Northern foodies will have been saddened to hear recently the news that Anthony Flinn has closed all four of his restaurants in Leeds. Having trained in Huddersfield, Flinn went on to work with Ferran Adria at El Bulli and honed his excellent craft before bringing it to the gratified attention of those of us who choose to live elsewhere other than London, instead bringing it home and reinvigorating the dining options of that proud Yorkshire city. Anthony's Restaurant, Piazza by Anthony, Rib Shakk and Anthony's Patisserie are now officially in administration with 70 redundancies also to be counted. Leeds is undoubtedly a poorer gastronomic place without him and we hope he returns soon.
Sadly his is not the only story of closure in the north recently. Alea Leeds, the entertainment venue with James Martin's restaurant, has also gone under which makes one wonder quite where the good citizens of Leeds plan to eat on a weekend. Over the Pennines, Manchester has seen the recent closure of Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecôte', a well-established steak chain thriving in London, but apparently unable to satisfy the steak-y needs of Mancunians; the city's oldest Italian restaurant, Italia, has closed its doors forever; R'House, another recent opening has closed within 6 months of opening... the litany of doomed restaurants goes on and on.
So what exactly is going on? London still seems able to sustain hot new openings every week with the capital's food bloggers and critics falling over themselves, elbows sharply out, to be the first to stake a claim. The North, on the other hand, seems - just at the moment - to be slumping, brokenly to the deck, bowed under the weight of average food, average expectation and minimal aspiration. Why can't it attract the attentions of the Americans currently doing a Mayflower in reverse and setting up their outposts? Why are the country's most lauded chefs still seemingly so reluctant to conjure their dark arts north of Watford?
We would like to point out exceptions to that stand firm: Simon Rogan is taking over Manchester’s Midland Hotel, in addition to his superb L'Enclume; Nigel Haworth of Michelin-starred Northcote is currently refurbishing, so booming is his business; Aiden Byrne pops up here and there throughout leafy Cheshire; James Martin continues to win awards for his outlets. Hey, even Cosmo, the pan-Asian super-buffet chain, is opening a branch in Derby, so it can't be all bad but it's still disappointingly few and far between when we want to boast about our great British food culture. Maybe they've got it all wrong. Maybe it's not a British food culture after all. Maybe, just maybe, it's a great London food culture and until the North decides it wants a piece of the pie, hitches up its belt and gets to jumping up and down about its great produce, fantastic chef training colleges and willing customers, we'll continue to see great chefs and great restaurants failing.
