6th September saw the launch of The Good Food Guide 2019 by Waitrose & Partners and  the guide reveals the top places in the United Kingdom to dine.

In Northern Ireland, the top scoring restaurant is OX with a cooking score of 6 out of 10. An excerpt from The Good Food Guide states; “Despite the hard-edge surroundings, where half-boarded walls meet whitewashed brick, OX is a gentle beast! It’s ambience softening in the evenings into sympathetic tone helped along gently by the chatty warmth of staff. The menus printed on brown card list what’s in season week by week, much of which you can expect to find on the single tasting menu.”

New entries for The Good Food Guide 2019, from Northern Ireland included, Clenaghans in County Armagh and Yugo in Belfast, County Antrim.

The Good Food Guide 2019 also look out for ‘Best Local Restaurant’. Readers were asked to nominate their favourite neighbourhood eateries – places that gave off warm welcome feelings and shared a passion for local produce, plus commitment to the local community.

Northern Irish readers voted Hadski’s the ‘Best Local Restaurant’, The Good Food Guide states; “This cool, narrow strip of a place in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter is a champion of Northern Irish produce. Serving an all-day menu that takes in brunch, appealing small plates, plus fish and meat options from the charcoal grill, it’s all things to all people. Regular Wine Mondays and Meat Feast Wednesdays keep locals happy, and the kitchen trains up catering and hospitality students.”

Three restaurants were awarded a 10 out of 10 cooking score – one of which was ‘Core’ – in London’s Notting Hill. Core were a new entry this year and has been labelled ‘Highest ever new entry’. Core’s head-chef, Clare Smyth is originally from Northern Ireland. Clare shared, “‘We are absolutely blown away by the news. It is wonderful to receive this kind of endorsement from such a well respected and loved guide. It is so good to know that people appreciate what we have all been working so hard for at Core”.

(Pictured : Clare Smyth – Core – London’s Notting Hill)

Food NI member Natural Umber has won the Golden Fork for Northern Ireland in this year’s finals of the Great Taste Awards, organised by the UK Guild of Fine Food, for its Organic Apple Cider Vinegar.

Based near Dungannon in Tyrone, the cider vinegar was launched in January and features a unique fermentation process that maintains the natural sweetness of apples.

The vinegar was developed by Mackle Apple, one of the biggest growers and processors of apples in the UK and Ireland. It achieved three gold stars in the Great Taste Awards, a first-time entry.

The Golden Fork for Northern Ireland, sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland, was presented to Michael Mackle, managing director of the family-owned Mackle Apple, at a gala dinner in London.

The Mackle family business operates among the most modern apple processing plants in the British Isles, located at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire and near Dungannon. Located near Moy, the Tyrone operation was also totally refurbished in 2012. Both are close to the company’s apple orchards including classic Armagh bramleys.

Since launching in late January, the company says, Natural Umber has proven especially popular with the health industry. Demand is said to be soaring as more customers discover this delicious vinegar and the word spreads on-line.

The Umber identity reflects the distinctively dark colour of the unrefined liquid. The name comes from terra d’ombra, or earth of Umbria, a mountainous region in central Italy.

Raw, organic, unfiltered, Natural Umber contains ‘Mother’ of vinegar. Made using only organic apples, cider vinegar is naturally full of a complex structure of good bacteria and enzymes known as ‘Mother’, believed to bring enormous health benefits. The ’Mother’ has a cobweb-like appearance. This bacteria is gut-friendly and is often considered the most nutritious part of the apple cider vinegar.

Ripe, freshly crushed, apples are fermented slowly and passed through a rigorous process to develop the final vinegar product. The crushed apples are exposed to yeast to start the alcoholic fermentation process, and the sugars are turned into alcohol. Bacteria added to the solution further ferments the alcohol and turns into acetic acid.

The product has already been listed by Amazon and Yumbles as well as a number of retailers in Northern Ireland. It’s also on the shelves of Framar Health stores, for example, in Belfast. The company is now seeking to develop business in Britain and the Republic of Ireland.