1: Goat and kid

Low in cholesterol, high in iron and protein, leaner than beef, pork or lamb: goat ticks all the modern dietary boxes. It’s a staple worldwide, and we seem at last to be catching on in the UK. From country gastropub to fancy Michelin restaurant, few self-respecting menus are complete without goat in some shape or form, be it slow-roast shoulder or caul-wrapped faggot. Goat is the new kid on the ingredient block, and it was only a matter of time before the big food players cottoned on: Ocado will soon be listing kid, and the rest seem bound to follow. No wonder OFM voted Cabrito Goat Meat best producer in its 2014 awards. Who knows, in years to come goat may be as ubiquitous on supermarket shelves as New Zealand lamb. We can live in hope. BG

2: ‘New’ kebabs

When super-restaurateur Alan Yau gets in on the kebab act, it’s clear they’re no longer the sole preserve of late-night boozehounds. His newly opened Babaji Pide may specialise in Turkish flatbread, but succulent, spiced kofta kebabs also take pride of place. Kebabs are the latest junk food to receive the gourmet treatment: witness Lokkanta in Westbourne Grove, an upscale takeaway and diner where the design is chic and the Turkish kebabs smoky and fine. Or Clerkenwell’s Chifafa which avoids foam cartons and features ingredients such as high-welfare English veal. Coming soon is Berber & Q from chef Josh Katz, promising kebabs influenced by the grills of Istanbul. Move over, burgers: it’s kebabs’ turn in the spotlight. MO’L

3: Amanda Cohen

When Time magazine published its testosterone-heavy Gods of Food issue in November last year it was greeted with howls of laughter. Where were the women? Leading the humour was Amanda Cohen from cult vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy in New York who promptly dubbed it The Dudes of Food.

At last year’s Terroir Symposium in Toronto she amused her audience by reading a long list of the names of all the women who are running Manhattan kitchens. Cohen has recently moved her attention and her own kitchen to larger premises but thanks in part to her, no one will dare ignore the food goddesses again.

“It forced people to look at the issue and to take it seriously,” says Cohen. “Dude conferences are the last holdouts. But we are getting somewhere now.” M-CL

4: Paul Bocuse: god of French food

A few years ago I made a documentary called France on a Plate for BBC4 – a history of French food which meant eating in all the best restaurants in the country. Nothing, however, prepared me for L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges just outside Lyon and the culinary home of Paul Bocuse. Now 89 years old, Bocuse is still cooking. Or at least this is what I found when I met him: straight away he gave me an apron and some knives and we set about preparing one of his most legendary dishes. This was a soupe aux truffes noires VGE. The VGE stands for Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was president of France when Bocuse created the dish in 1975.

I’m not much of a cook, but Bocuse didn’t care as he ordered me about, barking orders in his Lyonnais-accented French. At first glance, it looked a bit like the kind of pies I grew up with in the north of England. But I was chopping up fresh truffles and foie gras as well as chicken, mushrooms, celery and onions, as Bocuse, glugging a very nice Aligoté, rolled out the pastry. When we got round to “casser la croûte” after leaving the soup “pie” for about 20 minutes in the oven at 220C, the flavours burst open into the air in an intoxicating shower of deep, sensual aromas. This was a taste sensation I have never forgotten.

We ate the pies in the congenial surroundings of Bocuse’s salon, where we also finished off the Aligoté. Bocuse is a great dinner companion – he told me of learning his trade as a young lad during the Occupation, how he was taught to kill pigs and veal calves, and later when he joined the Resistance, how he tried to kill Germans. His great friends and heroes were the brothers Troisgros, Pierre and Jean, who would later become famous for their restaurant in Roanne. He wanted to make food like them – with a sense of French history but also taking it forward; making French food history, in fact.

