The Hightown Inn, Liverpool

Despite spending the first 20 years of my life about 100m up the road from the Hightown Inn (then the Hightown Hotel), I never really considered this grand old Victorian building to be much of a "local". I was far more likely to get the train to the Railway in Formby where most of my friends lived, or the Grapes in Freshfield if we were feeling particularly Footballer's Wives. The Hightown contingent did - occasionally - persuade others to join us in L38, but the building's constant change of ownership, focus and purpose (was it a pub with food, a food pub, or just a plain old boozer? A hotel? A wedding venue or events space?) combined with the fact nobody ever seemed to know the best way of using the vast structure - a series of huge high-ceilinged rooms that depending on the time of day would be ear-shatteringly noisy or intimidatingly quiet - created a strange atmosphere that was never really anyone's favourite place to hang out.

There's still a vague sense of prevailing awkwardness in the dining areas of the Hightown - the giant spaces certainly give them a flexibility when it comes to catering for groups (we noted with some trepidation on arrival that each room contained a few tables for 20, although actually they weren't stag or hen do's and it was all very convivial and - crucially - a sensible volume) but do in the end still feel like a dance floor that's been temporarily emptied out for a banquet. There's no real sense of permanence, and you get the very strong impression that if the whole gastropub thing doesn't work out they could clear out the tables, put up a DJ booth and be back to putting on karaoke evenings and pub quizzes faster than you could say "Merseyrail Northern Line".

Further unease was spread once we'd taken our seats, from a waitress who unapologetically began with "We've got no steak tartare".

"Oh that's a shame. We-"

"Or focaccia, or Caesar salad, or mushroom parfait-"

"Can we-"

"Or ribeye, although there's alternative steaks on the specials."

Having had to go back to the drawing board food-wise, attempts to fill the gap with alcohol were thwarted too.

"Can I have a Bloody Mary?"

"No tomato juice, sorry."

"A prosecco?"

"Sorry."

Eventually we managed to piece together a drinks order from the few items they did have, and once they'd all arrived we tried again.

"Can I have the beef & ale pie please."

A pause, then she wordlessly scurried off to the kitchen. A minute later, she was back.

"We don't have that either."

Just as our lunch was on the verge of turning into a complete Monty Python sketch, between the six of us we did somehow come up with a food order, but by this stage I'm afraid our expectations had dropped all the way down through pessimistic to downright despondent. Even an attempt to fill in the yawning gaps on the a la carte with an item or two from the bar menu - a couple of Scotch n'duja quail egg would have been nice, or a grilled beetroot salad - was met with icy indifference.

"Different menu sorry, we can't serve those here."

We looked forlornly over to a table about 6 feet away in the raised bar area, where a family of four were happily tucking into an order of Scotch eggs alongside a portion of fish and chips and a burger. Somehow we'd ended up in the only gastropub in the country where the bar menu was bigger than the dining room's.

And in any sane universe, that should have been that. Another half-assed attempt to relaunch a pub with a vaguely ambitious menu that after a couple of months has fallen back into serving fish and chips, burgers and steaks because honestly, why try harder?

But then the food arrived. And it was all quite lovely.

Parmesan truffle potato chips were so fragile and delicately fried they dissolved in the mouth, and though there's nothing natural about the truffle oil they'd used (nobody's expecting real truffle on a dish worth £4.50) there was still a pleasing amount of it, the aroma filling the room and I'm sure prompting a few more orders from other tables. Assuming they hadn't run out by that point.

Oysters were a bit on the small side but nice and fresh and lean and opened well, with no shell fragments. They came with a decent mignonette but also Sriracha which it turns out goes with oysters perfectly.

Skagen toast is a Swedish thing - head chef Daniel Heffy spent some time in 3* Frantzén in Sweden - best described as a prawn cocktail on toasted brioche. It boasted lovely plump fresh prawns bound with a delicate light mayonnaise, and despite the hugely generous portion size was supremely easy to eat and disappeared very quickly.

Also fantastic were red tail scampi, huge sweet things in a batter that at first looked like it might be too much but thanks to the flavour punch of the prawns turned out to be balanced just right. The jalapeño aioli might have needed a bit more of a chilli kick but then that could just be me - this was still another very nicely done bit of seafood.

Tomato tarte fine looks great and tasted better, a delicate (there's that word again) pastry base layered with powerfully tomato-y (possibly stewed down or partially dried somehow) tomatoes and fluffy goats cheese. I've probably said all I need to say about the annoyance of having so many menu items unavailable, but things like the tomato tart and parmesan chips demonstrate that there is real skill in this kitchen and a future in something more than doing the classics well.

They do the classics well, though, of course. I tried a bit of this burger which had a good crumbly and crusty beef patty with a sensible arrangement of pickles and cheese above. Crucially as well you could eat it without dismantling it, never a given with pub burgers.

