Kaltur (Dean Street)

Food ✪✪✪✪
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19 Dean Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1PQ

0191 447 1180

kalturfood.co.uk

Accessibility? No
Gluten free options? Yes 

There’s a great episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is dating this woman who goes from being devastatingly beautiful to, well, far less so, from one date to the next. I think it’s also the one that has Festivus in it. And Kramer’s bagel shop strike. Man, that’s a good episode. But anyway, back to the point, because bear with me but it does have something to do with restaurants. This woman, who Jerry’s dating: is she good looking or not? What’s going on? Which is the real her?

These are similar to the questions I was puzzling over in relation to the tapas restaurant Kaltur on High Bridge after my second visit. The first time had been a triumph. Fine ingredients, excellent cooking, punchy flavours, fab wine list; it was all phwoar and blimey. I gave it 4 stars, declared it the best tapas in Newcastle and banged on about it to all and sundry.

But then I took Mrs Diner, who had been elsewhere on the occasion of my first visit, and it was rubbish and she questioned whether I’d lost my mind and my palate, as she pushed an unwanted portion of greasy and dull morcilla in my direction, raising a quizzical eyebrow. I felt a damn fool. Was this a good restaurant or not? What was going on? Which was the real Kaltur?

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.

Kaltur

*Food ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪

8 High Bridge 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 1EN 

0191 447 4464 
www.facebook.com/kalturofficial 

[*Oh dear! Never go back should be my motto. But I do revisit favourite places - this time (in early November) it was a mistake, and I've downgraded Kaltur's food and service ratings from 4 stars to 2. Where previously everything was punchy and vibrant, now it tasted greasy, bland and uncared for. Everything was either under or unseasoned. Service was really poor: water was asked for a couple of times before turning up and one dish never materialised, although that was OK as we didn't want any more food by that point anyhow. If I'd been reviewing for the first time today I'm not sure it would even have been 2*. I don't know if it was an off night, they changed chef or whatever, but I thought I'd let you know. In case it was a one-off, here's the original 4* review. If you visit, let me know which you think is correct (see Andy McQuillen's comment below - he had a much better experience)*.]

Let’s do this the other way round for a change, and talk first about the wine. Or, to be specific, the sherry. I knew I was going to enjoy my evening the moment I clocked the list. Seven were listed, all available by the glass. I tried three, and I’ll be back for the others shortly because they were, like almost everything about this diminutive newcomer on High Bridge, life-affirmingly first-rate.

Tapas Revolution

Food ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 
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Unit S3, Lower Level 
Greys Quarter 
intu Eldon Square 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 7AP 

0191 261 4948 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten-free? Yes
www.tapasrevolution.com

There must be people who like going to the intu Eldon Square. There may even be people who know why intu spells its name with a lower case i. I am not one of those people. 

For me, the ‘i’ in ‘intu Eldon Square’ stands for impersonal, inadequate and inelegant. An uninspiring, cramped space, with low ceilings to match the ambition of some of its chain retailers, it is one of the least glamorous shopping malls in the UK, and yet also one of the busiest. 

It’s not intu’s fault, of course. Why did Newcastle’s glorious frontage of beautiful Georgian architecture have to get in the way of modern commerce so we’re left with a rabbit warren of tiny shops behind the facades? 

Mind you, despite its drawbacks, the intuitive people at intu (that was a guess) are doing something right. For they sure know how to extract our pounds. They’ve recently spent gazillions on a new section called Grey’s Quarter, and filled it with chains like Ask Italian and Giraffe, George’s Great British Kitchen and Smashburger. Fast food to revive flagging spirits. 

When this gastronomic lineup was announced, those of us who favour independent restaurants sighed and tutted. But it’s not all plastic menus and pre-packaged sauces. They have a decent barbecue place called Red’s True Barbecue, which I reviewed quite generously the other week; and now it has Omar Allibhoy.

Dacantus

  Food ✪✪ 

Service ✪✪✪✪ 

Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 

30-32 Grey St 

Newcastle upon Tyne 

NE1 6AE 

0191 261 8111 

www.dacantus.com 

If this were a review of a bar rather than a restaurant then what follows would be a good deal more positive. Dacantus in Newcastle’s Grey Street is a really nice bar. 