Now Bocuse is both a global brand and the living incarnation of the French tradition of gastronomy. Most importantly, however, he still gets in the kitchen and makes food – and that’s why, for all the 50 years of holding three Michelin stars, all the flash and glamour, for me he’s still the don. AH

5: The Tock reservations app

No-shows are the bugbear of the restaurant business, which explains the proliferation of no-reservations joints at the informal end. But how does the high-end deal with the problem? Say hello to Tock: “a comprehensive toolbox designed to change the way restaurants create and manage bookings”: essentially a ticketing system where you pay before you go. You might splutter that you’re having none of that, but with big hitters such as Thomas Keller (it was designed by Nick Kokonas, one of the original partner’s in Chicago’s Alinea) on board, expect to see it in the UK soon. And Sweden’s Faviken will employ its own, similar system once it reopens in July. MO’L

6: Nomadic chef Jock Zonfrillo

He is the shock-haired, potty-mouthed, self-styled ambassador for the Outback; a talented Scots-born alumnus of Marco Pierre White’s Hyde Park Hotel with a global TV series and a mission to play a key part in the creation of an authentic Australian cuisine. Along with Ben Shewry at Attica and Dan Hunter at Brae, Jock Zonfrillo of Orana in Adelaide is a leader of a new breed of chefs who have steered away from the country’s Med and Thai obsessions to champion indigenous ingredients and flavours. This isn’t the discredited “bush tucker” days of the 80s and 90s, saltwater crocodile and red kangaroo are used sensitively upstairs on the Orana tasting menu or in the casual Street bar downstairs as croc dogs, hop dogs or carpaccio. Kitchen staff spend weeks on rota foraging in the Adelaide Hills and much of the produce comes from relationships Zonfrillo has built from travels among Aboriginal communities. “I don’t have all the answers,” he says, “but I listen and I try to learn.” It is not all green ants and fermented fruit (Zonfrillo has a jar-filled food lab at his home experimenting with ageing), he has teamed with a top local cattle breeder to introduce Red Devon and English Longhorn cows to combat his adopted land’s infatuation with wagyu and fast-fattened Angus. If you can’t eat in Adelaide any time soon, Nomad Chef, chronicling his food adventures, shows on the Discovery Channel. AJ

7: Le Chabanais and Inaki Aizpitarte

Inaki Aizpitarte, the self-taught Serge Gainsbourg-like figurehead of the Parisian bistronomic movement (talented young cooks rebelling against Michelin by serving ambitious food in modest premises) is going to be spending a lot of time on the Eurostar this year. Le Chabanais, his new London outpost named for a famous Belle Epoque brothel, opens in Mount Street, Mayfair this spring. It’s an unlikely setting for a chef who made his name with Le Chateaubriand, a vintage bistro with a bohemian bent in the 11th arrondissement, famed for its take-it-or-leave-it, daily-changing, market-driven set menus and championing edgy natural wines. Expect a similar approach in London where he’ll make use of British produce but won’t be afraid to throw in the odd exotic combination such as sweetbreads, pomelo and green pepper. @lechabanais JW

8: Belfast’s food scene

Until recently, outside of Northern Ireland, there was probably more awareness of Boney M’s cheesy 1977 hit Belfast than of the city’s food and drink scene. But record-breaking success in last year’s Great Taste Awards (with 264 products from Northern Ireland food companies recognised) combined with an increasingly confident restaurant scene has changed that. St George’s Market in the city centre showcases the quality artisan produce – such as Hannan’s beef dry-aged in the world’s largest Himalayan salt chamber – that’s been inspiring chefs such as Ox’s Stephen Toman, who has been exciting British and Irish critics with dishes such as Skeaghanore duck, parsley root, chestnut, coffee and chicory, built on local provenance. JW

9: Serragghia wine

A tiny island off the coast of Tunisia is the unlikely source of this extraordinary wine, which is gaining a cult following in the UK. Ten years ago, a Milanese architect named Gabrio Bini started harvesting zibibbo grapes on Pantelleria, which forms part of Sicily. Grown from volcanic soil and tended manually, with the help of a horse, the grapes are left to ferment in giant amphorae half-buried in the ground. The wine, which can be found in shops and restaurants around London, including Noble Fine Liquor on Broadway Market (the label is an arrow pointing upwards), is extraordinary. Start with the complex, intensely mineral white, then move on to the fragrant, rosé-like fanino. serragghia.it KF

10: £30 lunch at Fera

Fera was a gamble, both for chef Simon Rogan, who forged his cooking style in the wilds of Cumbria, and Claridge’s, which brought him in to revive one of London’s landmark rooms. After a slow start – critics didn’t give it an easy run – Rogan’s operation now feels more assured and, thanks to a new set lunch menu, accessible too. At £30 for three courses, this is superb value for such a high standard of cooking – the smoked bantam yolk with salt-baked kohlrabi was a standout from our meal – and you get the full Claridge’s experience without the extravagant price-tag. KF

11: Jubilee and Cherry Bombe

In 2013, magazine veterans Kerry Diamond and Claudia Wu, former colleagues at Harper’s Bazaar in New York, spotted a need. “Women in the culinary sphere just don’t get the same kind of exposure or have the same kind of network that men do, plain and simple,” says Diamond. So the pair launched Cherry Bombe, a smart biannual magazine filled solely with stories about women in food, to which they have since added a podcast and an annual event called Jubilee. The first gathering in 2014 featured crucial American restaurant figures such as April Bloomfield, Christina Tosi and Gabrielle Hamilton, with Alice Waters making a surprise appearance. The second takes place in New York on 29 March. “We’re still small and scrappy,” adds Diamond, “but small and scrappy with a purpose.” M-CL

12: Fish sauce wings at Smoking Goat

Smoking Goat is a tiny Thai restaurant on Denmark Street in central London, a small place with a short menu of star dishes. The standout has to be the chicken wings. In a stroke of genius – and a nod to Portland, Oregon’s Pok Pok – they come coated in sticky, salty fish sauce, which gives the succulent meat an unexpected umami kick. Get there early, a stool at the bar and order a plate (or two) with a beer and a green papaya salad on the side. KF

13: State Bird Provisions

With its peg-board walls and furniture, its grungily dressed staff and the rotating trolleys offering daily specials dim-sum-style, San Francisco’s State Bird Provisions is far removed from the traditional fine dining template. On paper, none of this should work, but it does in spades: the meal I had here a few months ago is among the best I’ve eaten in years. The cooking is creative without being tortured, delicious without being safe, a constantly evolving thrill-ride. Flavours are huge, intense; ingredients are the Bay Area’s finest. The perfect antidote to the restaurant fan who thinks they’ve seen it all, it’s so popular that reservations fell prey to hackers and scalpers. Now chef-owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski have opened a sibling, the Progress. I’m trying to score a booking as I write. MO’L

14: The Gannet website

If you ever feel the urge to rummage around other people’s homes, you’ll be intrigued by this website. Launched earlier this year, by a team that includes OFM writer Killian Fox, the Gannet visits food obsessives in different countries – an American restaurant critic in Paris, a Vietnamese chef in London – and asks them to cook a favourite dish. Each encounter reveals what ingredients they use, which cookbooks they swear by and where they like to shop and eat. A bit like interiors-based website the Selby but for people who never leave the kitchen. thegannet.com GG

15: Peppermongers’ Sichuan pepper

Sichuan pepper, commonly known in Chinese as “flower pepper”, is one of the signature spices of Sichuanese cooking, prized not for its heat but for its cool, lip-tingling sensation and citrussy fragrance. Until recently, it was hard to find consistently zingy Sichuan pepper in the UK, but Tom Alcott and Pete Gibbons are doing their best to change that. Their company, Peppermongers, seeks out the stuff that actually makes your lips tingle, selling it alongside a range of other peppery spices. “People love the zing and the zest of it,” says Alcott. “If they’ve never tasted it before, it catches them completely by surprise.” Use Sichuan flower pepper in stews and stir-fries, or dry-roast in a wok and then grind to a fine powder to use as a sprinkle or a magic ingredient in sauces and dressings. FD

16: Isabel Soares’s fruita feia

In the world of large-scale supermarkets, pretty produce rules. In Portugal alone this means 30% of fruit and vegetables grown by suppliers never makes it to the store. Isabel Soares, a renewable energy consultant from Lisbon, decided last year to turn this unsightly reality into an opportunity. Fruta Feia – “ugly fruit” – buys rejected produce direct from supermarket suppliers and sells it at a low price in Lisbon. “We kick-started one year ago with 100 associated consumers,” says Soares, “and now we’re 500 people every week eating fruits and vegetables that otherwise would go to waste.” In the summer, the scheme will expand to Porto. So far, Soares estimates, they have distributed more than 80 tonnes of ugly produce, attracting the attention of Jamie Oliver and his team, with similar schemes sprouting up in other countries. frutafeia.pt/en M-CL

