{"id":31,"date":"2004-05-22T19:36:02","date_gmt":"2004-05-22T19:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/applecrumble.wordpress.com\/2004\/05\/22\/gastronomic-delights\/"},"modified":"2017-10-01T13:38:40","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T13:38:40","slug":"gastronomic-delights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/05\/22\/gastronomic-delights\/","title":{"rendered":"Gastronomic delights"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='e-content'>One evening last year, my girlfriend and I decided to head into Whetstone to see whether there was anywhere good that we could grab a bite to eat.  Having never been there, we didn&#8217;t really know what to expect.  Luckily for us, we happened to stumble across <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alfresco-restaurant.co.uk\/\" title=\"Alfresco, Whetstone - awesome Italian\">Alfresco<\/a>, definitely the best restaurant we&#8217;ve been to in the area.  We couldn&#8217;t believe how busy it was &#8211; always a sign that a place is cooking up something good, I think.  Although we had to wait about half an hour for a table, as soon as the food came we really didn&#8217;t care &#8211; it was absolutely awesome.  They made no fuss about preparing a puttanesca with spaghetti, even though the menu said that it came with spirals, and it tasted delicious.  The food there is <i>so<\/i> cheap and tastes <i>so<\/i> good.  Current favourite is the spaghetti allo scoglio, which comes with a massive helping of delicious mussels and prawns in a tasty sauce.<\/p>\n<p>It was great to find a great Italian on our doorstep after having been regulars at the wonderful <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060513213939\/http:\/\/www.nypost.com:80\/food\/32266.htm\" title=\"New York Post review of Valdino West in New York City\">Valdino West<\/a> when living in New York City the year before.  If you get the chance to go to either of these two gems, do so &#8211; you won&#8217;t be disappointed.  Neither of them are ever going to be top of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zagat.com\/\" title=\"Zagat Survey - restaurant reviews\">Zagat<\/a> tree but for lovely food at a great price they are just perfect.<\/div>\n<p><span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:6908,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.alfresco-restaurant.co.uk&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20180307052418\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.alfresco-restaurant.co.uk\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-05 17:04:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-13 18:17:00&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-02 19:49:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-10 06:45:39&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-13 12:12:48&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-21 12:12:45&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-25 16:57:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-25 16:57:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6909,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.zagat.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20211022141615\\\/https:\\\/\\\/zagat.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-05 17:04:30&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-13 18:17:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-02 19:49:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-10 06:45:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-13 12:12:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-21 12:12:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-25 16:57:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-25 16:57:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/05\/22\/gastronomic-delights\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Gastronomic delights\"><div class='e-content p-summary'>One evening last year, my girlfriend and I decided to head into Whetstone to see whether there was anywhere good that we could grab a bite to eat. Having never been there, we didn&#8217;t really know what to expect. Luckily for us, we happened to stumble across Alfresco, definitely the best restaurant we&#8217;ve been to [&hellip;]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-london","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3443,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2011\/09\/29\/3443\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":0},"title":"Someone brought these bad boys\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"29 September 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Someone brought these bad boys into the office today. Delicious!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Snippets&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/1317324886.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/1317324886.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/1317324886.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12383,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/08\/18\/lisbon\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":1},"title":"Lisbon","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"18 August 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"View from the rooftop bar at Hotel Chiado in Lisbon After a long weekend, this ended up being a three-day working week followed by a short break with my family. We have a lot going on this summer, with both A-Level and GCSE results, our youngest making the pilgrimage to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Family&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Looking out across the red-tiled buildings of Lisbon from a roof-topped bar. The river can be seen in the distance.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DraggedImage-3.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11111,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2024\/08\/22\/weeknotes-286\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":2},"title":"Weeknotes #286 \u2014 \u0395\u03c5\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ce","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"22 August 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This week was spent on holiday in Zakynthos, Greece, with four of our oldest friends and their families. We\u2019ve been on many brilliant holidays together over the past few years and we were excited to do it all again. It started with an alarm at 2:45am on Saturday morning, waking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"An Easyjet jet plane on the tarmac at Luton Airport.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Image-19-08-2024-07-28.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12536,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/09\/27\/weeknotes-343-en-seine\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":3},"title":"Weeknotes #343 \u2014 En Seine","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"27 September 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent this week in France, the first half in Bordeaux followed by a couple of days in Paris. 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