Pork schnitzel with fried capers and anchovy butter was doing almost everything right, although with the memory of a Berlin schnitzel in my mind from a couple of years ago the relatively small size of this one came as a bit of a surprise. But I doubt there's many people in Merseyside really want to eat a piece of deep-fried pork the size of a table, so this is probably just a case of knowing your audience.

Steak was definitely worth an order - lovely and charred properly with little bits of fat all crunchy and dark - and though the quality of the beef wasn't quite world class, all was forgiven thanks to how well it was all cooked and seasoned. Fries were impeccable though - crisp and full of flavour right to the last one.

There were more mains as you can see from the bill, but I won't exhaustively go through everything a table of 6 ate for a long lunch. But it's a testament to the quality of the food that despite the shaky (to say the least) start, we all left the Hightown Inn happy as Larry and more than eager to go again when, fingers crossed, they may have a few more interesting things on the menu.

With desserts (tarte tatin, above, a particular highlight - fantastic gooey treacly pastry with crunchy bits) and lots of holiday booze the bill came to £63 a head, and it's probably worth pointing out that even on a "good" day (assuming these do happen) the most they charge for service is 10%. Maybe if you offer the usual 12.5% they'll consider carrying a dish from the bar menu over to the dining room without fear of the world ending. It might be worth a shot. Oh and by the way, we also tried ordering the chocolate fondant. They didn't have any.

So scoring the Hightown has left me with a bit of a conundrum. The food alone, even the hugely reduced selection we ended up with, is probably 8 out of 10, but I can't ignore the fact that you could turn up and find half the dishes and drinks you had your eye on unavailable, and coupled with some bafflingly inflexible service decisions this has the potential to rather spoil your day. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and settle with a 7. Room for improvement from a fairly promising start, and here's hoping that in the next few months they become the dining destination they're so very clearly capable of being.

7/10

Tuétano Taqueria, San Diego

On the shortest day of the year, in the middle of the gloomiest and wettest of England's gloom and wet, I thought it might be fun to review a taco shop in southern California, because it's days like this you need to remind yourself that there are places in the world where the sun always shines.

Tuétano is Spanish for 'bone marrow', and so if you call yourself 'Tuétano Taqueria' this brings with itself a certain set of expectations. I remember being very disappointed as a child when it turned out central Liverpool chippie The Lobster Pot didn't serve lobster (yes, I was that kind of kid) but, fortunately for all concerned, expectations are more than met in this cheerful little spot in Chula Vista, where the birria tacos come with an "optional" chunk of roast bone marrow.

I put "optional" in inverted commas because quite honestly, anyone making the journey here and NOT ordering the bone marrow needs their head examined as it's the loveliest bit of offal you can order in this part of the world. And I'm including the brain and tongue tacos at El Gordo in that assessment.

Anyway I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. The menu at Tuétano is short and no-nonsense, essentially the same ingredient - birria - served in two types of taco casing and also available as a sandwich (torte). Short menus are almost always a good sign, indicating a kitchen focussed and confident in their abilities where it matters, and not trying to be all things to all people.

The first thing we ordered was the standard quesabirria taco - so their own birria mixture topped with lovely gooey cheese, either some kind of pizza mozzarella or a very close Mexican equivalent, in a standard taco casing. For $4 it was a fine example of its kind, the slow-cooked beef and cheese creating that magical combination of flavours and textures that are such an integral part of the Southern California experience, and yet so weirdly difficult to find elsewhere.

Better, as you might hope and expect, was the same filling inside with the bog standard tortilla swapped out for their own hand-pressed on-site version, fluffy little things as light as buttermilk pancakes but holding firm to the last bite - well worth the extra $1 and more than enough reason to visit by itself.

But as I mentioned, Tuetano have a little extra trick up their greasy sleeves, and it's a quite wonderful chunk of roasted bone marrow which for an extra $7 comes slapped on top of your taco speared through with a little wooden stick, like a beefy lollipop (sorry, popsickle). Push the perfectly cooked marrow through the bone onto the top of your taco and you are rewarded with a storm of beefy, offaly wonderfulness, a spritz of fresh lime and chopped coriander (sorry, cilantro) just enough to stop the whole thing tipping over into fatty excess.

They also do a lovely "consommé", not a clear broth in the French style but a heady beef soup made from their own stock, finished with chunks of fresh onion and soft, buttery frijola beans. Typing this back in Blighty with 70mph winds and horizontal rain battering the windowpane makes me think such a powerfully flavoured winter-y soup is wasted on a part of the world where the temperature rarely dips below 'shorts weather', but then life is nothing if not contradictory.

