What to eat this Easter weekend

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1:40Spring has finally sprung and Easter is particularly early this year. so with a short week ahead now is the time to ask the perennial question what should we eat this weekend hi and welcome back to the standard podcast i'm tamara kormornyk for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk coming up what to eat this easter in london

2:16the long weekend ahead doesn't have to catch us off guard. Whether you're staying in the city or travelling in, a little forethought can be the difference between a relaxed meal and last-minute chaos. In today's episode, I speak to David Ellis, the standards going-out editor and food critic, for his tips on how to snag tables at great restaurants over the long weekend and recipes that you can prepare ahead of the dinner rush. Here's my chat with David.

2:48Hi David, it is great to have you back on the podcast, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me, it's lovely to be here. So David, Easter is upon us very shortly and you've gathered a selection of recipes for Easter dishes that you can actually prep ahead of time, so I thought why not do an episode where everyone has enough time to start prepping really uh we've got time on our side and a lot of us are crawling towards the long weekend definitely not talking about myself um and we don't necessarily have time to cook so david which recipes are the easiest to put together ahead of time um well i suppose one of the good things about easter is that actually the main event is usually just a roast and a roast is pretty much a dongle to put together for anyone you don't need loads of time for it you just the trick to a great roast is a piece of paper pen work out when you want to eat say one o 'clock and then just work backwards from there um but if you are wanting to get some food uh sort of done out of the way um maybe think about alternative things that you could uh cook so you could do a pie you could do um you know if you did chicken and leek pie you'd be getting the last of the leeks in the season um and if you just reheat that the day after it'll be a lot better for that uh equally if you are doing the traditional roast lamb then i would suggest slow cooking it the day before um cook it for sort of a really low heat for about six hours till it's falling off the shoulder and then again the next day it'll be all the all the richer and better for that And also you can save time if you're thinking about sides that you can do.

4:34So if you were, say, having Dauphin Wild potatoes or something, that's a great dish to cook the day before. And obviously if you're doing a seminal cake, which is the traditional, it needs a little bit of time to get rich. And because it's fruitcake, it will last for ages. And I think Dauphin Wild potatoes, they have such a hold over Brits. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, rightly so, because they're absolutely delicious. And then I was going to say that you could just do something completely different as well, because lamb's not really at its best at this time of year anyway. We eat it for religious reasons or tradition or reasons of tradition.

5:17But, you know, Richard Corrigan has a lovely recipe for a comfy squad pigeon with pig's trotters and smoked aubergine. you will need to be a pretty handy cook to get around that but Squab Pigeons are available year round so something like that would work and you could do things like riettes so if you did like salmon and then you can make that the day before then just spread them on some toast the next day so that makes a lovely starter so you don't have to be stressing about a full three course meal if you get some of it done it's a tricky time of year weirdly especially this year because Easter seems to be very early so you know traditionally you might have an asparagus tart but asparagus season doesn't kick off to the last week of April so it's a bit early for that and some of this just depends on what you actually care about so if you want to eat British veg and British meat then that may restrict you if you're happy just going to the supermarket and picking up you know asparagus from Morocco then you could make those traditional dishes and there's no judgment from me on either of those ways I don't I think it's better to eat seasonally but equally it's a lot harder to

6:37so David let's move away from home cooking and talk about restaurants yeah so where can you have a really special experience maybe something that's family friendly for you know lots of different ages and tastes at different price points in London? So I would probably recommend if you're going out for the traditional roast probably the best place executing that is Simpsons in the Strand which just reopened under Jeremy King which I gave five stars the lesser spotted five stars um because it's an excellent operation it suits all age ranges um it's great to go with family because it is it's suitable for um you know if you're if you're with your grandparents slightly older parents as well uh it's very friendly towards that but you know it's a mixed crowd in there now you can do italian cheaply or expensively um and italians love easter it's a big part of their cultural calendar uh generally speaking um and especially in the north um but so I would go somewhere like Murano Angela Hartnett's place which is amazing or I'd go for a sense of occasion over just worrying about what the actual food is because again unlike Christmas it well so if you're Italian yeah Easter is about the food but in the UK because we stick to quite simple dishes at Easter it's not really a foodie holiday so I'd go somewhere like Claridge's they have in the main dining room they have a pop-up from Dante which is a American Italian bar in New York but they've taken over and run it as a restaurant and it's a beautiful room with all its art deco touches it's really lively it's really fun you can eat whatever you like because the menu is very varied you could just have I mean obviously not if you're taking your children in but you could have a martini and a burger which might make a more fun Easter Sunday out or you could have a roast or you could go big on on seafood um and as I say it's surprisingly inexpensive there um if you work your way around the menu and that's true for Simpsons as well um it it very much is you've got started there from nine uh there are mains about 16 but equally if you want to spend 40 quid on a slice of beef you can't so most restaurants now will have a cheaper offering because they're aware that consumers are more pushed than ever.

