Nikos Taberna

Food ✪✪
Ambience ✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪

61 Bridge Street
Morpeth
NE61 1PQ

01670 514 618

Website: Facebook only

Accessibility? No
Gluten free options? Yes

I really like reading menus. Not just in the “ooh, that sounds nice, shall we order it?” sense, but with, you know, a bit more seriousness and deliberation. They’re the sheet music of the restaurant biz, statements of intent, adverts for anticipated pleasure. I used to keep the ones we’d ordered from at fancy places, paper trophies as reminders of expensive but happily procured fun. I like looking at old menus too, reminders as they often are of trends you had forgotten about and dishes nobody makes like they used to.

There’s a particular grammar to the well written menu which tends, in my view, towards the terse, punchy end of the spectrum. Keep the adjectives to a minimum, I say. Under-promise and over-deliver. It’s nice to have an idea about what ingredients are going to arrive on the plate, and even a sense of the methodology that got them there. I don’t need to know how fabulous the kitchen thinks a dish is, nor the number of generations a recipe has come down to us from. So yeah, I like reading menus. Even the bad ones. I mean, you’ve got to flick through a few pages of Fifty Shades once in a while just to remind yourself why you enjoy Phillip Roth, right?

What I enjoy somewhat less is having to read an entire menu aloud, at the table, to the in-laws.

The Muddler

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

69 Grey Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6EF 

0191 222 0125 
themuddlernewcastle.co.uk 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Danieli Holdings is, or are, in their own words, “one of the fastest growing multi-faceted privately owned business [sic] based in the North East of England”, with care homes and security firms alongside their leisure “division”. 

I have no particular problem with big companies, or even with companies that do more than one thing. I am neither an anti-capitalist nor a starry-eyed believer that a good restaurant must of necessity be independently owned. However, you also can’t blame me for noticing that I’ve frequently struggled to find a half decent meal in the restaurants of companies like Danieli. 

Never heard of them? Try Bar B in The Gate. Or YOLO in Ponteland (see my rather scathing review of their High Bridge Branch here). Or the (rather better) shipping containers on Pilgrim Street. There you go: of course you know Danieli Holdings. My latest attempt at a decent Danieli meal was at The Muddler on Grey Street, where on a pleasant Sunday afternoon Mrs Diner and I took a friend to help us lay siege to their Pan-Asian offering.

Siam Supreme

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

160 Heaton Road 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE6 5HP 

0191 228 9689 
siamsupreme.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

I am fortunate enough to have lots of nice meals out and most are comparatively easy to write about. I just open my trusty Concise Oxford Thesaurus at page 799 (the one with the entry for “tasty” on it), prattle on about the interior of the place for a bit as if I know anything about interiors, bish, bash and indeed bosh, and there you go. 

But how to string together a thousand or so words on an experience that was neither triumphant nor indeed utterly disastrous, but - ye horrors! - just disappointingly mediocre? Not terrible but just very meh? I imagine that would take some skill, some deftness of touch, perhaps even a little talent. I’m not sure if I’ve much of any of those, but we’re all gathered round the metaphorical campfire now, so what the hell. Let’s give it a go.

El Paso

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

61 Osborne Road 
Jesmond 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 2AN 

0191 240 7777 
www.elpasojesmond.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

I am not so completely naive or romantic as to believe that all restaurants should make every single item from scratch. Some things that come in jars or cans are perfectly reasonable additions to the larder. A local baker may be turning out loaves that are so good you’d be daft not to buy them in; I've been served bought-in tiramisu that has made me cry (admittedly made by an ancient Sardinian in the next village, but bought-in nonetheless). But at some point the opening of a packet becomes an expression not of sensible economy but old-fashioned laziness. If you claim to be a Mexican restaurant, that packet is the one that contains corn tortillas.

Kimchi Planet/Proven Goods

Kimchi Planet 

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

24 Wretham Place 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 1XU 

07366 066546 
www.facebook.com/kimchiplanet 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Limited 

Proven Goods 

Food ✪✪✪ 

Ambience ✪✪✪ 

Service ✪✪✪ 

Hoults Yard

Walker Road

 Newcastle upon Tyne

NE6 2HL

No phone number

www.facebook.com/provengoodsco

Accessibility? N/A

 Gluten free? GF doughnuts

Here’s how it was meant to go: Mrs Diner and I would take advantage of a rare free afternoon together to visit a couple of plucky upstart independent food businesses which had recently found permanent sites. I’d make some tired observations about how neither offered the level of comfort to which we - crashing snobs both - are accustomed to, but hey, who cares because the revelatory quality of their product and the sheer force of personality behind their ventures won us over completely. Hurrah! 5 stars! We’d go home, I’d bash out a thousand or so words about how chains are awful, independents are brilliant, proclaim it spiffing that there are so many in Newcastle, and everyone would be happy. Well, it didn’t quite go like that.

