Gareth Jones

There’s nothing like following a theme: playing it safe, being on-message. Thus, we hear endlessly — from Michelin-starred chefs to their adoring throng — the mantra that ‘London is restaurant capital of the world’. From bitter experience, I disbelieved this the first time I read it — and then I started to think further. The shocking truth is that everyone chanting this mantra has a stake in the message getting through — from people with a share in restaurants, which are notoriously risky ventures, to those invested in tourism, London 2012 or restaurant guides. Of course, London has pockets of food excellence, but they are little pockets. Is there good eating everywhere? No, there is not.

... ... Make a genuine 'Sugo’ by Gareth Jones Tomatoes weren’t cultivated in the place we now call Italy until the late 16th century. Like chocolate, corn and Columbus’s other South American bounty, the Spanish held onto tomatoes for decades. It’s said tomatoes made it to Southern Italy with a Spanish chef to the Spanish consulate in Naples. Cans of Italian tomatoes, grown under fierce sunshine, are almost always best for colour and flavour. Best buy ‘chopped’, not ‘plum’ — and always Italian. To dress pasta for six: pour contents from three cans into a pan, pass half a can of water round all three to get every bit of the tomato, bring up the heat and drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil.