Belzan, Liverpool

This was actually my second visit to Belzan. The first, according to my iPhone photo history, was on 8th May 2020, but was a little bit tricky to review as the building was operating as an improvised deli, with boxes of fruit and veg arranged amongst the booths and benches that would normally be hosting paying customers. Like so many restaurants during the first national Covid lockdown Belzan had pivoted to, well, just about anything they could think of to get them through the End Times and so this friendly neighbourhood restaurant became your friendly neighbourhood greengrocers and wine merchants. I can't honestly remember what I came away with - definitely a box of veg, possibly a bottle or two of natural wine, and I'm sure it was all lovely - but I think I'm confident in saying it's a period of time both they and myself are happy to forget.

Fast forward to 2025, and Belzan is happily back at doing what it's best at - namely charming the pants off lucky Wavertree locals and curious out-of-towners alike. It is utterly impossible not to fall in love with the place, which is close to the platonic ideal of an unpretentious local bistro as it's possible to imagine. Staff all act like they've landed their dream job - which of course they probably have - the menu is full of things that you'd want to eat, and it's all pulled off with such easy grace that you wonder why there can't be a Belzan on every street corner in the country.

I started with a "Peter Piper", a kind of dirty vodka martini involving guindilla (Spanish chilli) pickle juice. Like the best dirty martinis it sailed very, very close to being completely wrong while at the same time just about pulling it off - the pickle juice blasted your senses but the vodka and vermouth just about managed to ground the flavours in something approaching normality. That weekend, in a moment of hideously misplaced confidence, I attempted to make one myself using burger pickle juice and gin. It didn't work.

The bread course at Belzan - sourdough cooked by "Leila", a local who offered their services during that same first lockdown and has been a supplier since - comes with a choice cauliflower butter, a lovely concoction full of satisfying, earthy vegetal flavours, and oil and vinegar, the vegan option but which they'll happily provide alongside the cauliflower butter if requested. You can tell a lot about a place from their bread offering - the attention to detail here was very evident.

Also from the "snacks" was this giant grilled scallop gratin, a lovely plump bit of sweet, meaty seafood (with roe attached I was delighted to discover) draped in bubbling grilled cheese. I don't know why Coquilles Saint-Jacques have gone out of fashion - perhaps they just belong to a period of French cooking that's a little bit looked down on these days - but scallops and cheese definitely need to be a thing again. This was gorgeous.

Courgettes came soft and grilled, with bits of blackened skin adding some very nice detail, and topped with a strong, salty pine nut gremolata. Underneath was a hummus made from butterbean, bright white and silky smooth and the perfect foil for the other vegetables. This is one of those dishes seemingly so simple and rewarding it might inspire you to have a go on the BBQ at home, which one day I indeed may do, albeit perhaps with not quite so much of a cavalier attitude as that with which I approached the pickle martini.

Grilled hispi cabbage was only slightly less successful than the courgettes, possibly because the Lancashire cheese was asking to do a bit more of the seasoning heavy lifting than it was equipped to deal with. A bit more salt on the cabbage and in the romesco and this would have been better, and perhaps it could all have been a bit warmer, but it was still a fun thing to eat, with the little crispy bits of charred cabbage adding more of those interesting textures.

Poached trout came as a giant, well-seasoned and perfectly timed slab of fresh fish and was a joy from start to finish. Underneath a Vichyssoise sauce was full of satisfying earthy flavours and was studded both with runner beans and mussels, the latter being sweet-pickled somehow. Very clever stuff.

And finally from the savoury courses, a huge pile of grilled lamb chops, each blushed perfect pink and so deliriously tender you could have cut them with a spoon. They came on an interesting bed of labneh and grilled nectarines, a vaguely Middle-Eastern range of flavours that worked incredibly well, but the crowning glory was a thick, salty, rich lamb jus that I wanted to bottle and take home with me. If you can tell a lot about a restaurant from their bread course, you can tell even more from their ability with sauces. This lamb sauce was as close to perfect as it's possible to get.