The Holy Hobo

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

Jesmond Three Sixty 
Jesmond 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 1DB
 
0191 281 3010 
www.holyhobo.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Anyone who spends a bit of time writing about restaurants will quickly find themselves the target of press releases declaring this or that new opening to be the hottest thing since sliced hype. You soon become inured to the over-familiar and breathless tone of these communiqués, with their exclamation marks and awful words like “tantalising” and “fully-loaded”. 

Off the top of my head, precisely none of the greatest meals I’ve ever eaten came after having reading PR blurb. A number of the most awful ones did though. Funny that. 

Nonetheless, every now and then I stumble across some release that is so vibrantly bonkers I find myself drawn to check out the place it purports to describe, like a sick moth to a roaring flame. Which explains why my friend and I recently found ourselves in what used to be Mr Lynch, but has recently been rebranded as, ahem... The Holy Hobo.

Antler

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

55 Degrees North 
Pilgrim Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6BG 

0191 261 1066 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.antlernewcastle.co.uk 

In my world, there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. I refuse to feel remorse about eating anything I enjoy, though there are a few things I don’t feel especially proud about.

Naturally I’m all about the gourmet ice cream, but the Fab lolly, eaten in layers (brown, then white, then red, obviously), is pretty damn good too; in my time I have stolen more than one miniature Snickers bar from my child’s secret stash; and while meat-wise my preference is for well aged rib-eye or long braised ox cheek, I’ve been known to enjoy the odd Ikea meatball. Quite a few, actually, and that’s all down to the Aged Diner.

Tomahawk Steakhouse

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

95 Quayside 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3DH 

0191 222 1122
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.tomahawk-steakhouse.co.uk 

I rarely order steak when eating out, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it scarcely allows a kitchen to demonstrate its talent; seasoning and heat applied to a lump of protein doesn't really justify all that time spent at catering college. Keep your sirloin and instead show me the daube of feather blade. 

Secondly, steak usually arrives with crashingly dull accoutrements. Chips, a grilled mushroom and a barely warmed-through tomato, you say? Innovators just keep innovating! Sauce Diane is it? Well then, let’s dust off the flux capacitor out and set it to 1972. 

No, for the most part steak is something to cook at home. Buy expensive meat, make an insanely buttery mash, open a good red, fire up the charcoal: enjoy. 

I do make an exception though, when steak is the whole reason for a restaurant’s being. In such cases, one hopes the folks in charge have taken the care to find some dry-aged cow of distinguished lineage and prepare it in a manner that does justice both to the beast and to those who reared it. 

Over the years, I’ve found some really disappointing steak specialists in our region: like The Rib Room at Ramside Hall (which took three goes to get me one medium rare), or the chain restaurant Miller & Carter, where just about everything was poor. 

Nowadays for good steak in Newcastle I rely on Terry Laybourne’s Porterhouse in Fenwick, with its Glenarm beef and heat-belching Josper grill. But now there's a new option, also named after a nice piece of beef on the bone: Tomahawk.

George's Great British Kitchen

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Grey’s Quarter 
Intu Eldon Square 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 7JB 

0191 230 4229 
Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free? Yes 
www.georgesgreatbritishkitchen.co.uk 

I’ve noticed of late a strong relationship between variable A: it being the school holidays, and variable B: me finding myself eating in places - how to put this politely? - well, places that I wouldn’t necessarily take someone I wanted to impress. I think it may be a matter not just of correlation, but of actual causation, the catalytic factor being variable C: the presence of kids. 

Last summer Mrs Diner and I sampled the delights of Pizza Express, all because we had custody of her nieces for one afternoon and they, for reasons that elude me, just love those dough balls. This half term I arranged to meet a friend who had her own Junior Diner in tow. 

“Somewhere in town that does kiddie portions, preferably with crayons,” she had requested. 

I thought hard. The presence, or otherwise, of crayons is not something that I typically note in my reviews. 

“What about that George’s place in Eldon Square we keep avoiding?” suggested Mrs Diner. It was all right for her – she wasn’t coming with us. 

“Fine,” I said, realising I hadn’t had fish and chips in ages. “If we can smash through three courses before Junior gets uppity I’ll even do a review,” I said. And we did, and I am.

Porky's BBQ

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

Front Street 
Bebside
Blyth 
Northumberland
NE24 4HW 

01670 820 599
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes   

www.facebook.com/porkysblyth  

First impressions can be so deceptive.  Porky’s, just off the A189 in Blyth, shares a car park with a large raw meat vendor called The Fat Butcher and a hut bearing a promise to buy your car on the spot. Handy if you’ve a knackered old wreck you want to trade for a piece of brisket, but not the most romantic of settings. 

Pretty authentic, though: in the States, BBQ joints are often to be found on the edge of town in non-auspicious settings. I guess it keeps the rent, and therefore the price of meat, low; and it also stops residential areas reeking of hickory smoke. This car park certainly had a distinctive smell about it.

The Craster Arms

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

The Wynding 
Beadnell 
Northumberland
NE67 5AX 

01665 720 272 
www.crasterarms.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Things are happening in the village of Beadnell. The last couple of years have seen a bunch of new holiday homes shoot up, as well as a few changes to the dining options for locals and visitors. Last summer I thoroughly enjoyed a sun-drenched lunch at the slightly eccentric Beadnell Towers, but that has since been sold and is now closed for a major refurbishment. 

Beadnell’s Salt Water Café, which does breakfasts and café-style lunches before turning itself into an evening seafood restaurant, is already in my ever-expanding in-box of impending reviews. However, according to our friendly waiter at The Craster Arms, all three Beadnell establishments are now part of the same business. He told us that the plan is to go down the “luxe” route with Beadnell Towers, while Salt Water Café will cut a more cosy, homely look. On the other hand, it’s pretty clear from its massive and wildly varied menu that right now The Craster Arms is all about volume.

Marco Polo

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

33 Dean Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 1PQ 

0191 232 5533 
Accessibility: Yes
Gluten Free?:  Yes
www.marcopolonewcastle.com 

“Very good, slightly better than 20/20,” said the brisk chap at my opticians, as I tried on my new bi-focals. 

As someone not in the habit of receiving praise from health professionals, this verdict came as a very happy surprise. Better than 20/20? That, as far as I was concerned, was practically a super power. I walked out feeling on top of the world, making a point of having a damn proper look at everything with my turbo-powered eye-glasses and fully expecting to get the call from Charles Xavier any minute. And then I sort of forgot all about it and got on with life, as you do. Until a couple of weeks ago. 

“Christ, what font is that? I can’t read the bloody thing at all,” said my friend. 

“Can’t be more than 7 point,” agreed Mrs Diner. “This is hopeless.” 

Four of us were sat in Marco Polo, but while the other three hunted out their reading specs and switched on their iPhone torches to see better, I alone was able to make out the bill of fare.

Seriously: whatever possessed them to squeeze every dish, wine, soft drink, cocktail and coffee they serve, not to mention their contact details, tips policy and mission statement all onto one place-setting sized piece of paper is anyone’s guess. Maybe it results in people ordering at random, which is good for stock rotation. Or perhaps the owners have a long-standing grudge against the visually challenged. Who knows.

Kracklin

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

1 Market Street 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 6JE 

0191 340 0320 
www.kracklin.co.uk 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Here’s the thing: if this were a review of just one sandwich, it’d be pretty damn positive. I have friendly things to say about that sandwich. I enjoyed it. We got on just fine. Hang around, and I'll tell you all about it. 

But I don’t review sandwiches, I review restaurants, which means I ordered a bunch of other stuff besides. And some of that stuff wasn't so great. Sadly, the rules are that I have to tell you about those too. 

I don't think it's unfair. Kracklin, on Market Street, may be a sandwich shop. Or, to use their description, a “roast joint”. But its website also calls it a restaurant with a "lovely, recently refurbished dining area and a full bar menu...the ideal spot for a long lunch and chat with friends".

Mr Petit [CLOSED]

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

4 Old Eldon Square 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 7JG 

0191 484 1245 

www.mrpetit.co.uk 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes

It moves crazy-quick, this restaurant biz. I could swear it was only 5 minutes ago that I was reviewing this same place. But now Al Buco, with its homely southern Italian stylings, has closed and exited stage left, to be replaced by Mr Petit, which is something else entirely. 

Having skilfully dodged my way through the onslaught of tat in Newcastle’s “International Christmas Market”, and just about managed not to break my neck in the icy conditions - don’t you just love the city in December? - this restaurant’s newly dark embrace was calming. The previously whitewashed walls have been given a lick of what I think is a heavy shade of purple and were dimly lit, with tealights on each table. So: apologies for the moodiness of some of the photos.

The Laundrette

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪ 

48 Westgate Road 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 1TT 

0191 261 2334 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.thelaundretteuk.com

Walking past Newcastle Central Station towards Grey Street and clocking the billboard for The Laundrette, I couldn’t help but think that the barrel of restaurant themes was showing distinct signs of having been scraped too far. Why name a restaurant after a service that nobody needs anymore and which is scarcely glamorous? And what kind of specialism is their tagline “Cocktails and Carbs”? 

This Newcastle opening is the group’s third, the other two being in the Manchester area. The original, in the pleasant suburb of Chorlton, is housed in what used to be an actual laundrette, so fair enough on that score. But Cocktails and Carbs? Pff. If the alliterated naming of a drink type and nutrient group is reason enough to open a restaurant chain then we’d better brace ourselves for “Pilsner and Proteins”, “Lilt and Lipids” and “Vodka and Vitamins”. All coming to a mixed-use development near you soon. 

