Pray That Chefs on ‘Great British Menu’ Don’t Think Children’s Literature Is Just Harry Potter

You’re a chef, Harry

Great British Menu returns to the BBC in Spring, with judges Andi Oliver, Oliver Peyton, and Matthew Fort asking some of the U.K.’s best chefs to cook a series of dishes inspired by children’s literature. Really rinsing the format, the new series adds an amuse-bouche and a pre-dessert to the starter, fish, main, dessert formula, putting more pressure on a competition that London chefs James Cochran and Tom Brown won — with Cochran “champion of champions” in 2018. Last year, Tom Anglesea of Hackney’s The Laughing Heart and Luke Selby, formerly of Hide and soon to open a new central London restaurant with his two brothers and the founders of The Barbary, made it through to the final. Expect a hell of a lot of Harry Potter dishes. That’s the only book anyone has ever read, right?

And in other news...

• Three-Michelin-starred Sketch served critic Jimi Famurewa a parade of “sterile miseries” masquerading as a tasting menu.
• Here are the best tacos in London.
• One of London’s former best coffee shops will open a new cafe and dessert bar in Seven Dials.
• London preserver Newton and Pott — whose jams have graced some of the city’s finer tablecloths — has shut down, saying it has become “incredibly hard to create our high quality products within this current economic climate of increasing costs.” Kylee Newton set up the award-winning business in 2015. [Instagram]
• Bear, a speciality coffee shop based in the Midlands, has moved its central London pop-up to Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road. [Propel]
• Good tweet: