‘Flavours as vivid as the scent of pine forests’: why I love Baltic cuisine

Food writer Caroline Eden celebrates the region’s distinct - and underrated - flavours, from quince lemonade and cloudberry jam to birch syrup and blueberry soup

Upstairs at the Grill, Chester: ‘It has an awful lot going for it’ – restaurant review

Chester’s Upstairs at the Grill is very well liked – but that doesn’t mean it’s faultless

Public House, Paris: ‘A calamitous experience’ – restaurant review

With a famed pie maker on board, the new ‘British brasserie’ in Paris ought to be glorious. Instead, it’s a huge disappointment

‘We are disappearing’: chef Fadi Kattan aims to keep Palestinian heritage alive through food

Palestinian restauranteur speaks from Bethlehem, where food stalls are sparse as farmlands are under attack

Going for gold! Have the Olympics overturned centuries of no-tipping etiquette in France?

With the Olympics just a few weeks away, waiters in Paris are apparently encouraging tips on top of the required 15% service charge. Sacré bleu!

Right up your street: favourite local shops in the UK, chosen by chefs and food writers

Fuchsia Dunlop, Dan Smith and Melissa Thompson tell us where they buy Chinese vegetables in London, heritage produce in Kent, and the best chicken you’ll ever eat

Gill Meller’s secret ingredient: smoked paprika

This spice gives anything from meat and fish to roast vegetables a deep, savoury hit. A little can go a long way

Simon Reeve: ‘At a Russian school the headmaster greeted us with a bottle of vodka. It wasn’t yet 9am’

The TV explorer’s career has been quite the journey, going from newspaper post boy to searching for bonobo monkeys in the rainforest

Lyme Regis: a real taste of the Dorset coast with an exciting new food scene

A thriving artisan quarter and inventive restaurants have injected new life into this genteel seaside town famed for its fossils and literary haunts

I eagerly await the English asparagus season, from tender start to woody finish

Until the 17th century, the vegetable was thought of as an ‘unimproved oddity’. But I could eat it morning, noon and night

Esme Young: ‘I got Mini Cheddars in the green room when I started on Sewing Bee. Still do’

The Great British Sewing Bee judge on her mother’s first edition Elizabeth David books, Greek food, and cramming people into her tiny flat for dinner

‘We’re trying to make it more inclusive’: the rise of Britain’s new wine bars

In the new wine bars springing up in cities, towns and even at the seaside, natural wines and small plates are in, sommeliers and snobbery are out

Food crazes make me want to roll my eyes. But first, pass me a crookie

History is littered with food fads, from pineapples to ‘poultry mania’ – and now, anything involving croissant dough

Dream Xi’an, London EC3: ‘I challenge you to find a nicer way to spend a couple of hours near the Tower of London’ – restaurant review

I have yet to leave any of Guirong Wei’s places not delightedly flecked with umami, sweet, hot and vinegary sauces

Josephine Bouchon, London: ‘Beautifully executed’ – restaurant review

They are putting the world to rights here on the Fulham Road, with every classic Lyonnais dish they serve