9:01And with a week to go, if, say you can't get a table, where do you think would work for the long weekend for that kind of Easter get-together that accommodates walk-ins? If you're looking for a walk-in on Easter, your best bet is going to be a pub. It always is. Pubs will always have space for walk-ins, all they should do. obviously roast out and never as good as they are at home if you're out for your roast lamb but I would say somewhere like the Olds Nun Head just a tiny bit south of Peckham is very good and there's the Hare and Billet in Blackheath that's an excellent pub for a roast or look to restaurants that are good but possibly haven't quite picked up the hype that somewhere like the Dover or the Devonshire has there's a restaurant in Spitfields called Origin and it had a bit of a ropey beginning but I've been back since and it's actually excellent.

9:53They're brilliant with meat because the family have a farm and they use all their own stuff. And it's quite reasonable to eat. And I've never struggled to just get a table there because it's quite a big site. And because it hasn't quite taken off in the way that, you know, London's most famous restaurants have, it means it's not as crowded as, to be honest, as it deserves to be because it is a very good restaurant. That's a great tip. It's also quite easy to get to. yeah um and actually if you're in easter the city is quieter on the weekend um i'm using the city generally to mean well obviously the square mile but also places like spitzlefields farrington um blackfriars they're all a lot quieter um on the weekend and so you will find that the restaurants there often have space it might not be a walk-in situation but it could be a book on the morning or the night before um kind of place and actually some parts of town that just don't have or a bit more residential so if you look at Fitzrovia for example there's a great pub there called the Newman Arms um and the Newman Arms is it's usually a small dining room um but they usually have tables left I actually booked a table there last minutes um this morning and that's because that part Fitzrovia it's either offices or it's houses but it's not big on restaurants that particular part um so if you're perusing google maps have a look for the places that aren't big restaurant hubs because often the operations that are there are um slightly emptier yeah that's a that's a great tip you might get some really great service as well if the restaurant is quieter yeah absolutely we'll take a quick break here coming up i asked david what his favorite easter dish is and where in london to find the ultimate version we'll be back here in just a moment

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14:05welcome back let's head back to my chat with David

14:11David to wrap up our festive conversation uh tell us what is your favorite Easter dish and where in London makes the ultimate version okay so uh Easter is not a great time for lamb traditionally or certainly uh British lamb but if I'm going to have lamb then I would probably have chops because I love lamb chops I don't particularly like roast lamb um and the best lamb chops in London hands down are at Devonshire um and if I wasn't going to have them there and I wanted a bit of spice the other place that does amazing lamb chops is the uh cinnamon club um in the old Westminster library obviously it's a fortune but um John Williams at the Ritz is particularly good with lamb as well and I've always I always opt for it there where I wouldn't otherwise because it's brilliant and the other chef who's really good with that is Francesco Mazzi who's at Mezzogiorno in the Corinthia Hotel and he also does great porcessa which you might want as an alternate for Easter lunch so probably those would be the places that I would be thinking about going out for Easter lunch and if I wanted sort of sweeter things I'd probably go upstairs at Fortnum and Mason and have their Simnel cake in the afternoon tea area because their cakes, they're my favourite in London.

15:31So if I wanted sort of more hot crust buns, Simnel cake, a riff on an Easter egg, that kind of thing, then I'd go upstairs at Fortnum's, which obviously I think most people think of as just being a shop. But the upstairs eating and dining offering is actually pretty good. Well, high praise for somebody that's missing a sweet tooth. Yeah. That's it, I'll devour fab lollies and calippos and haribo. So my sweet tooth is really sort of eccentric. Not quite worked it out, but I've got to keep the weight off somehow. So putting got the chop first. Well, thanks so much, David, for sharing your Easter recommendations with me.

16:15Not at all. I would just say if I can plug the going out section on the website, there are some really great recipes there for people, which I think would hopefully be helpful. there's one from Trello which is lamb shoulder cooked in milk with a mouthy lemon and peas and it is delicious I did it last year because we've just republished it for this year but so I recommend people give that a shot too

16:40and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you're new here hit follow and give us a rating. If you'd like to get in touch, email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow morning. We'll see you then.

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