Gin menu

They serve good wines by the glass and a dizzying array of carefully made gins and tonics. The interior is a dramatic contrast of hefty dark woods and bling-y gold textured wallpaper. The bar itself is a vast chunk of marble and the nice people who tend it really know what they’re about. 

I would go as far as to say this is an excellent bar. However, they also offer a full food menu, which means that they are a restaurant. And I’m a restaurant critic. Oh dear: nice bar, shame about the food.

The Bottle Shop Bar & Kitchen (CLOSED)

Food ✪✪✪ 
Service ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪✪✪ 

Waterloo Square 
St James Boulevard 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 4DN 

0191 261 4193 
www.bottleshopbars.com 

Pity the hipsters. Already fretting over whether their vintage specs and organically grown taches (the men anyway) are sufficiently post-ironic, and now they’re having to take brickbats of invective from the media, social and otherwise, poking fun at their Cereal Cafés and fixed-gear unicycles.  

You’ll have seen them: 20- and 30-year-olds with liberal arts degrees and clothes that look like they come from charity shops or Grandad’s attic, urban bohemians into indie rock and witty banter, the men with shaggy hair so long it’s wrapped in a bun at the back, the women with their side-swept bangs and their hipster men. There’s a very funny (but not for the narrow-minded) Twitter account called @getinthesea that pours scorn on these latter day folk-devils. 

Well, eager to swim against the tide of reactionary opinion, allow me to offer them some support. A welcome byproduct of their never-ending search for the retro-novel, is the creation of markets for better-quality, more interesting products for un-hipsters like me. They may have deconstructed cultural norms in Williamsburg, and turned the fashion world back to the past, but they’ve also given us craft beers.

River Beat

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

Pipewellgate House 
Pipewellgate 
Gateshead 
NE8 2BJ 

0191 477 0553 
www.riverbeat.co.uk 

Tue - Thu 4 - 11pm 
Fri - Sat 11am - 11pm 

For the most part, most Brits still haven’t quite got the hang of tapas. 

To many, the idea of spending an evening traipsing between different bars for glasses of sherry and a plate of ham here, some croquettes there, a prawn, octopus tentacle or a spicy chicken thigh there — is something to be reserved for Spanish holidays. It requires a city to have a critical mass of places set up this way, which rules out Newcastle. 

It’s a great shame, for in many ways the city centre is made for gastro-perambulation. Here’s a plea: can someone please open a couple of proper ham and sherry joints? I’ll happily perambulate between them all night if you do. Thanks in advance. 

In the absence of the real deal, our current experience of local tapas involves plonking yourself down for the entire evening and ordering a truck-load of small plates, which you then ply through with copious glasses of wine. This rather turns the concept on its head. All of a sudden, instead concentrating on getting a few things perfect, a kitchen has the hard task of doing lots of things well. As a result, most don’t succeed. 

Nowadays tapasification (a word I shall copyright) doesn’t have to be Spanish. In London there are tapas versions of Peruvian, North African, Italian and so on. In Newcastle, they’ve gone one better. River Beat, tucked next to the Swing Bridge on the Gateshead side, has given the small plate treatment to Thai. 

Well, sort of. It’s not actually Thai, but a pan-Asian-influenced assortment. However, in what is quite a nifty move, all 22 dishes on their “tapas” menu are available in small or large plates, meaning you can eat pretty much whatever you want, however you want.

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.

Dr Feelgood’s Liquor Emporium

Food ✪ 
Service ✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 

Timber Beach House 
Off Timber Beach Road 
Hylton Riverside 
Sunderland 
SR5 3XG 

0191 500 7120 
www.drfeelgoodsemporium.co.uk 

Where to start with this one? Perhaps, at the risk of major spoilers, right at the end. 

“How did you enjoy your meal?” asked our waitress.

Mrs Diner killed me with a look.  “Just pay and leave, there’s no point,” it said. 

She was right. It wasn’t that there had been a couple of bum notes, this performance had been an entire symphony of discord. It was like spending an hour strapped to a chair being forced to listen to Beethoven played on recorders by 5-year-olds. Sure, it had been torture, but they were only children, and the cool air of freedom was just a step away. 

Besides, if I told our waitress the truth, she might cry. So we nodded our applause, paid and left. But back to the beginning, when we were still hungry and full of hope.