Dining Under Lockdown: The Patricia At Home

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Value for money ✪✪✪✪ 
Pandemic friendly? (Ease of procurement, social distancing etc) ✪✪✪✪✪ 

The Patricia at Home
139 Jesmond Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 1JY

0191 281 4443

the-patricia.com 

Gluten free options? No choice menu, changes weekly. Check website. 

Well, hello there. How are you doing? No, really, how are you doing? Alright, I hope, and if you or someone you know isn’t, or hasn’t been, then I’m very sorry. I know it’s a terrible cliché, but I just checked which the review was that I last uploaded to here, back in early March; it seems like both five minutes ago, and as if it is a despatch from an entirely different universe.

St Vincent

Food ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

29 The Broad Chare 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3DQ 

Accessibility? Yes Gluten free? Yes 

0191 232 1331 
www.saintvincentncl.co.uk

You might think that after so many combined years in the biz, Terry Laybourne and his team at 21 Hospitality Group would lose their edge; that their extraordinary ability to give the people what they want, just before they know they want it, would become dulled. A visit to St Vincent will soon set you right: they’ve only gone and done it again. It’s a little beaut.

Papa Ganoush

Food ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪ 

240 Park View 
Whitley Bay 
NE26 3QX 

0191 253 5550 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes
www.papaganoush.co.uk

The move from street food operation to a bricks and mortar restaurant must be absolutely fraught. 

Making a few informal dishes from the limited confines of a truck or tent is comparatively easy compared to coming up with a whole menu, and then cooking it consistently. You quickly know what works when you get an instant response from a hungry crowd outside your van; it’s harder to get feedback from a bunch of hired staff. Now you have to do HR, and find premises with non-crippling rents. And buy plates, and tables and cookers and stuff. And figure out your order of service and your supplier network. Maybe better just stick with the street food thing after all, eh? It is festival season after all. Restaurant next year. Maybe. 

So all credit to those brave souls, like Papa Ganoush, who have rolled the dice and taken that plunge. I had always been impressed by their falafel, zingy salads and sauces, all piled into steaming fresh flatbreads at Jesmond Food Market or down on the Sunday Quayside Market. But a restaurant cannot just serve up wraps: what else would be on the menu?

The Curing House

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

21-23 Bedford Street 
Middlesbrough 
TS1 2LL 

01642 802 232 
www.thecuring.house 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

Everyone knows that good cooking starts with great shopping. Top-name chefs are always saying stuff like that, which is curious; you’d think their egos would demand that they give themselves a little more credit, and less to the farmer or the butcher. What a magnanimous demographic they are, these top-name chefs. 

I thoroughly agree of course, although I would also maintain that it is quite possible to make something delicious out of even the cheapest can of tomatoes if one employs judicious seasoning, lively spicing and thoughtful cooking. I speak here very much from experience: I was a student once. 

The point I’m lurching towards is that sometimes the most enjoyable restaurant dishes can involve very little cooking on the part of the chef at all. I’m thinking of good caviar with blinis. Open the tin - and your wallet - and away you go. Or of the sensational (bought-in) bread and butter we had that time we went to the Fat Duck. Or, more recently and less predictably, of the wonderful plate of Italian charcuterie we had on a trip down to Middlesbrough.

Newcastle Quayside Sunday Market

Food: at least ✪✪✪ 
Ambience: ✪✪✪✪✪ 
Service: N/A 

Every Sunday

Quayside 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3DE 

0191 211 5533 

If you are one of the 57,000 brave souls who will be running, jogging or perhaps just staggering from Newcastle to South Shields on the Great North Run tomorrow, then I salute you. I’d love to be there with you, bounding across the Tyne Bridge dressed as a hot dog, revelling in all that sweat and Lycra, but I’ve promised to take Mrs Diner back to Greece. 

Well, not Greece itself, but a little van that sells Greek gyros. It’s just below the bridge, in Newcastle’s Quayside market that appears every Sunday morning. This row of stalls and vehicles is one of the culinary delights of the City, turning a simple stroll beside the river into a brunch of champions. 

Great North Runners: I promise we’ll be thinking of you as we munch away below your jogging feet. We might even manage a wave or two. But don’t look down or you might just smell the food, give up running and come and join us.

Harissa Mediterranean Kitchen

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪✪ 

31-33 Starbeck Avenue 
Sandyford 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 1RJ 

0191 261 5501 
www.harissakitchen.co.uk 

It was so good, I went twice. That’s not something I can say about many places I review, but I am pleased to report that this restaurant took me completely by surprise. 

Harissa Mediterranean Kitchen, which opened in Newcastle’s Sandyford district just a few weeks back, is the sister company of the admirable Food Nation, a Newcastle based social enterprise which runs cookery classes and works with schools and businesses to “inspire people about good food”. 

Food Nation is supported by organisations like Jamie Oliver’s Food Foundation. This means it’s all about food that’s good for you, which, as everyone knows, doesn’t always mean good food. It’s like the difference between “dirty burgers” (so bad they’re good) and “clean eating” (so “good” it’s repellent). 

The nice thing about Harissa’s food is that it’s not just healthy, it’s also delicious and unlike anything else in Newcastle. It has the added bonus of being served in a space where it’s a pleasure to spend time.

Fuego

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪✪ 

Fenwick Food Hall 
Northumberland Street 
NE99 1AR 

Mon-Fri 9am-7pm (last orders) 
Sat 9am – 6pm 
Sun 10.30am – 4pm 

www.fenwick.co.uk 

“I think we’re going to need another couple of minutes,” Mrs Diner said to our waitress, by way of apology. 

It was for the best of reasons: being spoiled for choice makes a refreshing change. These days some of the trendiest restaurants just focus on doing one thing well, which takes all the fun out of ordering; so many other places, particularly in Newcastle, over-pack their menus with things I’d happily never see again, like tempura prawns. 

“I could happily eat all of this,” I nodded, from behind a furrowed brow. Over the next hour and a half I did my level best to do just that.