East Lancashire local eateries feature in Sunday Times top 100 Food List (From Lancashire Telegraph)

East Lancashire local eateries feature in Sunday Times top 100 Food List

11:18am Tuesday 1st November 2011 in Langho By Tyrone Marshall, Reporter

TWO EAST Lancashire restaurants have made it into this year’s prestigious Sunday Times Food List.

The list is a summary of Britain’s top 100 restaurants and this year Ramsons in Ramsbottom features for the first time, alongside Northcote’s, in Langho.

Chris Johnson, proprietor for 27 years, is described by the Sunday Times as “one of the great characters of the British restaurant scene” for his strong views on what diners should eat and drink.

He has been known to tell diners where they are going wrong with their wine choice, and told the Sunday Times he finds it “painful when people want to murder a wine by drinking it with the wrong food”.

He said: “This has been our year. I’m delighted Naz our chef (Abdulla Naseem) and our fantastic team have received the recognition they deserve.

“Many of our customers already travel from London to experience Ramsons, a listing in the Sunday Times Top 100 can only help to cement our status on the culinary map.”

Entry to the list completes a hat-trick of awards for Ramsons, having won Wine List of the Year at The Good Food Guide awards in August and Restaurant of the Year at the Manchester Food and Drink Festival.

Mr Johnson also flies in produce from Milan’s central market to be used in Ramsons every week, but it still came in as the least expensive of the 100 restaurants.

Northcote, run by Nigel Haworth, has retained its place on the list and is praised for Haworth’s dedication to raising standards and awareness of regional food and for head chef Lisa Allen’s “unfussy” food.