THE GASTRO GRAZER
by Carl Housbey
Eat, Tweet, Sleep, Repeat
Hello everyone, welcome to the first Gastro Grazer
article. My task each month is to bring you foodie
tales from destinations covering the length and
breadth of the UK and beyond. So what better way
to start than with my 1000 mile trip earlier this year
as part of the Cannonball Chef Awards.
What are the Cannonball Chef Awards? I hear you ask.
These awards celebrate the skill, innovation, and quality of
chefs within the UK, and involves 4 teams of culinary experts
attempting to visit over 100 pioneering restaurants non stop
in 48 hours. The plan is to eat a signature dish / dishes at each
venue, present an award, take photos, post on social media
and be back on the road to the next venue within 30 minutes.
This year I was in the team covering Northern England and
the Midlands, and this is our story.
Day 1, my team meet up in Lancaster at 10:00am; we are
all desperate to find out which amazing venues we've been
allocated. Our first stop turns out to be Hipping Hall near
Kirkby Lonsdale, which is only a few miles away. We arrive
early, but their hospitality is so good that we end up leaving
20 minutes late, and its then the scale of our task hits home, as
we still have another 8 places to visit today including House
of Tides in Newcastle, and The Pipe & Glass at South Dalton.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur and before we even realise
it's 03:00am - we’re tired and can drive no further, but we’ve
managed 8 out of 9 today.
Day 2 and we are straight back on the road to get to The
Freemasons at Wiswell by 09:00. Chef Steven Smith makes us
a superb breakfast, which we wolf down as there are 9 more
venues to visit today, including The Art School Restaurant
in Liverpool and The Hillbark Hotel, Frankby (featured in
the September issue). Everything’s going great until we get a
puncture on the M6, which delays us so much that we don't get
to our last stop at Lasan in Birmingham until after midnight.
Day 3 - we awake in Birmingham, the city with the most
Michelin starred restaurants outside London, and our list
today includes two of them; Purnells, swiftly followed by
Simpsons, before heading out of the city and on to our
eventual finish line and 7th stop of the day at Mallory Court
in Leamington Spa.
We eventually visited 23 out of our 25 venues, and ate
approximately 96 different dishes each!! An exhausting trip,
but so much fun.
Keep an eye out for the next issue when I will feature one of
these restaurants in greater detail, or to stay up to date with my
adventures follow @carlhousbey
wirrallife.com 29