We found room for one dessert, a strawberry choux bun so delicate and light that, when I attempted to cut it in half, flattened hilariously onto the plate, leaving us with a kind of strawberry-pastry Eton mess. It tasted fantastic anyway, you won't be surprised to learn, as did the sweet (but actually not overly sweet) Riesling I'd picked to go with it. Can't leave a place like this without trying a dessert wine - it's the rules.

The bill came to £75 each, which although not a complete bargain (I think the days of restaurant bargains have long gone, with certain notable exceptions) is still great value for the amount of skill and effort that had gone into everything we tried. And certainly, we weren't the only people to think so, with Belzan turning the tables throughout this Wednesday evening, quite a hopeful thing to see from an industry seemingly so consumed with doom and gloom.

So could there be a Belzan on every street corner? Should there be? Let's face it - the trick that places like this pull off so successfully is to make the difficult and skilful look easy and effortless, and if after 7 years they've not even opened a second spot in Liverpool never mind attempted to throw their net wider probably tells you all you need to know about the logistics of running a modern British bistro. But then that just makes what Belzan are doing all the more special - if you want great food, made with care and intelligence and served with a smile, then you will just have to come to Smithdown Road. You won't regret it.

9/10

Nou Bar del Poble, Peratellada

There's a part of me knows, deep down inside, that it probably is possible, if you try really, really, really hard, to have a bad meal in Spain. Burger King exist there, for a start, and although they sell alcohol as a concession to their European location I somewhat doubt they also do an arròs negre special or platter of Iberico ham to keep local sensibilities happy. And I'm sure if you went to the nearest Tex Mex off the Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona or ordered fish and chips from Mike's Bar in Torremolinos it's possible you won't be served anything worth writing home about but then if you were the kind of person who wanted to eat burritos in Barcelona or fish and chips in Andalusia then perhaps that wouldn't bother you too much.

But after a recent two-week trip to Catalonia where we didn't have one single meal less than very good, and most were in fact much better than that, I came away with the impression that this is a part of the world where eating well is as vital a part of normal everyday life as electricity or hot and cold running water, and that good food is something approaching a natural human right. In the first few days we would do our research, revisit reliable old haunts and Michelin-showered sure things, and it was all lovely. But after a while we realised that we could basically plonk ourselves down anywhere, order whatever seafood they had available with a few rounds of anchovy toast, and come away deliriously happy. Oh and having spent a pittance, too - that's another thing about Spain.

Some lunch spots though were just that little bit extra special. Peratellada is a quaint fortified medieval village rising out of the paddy fields between the coast and the Girona hills, although calling it 'quaint' is understating the reality somewhat. It's a quite extraordinarily beautiful little town, with dark narrow passageways winding between cloistered town squares and 12th century town walls, the streets sometimes cobbled and sometimes hewn directly of giant masses of bedrock (Peratellada means 'carved stone'), with deep gutters cut by hundreds of years' worth of cart wheels. In the centre of town is the Castell de Peratallada, a giant late-medieval structure once the home of the same family for a few hundred years and currently going through a state of transition and closed to the public. And in front of the castle, in the corner of a pleasant open square, is a tourist information office with a few tables and chairs outside.

Hardly a likely spot for one of the best lunches of the holiday, I know - but the first clue we were onto something good was that dotted amongst the usual family-friendly offerings of nachos and burgers appeared to be some rather well-selected seafood. First to arrive was a giant plate of clams, drowning in oil and garlic and parsley, which had that fantastic bouncy chew of the best fresh bivalves and a wonderful clean, meaty flavour.

Razor clams were also top-notch, dressed in much the same way and presented just as simply and honestly. They arrived alongside pa amb tomàquet - delicate thin coca bread with just enough squishy summer tomato to let them keep their crisp and shape, and a bowl of patatas bravas, lovely crunchy little bites of fried potato draped in aioli. It was all far, far better than it needed to be for a little honeytrap bar operating out of a tourist information office.

But if the clams and tapas had been great, these Palamós prawns were life-changing. I have gone on at length on this blog previously how these giant red prawns are some of the best protein of any kind it's possible to eat, and that they are a must-order if you ever see them on a menu. You do occasionally come across similar species in London at high-end places like Barrafina, where they're called Carabineros and are still lovely, except of course in the UK they cost about £16 each. This plate of six plump, salty, expertly grilled beasties that were probably flapping around happily in the Mediterranean sea a few hours previously, were a ludicrous €18 - the kind of seafood mega-bargain that only seems to happen in this part of the world.

There were still concessions to the tourist-friendly stuff that keeps the rest of the family happy - burgers were decent (I tried a bit of the wagyu one) and a bowl of cheesy nachos had, well, plenty of cheese, and none of it was unreasonably priced, but the real story here was the seafood - incredible, fresh, cheap, expertly cooked seafood, for what in the end came to about €20 per person.

After lunch we stopped by another local favourite - Gelat Artesà de Peratallada, an interesting little independent ice cream shop specialising in, shall we say, rather unusual flavours. Alongside classics like strawberry, mint chocolate chip and coffee you can try Roquefort, or gazpacho, or even l'Escala anchovy - certainly not the kind of varieties you can drag out of the freezer at your local corner shop. Not brave enough to try the anchovy I had a bit of olive oil, which was rather lovely, so maybe next time I should go full seafood. Certainly after the stilton ice cream at 8 I'm convinced that savoury/sweet ice creams are the way forward.

Behind the ice cream cabinet at the back of the shop at Gelat Artesà was a new gin bar, where not only do they serve their own gin - Outer Gin (flavoured with various local fruits and herbs) - but will incorporate it into a quite elaborate gin and tonic where the aromatics and dried fruits are painstakingly tweezered in to a giant copa glass. This too, alongside the ice cream experience, comes very highly recommended.

As I have said, we didn't have a bad meal in Spain and I could have picked any number of astonishingly good value lunches to write about today. I picked Bar del Poble partly because of Those Prawns but also because what it represents - namely, that there are still places only a short flight away, in some of the most beautiful and tourist-trodden parts of the country, where you can eat well for very little money, a fact worth stressing to anyone from London or the US (who made up our group that day) for whom eating out for around £20 a head seems like something that last happened in about 2004. Nou Bar del Poble is not unique, but it is special. And that's worth celebrating.

9/10

8 by Andy Sheridan, Liverpool

There are many things about 8 by Andy Sheridan that might rub you up the wrong way. The name, for a start - I've never really been behind the idea of any restaurant being purely "by" anyone; except in very rare cases, these things are surely a team effort, particularly as on this occasion, the titular chef wasn't even on site. And there are few things more off-putting after committing to an evening at such a place than being emailed a giant list of rules, directives and get-out clauses - any modification to the booking less than 7 days(!!) before the event will result the full £120 menu being charged per person, being any more than 15 minutes late on the day is regarded as a no-show (same penalty), only pescatarians can be catered for, not vegetarians or dairy-free or gluten-free... it all tends to give the impression that you're doing them a favour turning up at all, rather than the other way round.

So yes, there's a lot about the place that seems designed to irritate, a certain arrogance and swagger that seems unnecessary or unearned. "Here we go," you might think, "another too-big-for-his-boots regional chef who after a couple of Great British Menu appearances thinks he deserves three Michelin stars and a sponsorship deal with Hexclad. I see your game, matey". As much as I try to approach these things with an open mind there was an aspect of the attitude that strongly invites cynicism. And so it's that much more of a surprise and a delight to report that 8 by Andy Sheridan turned out to be so absolutely, flabbergastingly good.

The fireworks started from the first bite. A delicate little tomato meringue with a fresh, light burrata filling topped with a generous mound of black truffle. Boldly flavoured, perfectly seasoned, and so carefully constructed the whole thing burst into a tomato-truffle-dairy explosion in the mouth, it was the kind of thing so many places can get technically right but forget to add that extra element of personality. As much as I loved much of what I ate at Bo.tic, very often their food was impressive but emotionally underwhelming. That never happened at 8.

Tuna tartare with black garlic, avocado and chilli was another vaguely familiar collection of ingredients that punched way above their weight thanks to an expert balance of textures and seasoning, and a lovely strong chilli kick at the end that made the other elements sing that little bit louder.

And then finally from the snacks, a gruyere, liquorice and almond purée tasting - I hope they don't mind me saying - like a very posh marmite butter, where the liquorice element thankfully limited itself to a faint hit of umami, all offset nicely by a layer of sweet Roscoff onion chutney underneath. The textures were, once again, immaculate - the superbly delicate pastry just about holding itself together until eaten - and the flavours rich and satisfying. As a trio of canapés go, these were pretty much perfect.

Reseated downstairs in a stylishly-lit (ie. dark - sorry about the photos) room containing just 16 seats arranged in front of two large sushi-style counters with a dedicated chef each, we were presented with the bread course, a "Parker roll" with honey and cultured butter. The top of the rolls were glazed with an interesting variety of dried herbs and the bread itself was soft and sweet and as deliriously addictive as anything outside of The Devonshire. And believe me, that's high praise indeed.

The next course was confit trout - a fantastic bit of fish worth the price of admission by itself, but served on a bed of split parsley sauce with pickled green strawberries and fennel it became something even more spectacular. You don't have to do much to one of my favourite fishes to impress me, but here, cooked to buttery, unctuous perfection and in an earthy, vegetal parsley sauce that wished would never end, it was just a world class bit of cooking.

I worry about repeating myself. The problem with the food at 8 - at least the problem for me - is that more or less everything was unimprovable; the absolute best it could possibly be. And although that makes for a great evening at the time - and it bloody did, and then some - trying to convey that reality using my own mediocre vocabulary runs the very real risk of underselling it. This pork belly, for example, pulled apart into satisfying firm layers, and was accompanied by a little blob of hibiscus miso purée on the side and a wonderfully complex sigil pal (a Mayan pumpkin-seed-based salsa apparently) underneath. The flavours were incredible - each bit of it deserving a short novel never mind a paragraph on a food blog - but the star remained that pork, careful ageing providing an amazing complexity.

The pescatarian alternative to the pork belly was this miso-glazed aubergine, which I didn't get to try but was apparently brilliant. As if you even needed to ask.

Seabass next, crudo, in coconut, peanut and coriander. Despite its seeming ubiquity on restaurant menus these days I always enjoy seabass, though I imagine only the best stuff can be used raw like this. The fish itself was lovely and clean and fresh with a tender bite, and the coconut, peanut and coriander made a kind of ceviche which as well as working incredibly well took the meal in a whole new direction, geography-wise. While much of the ingredients that 8 make use of are resolutely local (or at least as local as makes sense in a modern restaurant in 2025), the inspiration for the flavour profiles come from all over the world. If the pork belly was kind of pan-Asian, the seabass definitely looked towards South America.

And with the duck, we went French. Duck and celeriac is a time-honoured match, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that 8 make a supremely light and smooth celeriac purée and can cook a bit of duck breast to pink, plump perfection. All elements were draped in one of those light summery jus', and I'm very glad I left some of the bread to mop it up because it really was superb. The pescatarians were given the same purée and a very similar jus (presumably one not involving duck) but with hen-of-the-wood mushroom as the main protein, which actually turned out to be even better at soaking up that amazing sauce.

One of the things I've noticed about tasting menu joints over the years is that quite often when the savoury courses underwhelm things tend to get a lot more interesting by the desserts, and vice versa - a kitchen firing on all cylinders for the fish and meat courses seem to lose interest when it comes to pud. This is clearly not always the case but it's pretty noticeable when it happens. Any worry that 8 would take their eye off the ball when it came to the sweet courses was blown out of the water by the arrival of this sticky toffee pudding with stilton ice cream, quite the most brilliant twisting and updating of a classic British dessert that I can remember in a very long time. Without the ice cream this would have been a superlative version, all salty and sticky and gooey and full of everything that makes STP so good. But the stilton ice cream was a genuine work of genius, rich and funky from the cheese but thick and cool and deeply, satisfyingly dairy. I remember saying "I can't believe it" out loud, over and over again until my friend told me to stop.

The rest of the desserts were hardly any less impressive. A little compote of summer berries was paired with a white chocolate mousse and I think was a lemon verbena sorbet, all of it fresh and lovely and full of colour and personality.