As it happens, the theme has more bark than bite, as the menu turned out to be fairly standard summat-for-everyone fare including pizzas, burgers, salads, steaks and quite a few dishes with few or no carbs at all.

Linden Hall (Dobson Restaurant)

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Macdonald Linden Hall 
Longhorsley 
Northumberland 
NE65 8XF 

0344 879 9084 
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk 

It’s funny how the past can turn up in the present. A couple of weeks ago I decided I’d walk, rather than drive, to a meeting in Jesmond Dene. Traipsing past the sad, burned-out husk that used to be Fisherman’s Lodge I was, Proust like, whisked back to memories of its former glory. This used to be the number one place in Newcastle. 

I remembered, in particular, a perfect dish of enormous scallops, seared to rusty bronze, with a purée of spiced golden raisins. Given the number of restaurant meals I've consumed over the years, it takes something rather special to stand out in my mental Rolodex of plates, especially decades after the bill was settled. 

Later that night I got chatting to a waiter called Leo. I was dining at Linden Hall, a country house hotel about 10 miles north of Morpeth, and I could have sworn I recognised the guy from somewhere. Turns out he was the very gentleman who'd served me that plate of scallops all those years ago. 

We got to talking about fine dining, restaurants and what a special place Fisherman’s Lodge had been. He'd worked there for ages. Suddenly I felt quite old.

Riverdale Hall Hotel & Restaurant

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

Bellingham 
Northumberland 
NE48 2JT 

01434 435 402

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

riverdalehallhotel.co.uk 

This time of year, Mrs Diner and I love a long drive into deepest Northumberland. Any season is good, of course, but, as the greens turn to tans, bronzes and ochres, an extra dimension is added to the splendour, particularly in the North Tyne valley. 

As we rode the switchbacks of the A68 through a grizzly morning, the lack of a visible horizon only added to the mystery and beauty. Gawping at scenery is hungry work. Just on the other side of Bellingham, as you head towards Kielder, is the sprawling Riverdale Hall, where we planned to take a restorative lunch.

Loca

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪ 

46-50 South Parade 
Whitley Bay 
NE26 2RQ 

0191 252 4040 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes

www.locawhitleybay.com 

As the rejuvenation of Whitley Bay continues apace, it’s turned into a town of contradictions. For every lumbering hulk of a closed down sea-front hotel, a minimalist craft beer bottle shop pops up. For every gorgeously restored Spanish City dome there is a hyper-grim bricks and neon Premier Inn and Beefeater. A walk through the town centre finds zeitgeisty shops and restaurants cheek by jowl with the naff and the knackered. 

It seems apt then that our meal at Loca, a “Latin American” newcomer on South Parade, should have been so full of contrast in quality and variable service.

Pizza Express

Food (according to them) ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Food (according to me) barely ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

7 St George’s Way 
Eldon Square Shopping Centre 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 7JD 

0191 232 3228 

www.pizzaexpress.com 
Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Full list of branches in our region here

I don’t recall ever having started a review by saying you should pretty much ignore my verdict. Call this page a special “collectors edition” if you like, but the opinions that really matter aren’t mine: they belong to the two Junior Diners we took to lunch. 

You see, it’s the summer holidays which, if you’re young enough still to be on the receiving end of a school education, stretch out in front of you like a delightful dream. For parents, however, it’s a never-ending dilemma of how to keep kids amused. Apart from developing urchins into citizens and all that jazz, the real purpose of school is to provide free childcare. When it stops, your world is turned upside down, and anything that the whole family can enjoy together suddenly become wildly valuable. So, having been entrusted with Mrs Diner’s London-based nieces, aged 10 and 5, for an afternoon in the city centre, they enthusiastically accepted the suggestion of a trip to PizzaExpress.

The Botanist

Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Monument Mall 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 7AL 

0191 261 6307 
thebotanist.uk.com 

“I’m a bit disappointed,’ said our friend. “I thought we’d be drinking out of watering cans and eating from wheelbarrows”. 

And then, right on cue, a white chocolate and peanut butter mousse turned up in a garden trowel. Her face lit up. 

“That’s more like it!” 

The Botanist, you see, is pretty much the ground zero of the whole food-not-necessarily-served-on-plates thing. Of course they didn’t invent it, but they can sure take a lot of the credit/blame for keeping the trend going into 2017. They have hanging kebabs, watering-can cocktails and those trowels, all the better to fit in with their wistful gardening and flora theme. 

Normally this sort of pretentious nonsense would set my teeth right on edge, if not send me tailspinning off into some violent rant. If that’s what you’re here for, then I’m sorry to disappoint. Blame the service, which was unerringly charming, or the view, which was Grey Street, but, in spite of myself, I rather liked it here.