A meteor or meteors streaked across the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia as we read the French menu in old Antipodean inn. You'd have to spend a week in Paris to taste eye fillet cooked in as many ways as it is served at Bellevue Hotel. Multiway fish fish was so traditional it was almost like eating it at Arras ...
Pairing a restaurant with the perfect chef can be as rocky as finding one’s soulmate. Some never do. Epicure and Short Black mourn weekly over the latest broken hearted eatery left reeling when its head chef walks out for a younger, trendier establishment. But like all good love stories, when the perfect partner is found, it’s like fireworks. Damien Pignolet and Claude’s, back in 1981, was one of those magic combinations and as a young food writer, I have always wished I was born just a little earlier. Pignolet, together with Tim Pak Poy, created what was touted as the quintessential French dining experience, receiving much acclaim across the country.
FIRST it was pink for breast cancer awareness, then it was black for the Rugby World Cup and this week John Singleton has repainted the Bellevue Hotel yet again. The pub will remain pink and blue - the colours of the gastrointestinal disease charity Bellevue Hotel; Heritage on the walls
