The Saviour of Ice Cream in London

When the Owners of La Bottega del Gelato in Bayswater retired six months ago I knew that Londoners who savour real Italian home made ice cream would be in serious trouble.

The outlet has allegedly been passed on to a relative; however what is being served is clearly industrial.

Some may remember a similar affair with the retirement of the owner and ice cream maker at Benigra on Tottenham Court Road some 8-10 years ago.

Thankfully Christian O'donno and a friend who were students in London and could not satisfy their taste for the Ice Cream of their homeland saw a gap in the market. After undergoing on the job training back in Italy they opened a superb Ice Cream Parlour in South Kensington that also supplies some notable restaurants. The sorbets and Ice Creams are really outstanding!

O'donno, 14 Bute Street, South Kensington, London SW7

Wide Open:Open source methods and their future potential

The London based Think Tank Demos has published an excellent paper on some of the implications and potential arising out of the open source software movement.

This open and collaborative approach to creating knowledge has produced remarkable results, such as the Linux operating system and the web-based encyclopaedia Wikipedia. In defiance of the conventional wisdom of modern business, it can be argued that open source methods have led the main underlying innovations around the Internet.

Authors Geoff Mulgan, Tom Steinberg and Omar Salem argue that other fields have much to learn from open source methods – because they bring principles and working methods which can help to produce better knowledge, goods or services, or make them available on more widely beneficial terms.

(click on the title to access a free download of the paper from the Demos web site)

Tinned Tomatoes : A tip !

Why do certain tomato based sauces taste so much better than others ?

As with most dishes a combination of cooking ability and good ingredients make a big difference.

Ideally if you are preparing say a simple tomato sauce for pasta based on garlic , olive oil , tomatoes , sea salt, black pepper and fresh basil and you can get some fresh ripe San Marzano plum tomatoes it's very difficult to fail.

However the best tomatoes are seasonal (May to September) and the rest of the year most of us that do not live in Mediterranean climes have to make do with tins or jars of tomatoes.

Unfortunately on the whole supermarkets in the UK apart from rarely stocking any edible fresh tomatoes also have poor quality tinned ones either from well known brands or own label. These tend to be both pasteurised and acidic .

If you live in the UK and get get your hands on Annalisa or San Remo brands you will not be disappointed. They also have excellent tinned cherry tomatoes and are available from good Italian Delis.

Diary from Mosul by Patrick Cockburn

A brilliant piece on what is going on in Norhtern Iraq in the context of "post war" Iraq.


(click on the title to read the piece from the Lndon Review of Books)

A transcript of Frank Lampard's speech to the Footballer of the Year Awards dinner on May 18 2005.

A moving and humble speech by the Mighty Blues best player in their historic Championship winning sason.

(click on the title to read the transcript)

Chris Anderson's Long Tail

Chris Anderson editor in chief of Wired wrote a seminal article entitled the Long Tail in October 2004 about how the mass market is turning into a million niches.

The basic ideas from the article are being expanded into a book due for publication early next year (2006)

Click on the title of this post for a link to his blog where you can find the original article and I guess what can be called work in progress for his book.

Chelsea: We are the Champions by Mark Radcliffe

An excellent well balanced view on the Mighty Blues written by a fan.

(click on the title)

Traditional Advertising : Is the writing on the wall ?

What is evident in the 21st Century is that certain big changes in consumer behaviour facilitated by access to information/knowledge and technology are now visible. Perhaps one of the most relevant is that mass marketers faced with fast changing technologies and attitudes are being forced to abandon the traditional and comfortable push model in favour of a consumer – controlled pull model, in effect moving from intrusion to invitation.

Has Trevor Beattie considered by many to be the greatest Creative working London seen the writing on the wall ?

The converging of Marketing Services with Entertainment/Content or Commerce and Content is well established and documented recntly by Scott Donaton.

“Content creators and brand marketers will have to choose partners and projects carefully. Integration will have to be subtle and seamless, and appear natural to the audience. Those integration efforts that are forced will stand out like sore thumbs and be rejected. Those that work will begin with the consumer in mind and with the goal of creating compelling content, but will still manage to meet the needs of both the advertiser and the creators of content. “1


1.Madison & Vine: Why the Entertainment and Advertising Industries Must Converge to Survive. Scott Donaton. McGraw Hill, NY, NY, 2004 p 182.

A comment on The Best 50 Restaurants in the World by Restaurant Magazine

I read the list of the world’s best fifty restaurants with great interest.

Of course by definition the list will be an aggregation of opinions.
Nevertheless it is hard to believe that based on any reasonable criteria Britain has achieved the highest number of entries in the top fifty (14) followed by the U.S.A. (10).
Britain is therefore better than France, Italy, Spain and Belgium!
Certainly the quality of food in Britain at all levels has improved over the last eight to ten years.

Most gastronomes would include the likes of The Fat Duck, El Bulli, Pierre Gagnaire, Restaurant Alain Ducasse,
Troisgros, L’Auberge de L’ill, French Laundry, Charlie Trotter and maybe Gordon Ramsey in their top 20.

The inclusion of The Ivy and The Wolseley in a top fifty is totally ludicrous as are The Waterside Inn, and Le Gavroche. Are the latter pair better in any respect than say L’Ambroiserie or Grand Vefour in Paris?

Is St John, tenth best restaurant in the world? 40 places higher than say La Tupina in Bordeaux?

London’s Nobu together with Hakassan are in the top 50, neo Japanese and Chinese respectively. Surely Tokyo, Hong Kong,Shanghai and Singapore have the odd hostelry deserving inclusion.

One can only conclude that the Restaurant Public Relations companies have been working overtime and the composition of the esteemed panel for Restaurant Magazine was made up of people who reside in the UK or the U.S.A.

Finding a good curry in London

This is almost as difficult as finding a good couscous in Paris.

The vast majority of restaurants serving food from the Indian sub continent are really poor and use the heavy spicing to hide poor ingredients. Furthermore following the pattern of immigration the style of the cooking seems to be predominately Bengali.

Over the last few years some new establishments have opened and have tried to "refine" the cuisines by providing better ingredients and decor. Some of these restaurants have even attained a Michelin star.

On the whole my feeling is that somehow these newer restaurants produce cooking that is far too westernised and even sanitised.

There are a few exceptions here in London but I will not mention names at this juncture.

My criticism of Indo- Pakistani food can equally be applied to Italian and Greek, these will be treated in future posts.