3kg (or enough to fill a small domestic fryer)

To make the dressing, mix all the ingredients together and season to taste.

To make the chips, peel potatoes and slice into chips (not fries). Rinse until water runs clear. Place in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a gentle simmer and leave till just soft. Remove from pot and drain. Spread out on a tray to dry. Melt beef dripping in a fryer and bring up to 140C. Fry the chips until lightly golden, drain and leave to cool. Now they can be put in the fridge (or freezer) until ready to use.

To finish, season the steaks and grill on a very hot grill to rare to medium. Rest in a bowl and spoon over 2 spoonfuls of dressing. While the steaks are resting, bring the fryer up to 180C and fry the chips until crispy and golden. Slice steaks against the grain, pile on plates and pour over resting juices and dressing. Serve with chips.

Chocolate ice cream

MAKES 1 LITRE

plain chocolate, with at least 70% cocoa solids (we use El Rey Venezuelan chocolate called Apamate) 200g
large egg yolks 6
caster sugar 115g
full-fat milk 500ml
double cream 50ml
cocoa powder 40g

For the caramel
caster sugar 70g
water 75ml

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Leave to melt.

Put the egg yolks and caster sugar in a separate bowl and whisk with an electric beater for about 5 minutes, until the mixture leaves a trail on the surface when the whisk is lifted.

Place the milk, cream and cocoa powder in a heavy-based pan and bring slowly to the boil, whisking occasionally to prevent the mixture sticking to the bottom of the pan. Pour it over the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly to prevent curdling. Return the mixture to the pan and add the melted chocolate. Cook over a low heat for around 8 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; set aside.

To make the caramel, place the sugar and water in a small, deep, heavy-based pan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Raise the heat and simmer, without stirring, until a very dark caramel is achieved. Remove from the heat and whisk the hot caramel into the ice-cream base a little at a time. Pour through a fine sieve into a plastic container and cool quickly in an ice bath. Leave in the fridge for two days before churning in an ice-cream machine. Once churned, leave for 3 to 4 days before eating – it will improve in flavour.

guardian.co.uk food-and-drink