Even the drinks offering has had some love and attention directed towards it. The counter has 3 barrels of Agua Fresca, one of which on the day I visited was a homemade mint and lemonade, the plastic cup it came in dipped in chamoy - a sticky, sweet and sour paste (usually) made from tamarind, tajin and sugar. They also sell Mexican coke and a rather nice non-alcoholic sangria soda, again not a fast array of options but all making sense.

If you've added up the prices I've mentioned above in your head you may have reached the conclusion that Tuetano is a bit of a bargain, and indeed it's not far off, but this being America in 2024 every seemingly reasonable order is at the final stage slapped with sales tax and (increasingly common) a minimum 20% tip, so costs can easily head north of expectations. However, $33pp for probably the best birria taco meal in town is still more than acceptable. You can certainly pay more for less.

It's more than possible I only obsess so much about quesabirria tacos (and believe me, I do obsess about them) because it's the one thing hasn't quite been tackled successfully by any UK Mexican joint. Madre in Liverpool had a decent bash at one point but last time I tried was a shadow of its former self, and most spots in London, even the ones that are so-called taco specialists, don't even bother with birria. But then maybe, like that bottle of holiday wine that tastes so flat and dead when you've gone to the effort of bringing it all the way home, quesabirria aren't meant to travel, and I'll just have to wait for my next trip to California for my next hit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

9/10

Crispin at Studio Voltaire, Clapham Common

Although my useless photos hardly do it justice (let's just get that out of the way from the start), Crispin at Studio Voltaire is a lovely space to eat in. The candles on each table aren't the only source of light, but provide a romantic accessory to the tealights dangling above the bar and some tasteful candelabras near dark curtains towards the back of the room - it's all very theatrical and cozy and Christmassy, a perfect setting for seasonal dining.

All of which would mean nothing if the food served wasn't up to scratch but fortunately the team behind Crispin have some form in this department. Bistro Freddie took over the space in Shoreditch vacated by Oklava, and were an immediate hit serving things like rabbit and cider pie, and whole Devon crab. The two original Crispins are still going strong too - one in Spitalfields and one in Soho - each focusing just as much attention on an interesting wine list as intelligent (and affordable) bistro food. And now this space attached to an art gallery just off Clapham Common has already established itself as a popular, and dynamic, local restaurant thanks to a very particular trick up its sleeve.

Cheddar croquettes with pickled walnut ketchup demonstrated a perfect balance between sharp pickle and gooey-rich cheese, with a nice grease-free crust. One of the features of the food at Crispin is that the menu reads rather familiar, but that pleasant accessibility is backed by real cooking skill. You may have seen cheese croquettes with pickled walnut ketchup before (well, you will have done if you eat out as much as I do) but rarely as precisely cooked or intelligently constructed as this.

Similarly with crab with radicchio, fennel and lemon - a beautiful collection of ingredients that demands to be ordered, executed in such a way, with fluffy chunks of fresh crab and nicely seasoned dressed leaves, that it could barely be improved upon.

And it's mastery of technique that ends up being Crispin's secret weapon. OK so maybe pheasant isn't an every day bistro ingredient, and perhaps I do have a soft spot for game and will automatically order it - for starter and main in this case - when I see it. But bashed flat, breadcrumbed and deep-fried like a chicken Kyiv, it takes real skill to turn what can be quite a dry and unforgiving bird into this immensely rewarding dish, golden brown and crunchy outside, gently pink within, a genuine must-order.

But better was yet to come. Both main courses, a generously proportioned pork chop, and a supreme of pheasant, turned out to be absolute masterclasses in the use of the Hibachi grill, a bit of tabletop charcoal-fired BBQ kit that gets a delicate dark thin crust on the meat while leaving the inside soft and yielding. So the pork offered itself in soft, even slices inside a beautifully seasoned, crunchy exterior...

...and even the pheasant, as I said an often unforgiving bit of meat, was juicy and desperately moreish beneath a dark, crisp skin. Accompanying veg (celeriac puree, winter berries) were very good too, as was the rich game sauce, but the real star here was the protein, and by extension that expert use of the Hibachi grill. I can't remember the last time I was served main courses that were such shining examples of the best of live-fire cooking.

So, come for the atmosphere and seasonal charm, stay for the game-changing grill work. Crispin lands in a part of town fairly used to eating well (the much-missed Dairy used to be just over the road, and top pasta restaurant Sorella is just down the hill) but stands out from the crowd even at this early stage - and promises to only improve as the seasons shift and more exciting ingredients become available. And no matter what time of year, as long as they keep using that Hibachi machine in the way they are now, there'll be endless reasons to visit and revisit, all served with a lovely dark salty crust. My kind of place.

9/10

I was invited to Crispin at Studio Voltaire and didn't see a bill. Expect to pay about £70pp with a glass or two of wine.