But sadly it had to end somewhere and the final dish was an extraordinary collection of techniques applied to Jersey milk - made into crumbs, frozen into a super-smooth ice cream, and even dried and baked somehow into a cracker. Very clever stuff, but as I hope I've made clear by now, never at the expense of joy and enjoyment. Whatever techniques 8 have at their disposal, and by God they have a few, they turn them relentlessly and tirelessly into making their food as good as it can possibly be, from the very first bite to the last.

I realise I'm sounding a bit like I'm writing a press release for them, but food this good tends to turn you into an evangelist. I wish they'd done at least something wrong so I could at least give some kind of nod towards impartiality but I'm really at a loss. A special word should go to their resident wine person Declan who was brilliant company throughout the evening and persuaded me to try a dry Riesling with the sticky toffee pudding rather than the Pedro Ximines sherry I would normally have gone for and turned out to be quite right too, damn him. OK, so I suppose the place ain't cheap - the bill came to £210pp but you still get way more than you pay for. And perhaps I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of this historic building's incredible architecture reflected in the restaurant interiors, which felt a little more "provincial nightclub" than "globally important metal-framed glass proto-skyscraper". But again, who cares really.

The fact is, restaurants like this don't come along very often, so when they do they should be recognised, cherished and - most importantly of all - supported. If you're worried that £200 seems a lot for dinner - and let's face it, it is - remember that there are certain other spots up the Merseyrail Northern Line that will ask for even more, and good luck walking back to your city centre hotel from Ormskirk. 8 by Andy Sheridan really does deserve to be spoken about amongst the very best restaurants in the country, never mind Liverpool, and I can count on one hand the number of meals that have impressed me as much over the last so many years. And so looking back on that rather bolshy confirmation email now I can see that it wasn't so much misplaced arrogance it showed than a desire to protect themselves and their singular offering from the rather terrifying environment they're having to operate in these days. Now, more than ever, restaurants need you, and 8 by Andy Sheridan need you, and all they can offer in return is possibly one of the best meals of your life. And that sounds like a decent deal to me.

10/10

Luna, Shad Thames

This is not going to be a long post. Not because Luna - a cosy little new wine bar from the people behind Legare just over the road - isn't good, but rather because it really isn't going to take me long to describe why it's good.

Because it's really not rocket science - take an lovely old converted Shad Thames warehouse building, put a good-sized open kitchen on the ground level and a light (if ever-so-slightly cramped) and attractive dining space on a mezzanine level, fill it all with enthusiastic and capable staff and put together a menu of enticing and accessible small plates. The result is the kind of friendly little space that everyone wishes they had on their doorstep.

Everything we ate was at least good. Oysters - cool, fresh and lean - came dressed with ginger and finger lime, a combination which enhanced the natural salty minerality of the bivalves without being too strong. They were also cleanly opened with no little gritty bits, which I know isn't a dealbreaker but still isn't a given everywhere.

The Aberdeen Angus carpaccio with pistachio was boldly seasoned and full of flavour, with the petals of beef having a good solid bite and healthy, dense texture. This was clearly good beef, prepared and presented well.

Lamb cutlets were cooked nicely pink inside and though I would have liked a bit more texture - the crunch of a fiercely-grilled piece of lamb fat is the kind of thing that haunts my dreams - they still had an excellent colour and disappeared quickly, the charred onions and yoghurt providing a perfect accompaniment.

But never let it be said that I don't occasionally allow myself simple pleasures because my favourite thing overall was probably the simplest - these matchstick fries covered in Old Bay, which had a deliriously addictive dry-crunch and a good hit of that famous Southern US seasoning. If you came in just for a glass of their excellent wine (a blend from Tenerife was their daily special the day we visited) and a bowl of Old Bay fries you would still leave happy I'm sure - although I bet it would be difficult to resist ordering more.

So there you have it, really. I have noticed in the week or so since my dinner that the menu has changed at least a little bit almost every day, so there's every chance that some of the dishes above won't be available on your own visit. But I have full confidence that whatever replaces them will be just as interesting and attractively done, and so I can recommend Luna just as enthusiastically to lucky Shad Thames locals as to the wider London population. It's good. And that's really all you need to know.

8/10

I was invited to Luna and didn't see a bill. The dinner above (which included a bottle of wine) would by my rough calculation have cost about £50pp if we were paying, so not bad really.