Too Good To Waste?

On 5 October, the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) officially launches its new 'Too Good To Waste' campaign in London. A double decker bus will be on hand to represent a third of the annual food waste produced by the average UK restaurant. Lunch will be served in special biodegradable 'doggy' boxes (see photo). The SRA is giving away 25,000 of these to encourage diners to take their left-overs home.

It will be interesting to see how well the 'Too Good To Waste' campaign is received by diners. According to the SRA's research, 50% of consumers are either too embarrassed to ask for doggy bags in restaurants or think that they aren't allowed to let diners take food home. However, fewer than one in 10 said they would choose not to take left-overs with them if a restaurant offered a container.

At Lussmanns (SRA members since 2010), we aim to be sustainable and keep food waste to a minimum by serving appropriate portion sizes. It's impossible to please everyone, as appetites differ, but your feedback helps a lot. If you'd like to take left-overs home, please ask but don't feel obliged as all our food slops are anaerobically composted to provide electricity for the National Grid. So your left-overs are someone else's power!

For more information, see our page on sustainability and visit the SRA's website.

The team at Lussmanns

The fine art of food photography

Cameras, tripods, light diffusers, laptop, lenses, cables, equipment spilling out of several hard cases strewn around the floor - everything you need for a major fashion shoot. In the centre of it all, a bowl of freshly prepared chicken salad waiting to be photographed 40 times from different heights, distances and angles by Rob Lawson, an expert in his field. 

The secret of successful food photography? 'Good lighting' said Rob as he adjusted the position of the bowl, took some shots, rearranged a piece of chicken, took a few more, inserted a fork, and started snapping again. Four hours later we had 282 photographs of 10 dishes to ponder.

Mothering Sunday and all that jazz

1,000 mums, dads, kids and grandparents, uncles, aunts, distant relatives, friends and dogs (outside of course) arrived, feasted, discussed, enjoyed and the little ones cried and then it was all over.

Mothering Sunday was no different to those that have been and those that are still to arrive. It is a beast of a day which swallows you whole, chews you up and spits you out as though you had just been ejected from a two hour spin in your mum’s old twin tub washer.

All that love and nowhere to go...

For those peering through the Dickensian steamed up windows wondering when they will meet the perfect one, Valentine’s night must be a devilishly lonely time. When restaurants, bursting with bags of amore and suitcases of love, are filled with starry eyed quietness. Standard antics are momentarily suspended and the whisper of love rules majestically. Gone has the clash of cutlery and the boom of laughter postponed by a weaverbird dance of undulating notes and swirling heads. This is Valentine's night, a night like none other in our calendar year. 

Why 'Wednesday Night Live'?

Ever since the start of Lussmanns in 2002, I have struggled with the idea of putting on live music, as it always suggested a restaurant was somewhat failing. Being brought up on Chet Baker and second hand memories of the Big Band era I didn’t want to merge both loves under one roof. It only needed my partner to turn up and I had all my lovely eggs in one basket. Live music in restaurants has often meant punters weren’t coming through the door and competition was battering business. Unless it was Goodfellas or your uncle was a dab hand on stage, merging good jazz with good eating didn’t usually work. But after two and a half years and a desire to keep reminding those living in Bishop's Stortford that we were still in town and fighting fit 'Wednesday Night Live' was born.

Gascony and all that jazz

France is a superbly beautiful country made all the better for the expanse of space that rolls from one eye to another. A country that seems in total control in being absolutely laid back. A place where time sits idly wondering what all the fuss is about and a country where Sundays still remain sacrosanct. And though my blue, white and red tinted spectacles were almost steamed up, you can’t knock a place where the bread is freshly baked, the wine enjoyed without tax and the hot weather generating a sigh of content like no other.

Eating alresco on the River Stort

With yet another Wimbledon over with English - sorry - British hopes dashed, the World Cup a forgotten memory and The Tour De France pretty much spent we could be forgiven for believing that summer had ended. The rain has recently skirmished the Cornish coast and dark clouds are tearing into middle England, or are they?

At the Herts county show

It rained, and then rained some more and just when the sun came out to play, it rained again. Oh I love the English summer. I know that Queen's has yet to start and we are a month from Cliff singing (in the rain) at Wimbledon but just a little sunshine was what the doctor ordered; it arrived a week early and has since gone to ground.

The Hertfordshire Show kicked off with a slumbering murmur at the turnstiles at 9 but the lashings of heavenly water did not deter and we were soon in the thick of it -  chopping, cooking and chatting ourselves through over a thousand customers.  

For Queen & farmer cry St George

The advent of British vegetables & livestock roaming cocksure throughout the countryside on St George's Day looks all the more plausible. Unfortunately their exotic cousins remain idle, contemplating whether they had just missed the last dance.

In the meantime, produce foreign to our season will remain boxed piled high sitting calmly under the midday sun and lusting after the cool air conditioned light of a smart English supermarket. I am afraid we’ll have to wait a little longer for those early season strawberries from Israel.

When the Mayor came for tea...

6pm on a Friday afternoon when most folk have already planted their well worn weekend hat and are fearing the agreed itinerary of what needs doing in the garden. It was probably not the ideal time to launch our inaugural sustainability dinner focusing on fish.

To make matters worse the rain had stopped and Spring’s long lost sun suddenly appeared in imperious order and was in no mood for torment.

But our guests did arrive and we were kindly sponsored both time and interest as well as a keen desire to enjoy our line-caught British Pollock, house-made chips and lovely mushy peas.

How English Are Our Fish & Chips?

Excellent news – we have gained entry to the Fish2Fork guide, which promotes restaurants that champion sustainable fish.

What could be more English than enjoying fish and chips on a balmy summer evening, strolling up and down the pier? Fish and chips still acts as a continuous reminder of what our mums and dads loved as kids and what their parents feasted on before them. Therefore it's all the funnier to learn that in 1860, the first fish and chip shop was opened in London by the Jewish proprietor Joseph Malin who married together "fish fried in the Jewish fashion" with chips. Furthermore, in Ireland the first fish and chips were sold by an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Cervi, who had stepped off an America-bound ship at Cobh and walked to Dublin.

Painting for your dinner

After a very hectic Mothering Sunday and a couple of well earned beers I sank into my captain’s chair, newly unboxed from an unnamed do it yourself store, and met the next challenge of running a restaurant company: to judge without heckle a deserved winner in our newly launched mothering sunday colouring contest.

With over 120 entries it was a pleasure to pick the winning trio based on personal preference and nothing more. Though we are not yet another chain offering the standard free colouring set with furry animals to take home, it seemed a nice way to keep the little ones studiously at bay and the waiters’ free from turning into little animals themselves.

Apples, mittens & smoke like air...

Now the snow has unclenched its icy claws in both towns and countryside alike, the unromantic job of apple pruning has begun in earnest at Chegworth Farm. This is a time of the year when those green fingered customers of ours love getting their mittens, secateurs and mud driven boots out of the shed and exhaling large gasps of smoke like air. Give me the finished article with or without twig and branch any day and I‘ll be a happy man.

With picking a far and hazy memory archived away the farm is down to the business end of making sure that the class of 2010 is as good as ever.

The snow-lined trees & not many customers...

The snow came; it conquered and now it’s gone; thank goodness.

Lussmanns remained open throughout, though it was very quiet. Like the market traders and our food suppliers it was difficult to transport our fresh produce in daily but it did arrive albeit 12 hours late.

Just put the finishing touches to our lovely Valentine's menu available alongside our a la carte menu. Hope you enjoy it.

Andrei 

outside Lussmanns in Waxhouse Gate, St Albans 2010