17: The Dairy and The Manor’s Robin Gill

You’d never know it to look at him, but baby-faced Robin Gill is already a grizzled veteran at the age of 35. He learned the cheffing ropes under such grandees as Marco Pierre White at the Oak Room and Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons; chuck in later stints at the likes of Restaurant Frantzen in Stockholm and Noma in Copenhagen, and you’re talking a cook with impeccable classical training and a distinctly modern bent. In mid-2013, Gill opened the Dairy and, while his exhilarating take on the modern bistro is certainly seasonal and British (his menu features herbs, veg and even honey from the rooftop garden), the likes of “chicken oyster, crispy skin, cellar kimchi, burnt kale” and “Cornish crab, pear, cavolo nero, chestnut” are anything but traditional. Last December, Gill repeated the trick when he opened the Manor up the road, complete with a brilliantly bonkers dessert bar run by Fera’s ex-pastry chef, and there are plans afoot for a bakery and deli. If he carries on at this rate, Gill will soon be to Clapham what Rick Stein is to Padstow. BG

18: Soho’s Bar Termini

The brainchild of booze maestro Tony Conigliaro and Illy’s coffee guru Marco Arrigo, this minuscule Soho bar (it seats just 25) opened at the end of 2014. They serve from breakfast to late, but it’s in the evening where the real action takes place: cocktails start from £6.50 for one of three house negronis and hit the heady heights of £8 for a martini or bellini, which in this neck of town is a steal; decent hams and cheeses as bar snacks, too. Best of all, perhaps, you can pop in any time for a proper espresso at the bar and it’ll set you back all of a quid. Yes, you read that right: one pound! (Costa, Nero, Pret and the rest, please take note.) Every high street should have one. BG

19: Adeline Grattard’s yam’Tcha

The last five years in Paris would have been unbearable without chef Adeline Grattard’s bite-sized Franco-Chinois eatery yam’Tcha serving light and refined cooking that elevated flavours from across continents without ever muting them: mainly teas were suggested to accompany the tasting menus. Now it’s turned into an exceptional tea house, selling her husband Chi Wa’s rare yet accessible selection of teas plus Grattard’s freshly steamed bao buns as take-away only. These light, airy buns are filled with smoked tofu, shiitake, coriander or crevettes gauchoi, or even Stilton with Amarena cherries. “We will keep this place as a tea boutique, and should our new and bigger restaurant adventure in Rue Saint-Honoré fail altogether, we can always escape back here to our little base camp,” laughs Grattard. “Meanwhile, I’ll turn my attention to a small variety of bao buns.” Grattard was formerly one of the very few long-standing chefs in the confined but open-minded kitchen at L’Astrance, headed by hyperactive Pascal Barbot. She also spent two years in Hong Kong. “I love cooking with the delicate flavours and perfumes of Chinese cuisine,” she says, “though I really avoid the pungent fermented ones.” Bringing together sharp technique and unusually fragrant combinations is what Paris is expecting from the new yam’Tcha: due to open at 121 rue Saint-Honoré in the first week of April. MK

20: Kidneys at Barrafina

At the world and his wife’s favourite opening of 2014, you won’t go far wrong with crab toast, croquetas, pinchos and basically everything else on Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s brilliant menu, but it’s the milk-fed lambs’ kidneys you’ll come back for again and again. Not least because watching from the counter bar as they’re cooked to order is way sexier than anything going on up the road in Soho. It’s also an object lesson in knowing when to leave stellar produce well alone. Take a couple of kidneys with a healthy layer of their suet attached. Put on a tray. Sprinkle with salt. Whack under the Josper grill for a few minutes. Turn, salt, back under the grill for a minute or two. Transfer to a mini-griddle warmed by hot coals, a pinch more salt… That’s it! All smoky and salty and rich, with that tangy, metallic hit you get from only the freshest offal. BG

21: Dim sum at Imperial China, Teddington

It’s in the arse end of Terry & June-ville, it’s not much of a looker – gaudy black lacquer and frilly gold upholstery – but this seemingly bog-standard suburban Chinese serves dim sum to rival more lauded joints up west. The usual suspects – har gau, curry buns, bean curd rolls, roast pork puffs, cheung fung – all put in an appearance, but they stand out here for their delicacy and the care taken in their preparation, as do the daily specials, from jellyfish salad to deep-fried soft-shell crab. Seafood is a real speciality, both on the dim sum and regular menus. Don’t just take my word for it, though: I recently had lunch here with one of the country’s leading fish cooks. His verdict? “The best Chinese I’ve ever had in England.” imperialchinalondon.co.uk BG

22: Fine wine by the glass

Until very recently, if you wanted to try a rare or old fine wine in a restaurant, you had to shell out a few hundred quid or more for a whole bottle. But the arrival in the past year of the Coravin, a gizmo that lets sommeliers extract a glass of wine from a bottle without opening it or spoiling the remains, has made by-the-glass ranges, particularly in London, a whole lot more interesting. Farringdon’s Quality Chop House and Avenue in St James’s were among the first to get their hands on a Coravin, and their old and rare selections are worth a trip in themselves. DW

23: Carlos Yescas

Five years ago, Mexican native Carlos Yescas was employed by the United Nations as a migration and development expert. His task? Developing job opportunities for those who might otherwise decide migration was their best bet, despite the possible dangers. As he began to “understand the complexities of migration for communities that are disenfranchised at home and abroad”, he resolved to make a direct impact on people’s lives.

So Yescas founded the Mexican Institute for Cheese, his cheese distribution company, Lactography, and its retail outlet Queso Store in 2011 with his sister Georgina Yestru. The mission is to “promote Mexican cheeses in Mexico and abroad, support local cheesemakers, and educate the consumer about traditional Mexican cheese”. Being a self-described “cheese nerd” might seem a long way from the UN but for Yescas there are parallels. “I figured I could do the same work I was doing at the UN by ensuring that cheese makers in Mexico had a place to distribute their cheese. This gives them the option not to migrate and ensures that the traditions they’re preserving endure.” Today, the company sells more than 60 cheeses, including some that had almost disappeared, such the tangy Corazón de Mantequilla, while at the same time providing opportunities for local families who until recently considered migration their only option. @lactography JE

24: Wines from the eastern Mediterranean

With the trend for eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food showing no sign of dropping off, wines from the region, natural partners for the mix of freshness and spice in Lebanese or Persian dishes, are increasingly turning up on restaurant lists. The quality of Greek whites and spicy Lebanese reds has never been higher, but Cyprus and Turkey are also worth a look. Oddbins, M&S and London merchants Theatre of Wine and Berry Bros & Rudd are among the best stockists. DW

25: Tomos Parry and Kitty Fisher’s

After winning the prize for best chef at the 2014 Young British Foodie awards, it was unlikely that 29-year-old Tomos Parry would be held for too much longer by the visionary but grungey Climpson’s Arch in east London (currently home to Som Saa from Andy Oliver, another great cook). To everyone’s surprise, he’s moved off the hipster grid to Mayfair, to tiny Kitty Fisher’s, rattling the fustiness of that manor with his bravura use of charcoal and a specially designed grill (based on the one at Spain’s revered Asador Etxebarri) on ingredients such as beef from Galician milking cows. It’s already booked months in advance with critics falling over themselves to dish out the plaudits. Not just one to watch, but one to follow slavishly. MO’L

26: The Herdwick shepherd

James Rebanks – @herdyshepherd1 – admits that he had “absolutely no interest in Twitter whatsoever”, and it was only after friends challenged him that he sent his first tweet out into the world in January 2012 (a picture of his Herdwick ewes). The response – a flurry of favourites and followers (he now has 38,000 and counting) – left him completely baffled but secretly delighted. Rebanks and his family have lived and worked in the Lake District for generations. Now he’s written a book, The Shepherd’s Life, a memoir that tells the story of his grandfather and father, and the land they work, by following the course of a shepherd’s year. It’s an absorbing, often funny, and beautifully written evocation of the landscape that is so much a part of Rebanks’s life and who he is. It’s also a different Lake District to that of Wordsworth and Wainwright – and a testament to the importance of maintaining a connection to the land. “I didn’t set out to be any kind of spokesperson,” he says. “The book and Twitter are my way of trying to share what we do with other people, and helping them to understand and respect it. We need to think more about the people [who live] in the landscapes we love.” The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District (Allen Lane) is out next month SM

27: Austin, Texas

The Texas state capital’s vibrant food truck scene nurtured the phenomenon that is Franklin Barbecue, which has been putting the queue into barbecue at permanent premises since 2011. With its own dedicated Twitter feed the line of meat pilgrims starts forming as early as 8am (they open at 11am) to sample Aaron Franklin’s way with brisket, ribs and pulled pork. Current truck stars include The Peached Tortilla (Asian-meets-Southern sliders and tacos) and Gourdough’s (doughnuts pimped with the likes of fried chicken and honey butter). Then there’s the local craft beer on show at Craft Pride, and the laid back cool of dining rooms such as Tyson Cole’s award-winning Japanese-inspired Uchi. JW

28: Bart van Olphsen, Instagram chef

Instagram isn’t all overhead shots of people’s dinner: Bart Van Olphsen – cookbook author, ex-fish trader and sustainability champion – has an account dedicated to super-short cookery videos. The social network’s 15-second restriction on videos might seem limiting, but Bart’s Fish Tales range from practical pointers (how to panfry a fish fillet) to rapid-fire recipes (trout meunière). It’s all about inspiring people to cook fish: as Van Olphsen says, “It’s very easy. You do as little as possible to get the most out of a decent product.” @bartsfishtales SM

29: Les Thés de Constance

Constance Braud’s company, which has been operating on a small scale since 2008, mostly sources leaves from China producing some fantastic smoked teas, greens, whites and oolongs. In Paris last October we picked up a packet of her Qimen Mao Feng black tea – notes of chocolate and chestnut – and were immediately hooked. But you don’t have to get on the Eurostar to try it: the full range is available from lesthesdeconstance.com. KF

30: Wormwood’s lobster cous cous

A dish so delicious that one of the Notting Hill restaurant’s regulars orders it every Monday, and for whichever of his friends is lucky enough to be dining with him that night. Delicate cous cous, fragrant with toasted almonds and confit lemons, sits in a clean white bowl into which is placed lobster tails and stunning shellfish bisque. “You must have it, declared the Observer’s Jay Rayner . He’s not wrong. GG

31: Hog by Richard Turner

Richard Turner, who has just written a definitive guide to one of the “best-tasting, most popular and versatile” meats in the world, knows a lot about pigs. If it has four legs and has been served at a high-end London restaurant in recent years, chances are Turner – executive chef at Hawksmoor and Foxlow, and the power behind Pitt Cue Co and Islington butcher Turner and George – has had something to do with it. This book displays the breadth of his knowledge – it has in-depth guides to breeds and cuts – as well as the extraordinary range of things you can do with a hog. Starting with a recipe for whole suckling pig, it goes on to explain how every part of the animal can be cooked, cured or smoked. Hog has geographical scope too, recreating recipes from India (Goan pork vindaloo), Canada (pig’s head poutine) and the Deep South, spiritual home of pulled pork. “By understanding the whole picture we can all make informed decisions about what we consume,” says Turner. “If we consume the best pork we’ll enjoy it all the more.” KF

32: Clare Smyth

In a smart side street in Chelsea a discreet revolution has taken place. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, the flagship of a global empire fronted by the famously shouty chef, has become quietly brilliant under the careful eye of chef patron Clare Smyth. She wouldn’t thank you for saying the food has been feminised. It hasn’t. But for a business built on pop-eyed boasting the understated elegance is still something of a shock. The room has been retooled, the dress code relaxed. The gaudier dishes have been calmed or lost, the menu is lighter, brighter. It is still rooted in Frenchified fine dining – this is a serious Michelin restaurant after all – but Smyth’s cuisine is unapologetically modern. The stealth isn’t about false modesty, Smyth is sure of her ability: the first women to run a three-star restaurant in the UK, scorer of a perfect 10 in last year’s Good Food Guide. Apart from a stint at Alain Ducasse’s Le Louis XV in Monaco, she has worked at Royal Hospital Road since 2002. Would Smyth be better appreciated if she had left to build her own brand like former colleagues Jason Atherton, Angela Hartnett, Marcus Wareing or if she was, say, a Blumenthal, a Roux, a Ramsay (ie, a man)? Even, whisper it, if there was another name on the door? With a team and cooking of this quality, a packed room of contented clients – the set lunch is a steal – why would she care? AJ

33: Nicole Pisani

When Nopi head chef Nicole Pisani recently left her job, it wasn’t to go to another restaurant, but to run the kitchen at Gayhurst Community School in Hackney, where the six kitchen staff make lunch for 550 children and staff. It’s early days, so Pisani is continuing to cook the school caterer Ashlyns’ menus, while trialling new dishes and holding tasting sessions. They’ve done a lot already Pisani says, and executive headteacher Louise Nichols has been “amazing, but the best bit is talking to the kids. The things I thought they wouldn’t like they like, and vice versa” (couscous with chickpeas, turmeric and fresh herbs gets a thumbs up). “It’s been good. It’s totally different.” SM

34: Bone broth

One of the more recent food trends sounds quite familiar. Bone broth, made by boiling bones, meat and sundry herbs and spices for up to 48 hours, is essentially stock, but made fashionable in the US by being sold in cups from New York’s Brodo and Portland’s Jola Cafe, among others. Wise to its origins, Brodo’s Marco Canora markets his beef and chicken broths as “the world’s first comfort food”. And in a sign that things might already be getting out of hand, bone broth is linked to a fad diet (followers of the Paleo diet are especially keen) and there’s a pet food spin-off, aimed at presumably outrageously pampered cats. It’s yet to take off to the same extent in the UK, though food writers Hemsley and Hemsley have a recipe as well as tote bags emblazoned with the slogan “boil your bones”, and Scottish game suppliers turned London restaurateurs Wild Game Co added it to their menu last month. Failing that, there’s always a trip to the butcher. MF

35: Lab-grown produce

Eggs, milk, meat – standard items on the weekly shopping list. But if a growing number of start-ups have their way, such staples could become pin-ups for food of a new provenance, and one that couldn’t be further from the organic farms beloved of chefs: the lab.

“Livestock production is one of the more damaging ways to produce foods,” explains Isha Datar, citing industrial farming’s contribution to climate change, as well as issues of animal welfare. As director of the charity New Harvest, Datar works to connect and rally those exploring all manner of alternatives to conventional, mass-produced animal products.

Some businesses are already producing alternatives using plants. Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo is egg-free, made with pea proteins, is already a hit in the US and will soon be on sale in Tesco. Others are exploring ways to create products identical to those we currently eat, but without the environmental concerns. Brooklyn-based Modern Meadow is developing a lab-grown source of meat and Muufri, in San Francisco, produces milk with nary an udder in sight, employing a genetically modified yeast to churn out the necessary milk proteins. As a co-founder of Muufri, Datar believes the milk could reach US shelves around the end of next year – and she is not alone in her optimism. Professor Mark Post (of the headline grabbing “in vitro” hamburger) is confident that lab-grown meat will be on sale within the next five to seven years, regulations permitting. His current project is to try and make a steak. It’s a major challenge given obstacles surrounding oxygen and nutrient supply to the tissue. “Once you have done that,” says Post, “you can basically make anything you want.” ND

36: The return of Jeremiah Tower

Chef Jeremiah Tower is working hard to disprove F Scott Fitzgerald’s dictum that there are no second acts in American life. Now in his early 70s, he should, by rights, be a mere memory. His glory days at his 80s restaurant Stars in San Francisco, where arguably he codified Italian-Californian food, should be the most remarkable thing about him. Instead he is sitting, on a banquette at the Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park, ever the silver-haired east coast patrician, wearing lightly stained chef’s whites. Tower is cooking again.

“It’s all Pierre Koffmann’s fault,” he says, in a break from service. “I was at René Redzepi’s MAD symposium in Copenhagen last summer and Pierre was there.” One day there was a massive chef’s barbecue involving two pigs. “Pierre is in his late 60s yet he jumped in to lead the team. When I asked him why he was working so hard, he said, ‘come on Jeremiah get off your arse and do something.’”

Tower agrees that he had indeed been sitting on his arse for quite a few years, in Mexico where he had retired to renovate houses. “And then this job came up. Nothing else would have got me off that beach in the Caribbean.” The 600-plus seater Tavern on the Green, which first opened in 1934, had fallen on hard times before being reopened last year by a new team. One head chef came and went, and then Tower answered the call.

I ask if he’s prepared to be thrust into the celeb-chef limelight. After all, the world has moved on since he was last in the kitchen. “I created the star chef system,” he says. “So I’m used to that sort of attention.” It’s a typically grandiose statement, but probably true. Long before the Food Network was inventing culinary stars, Tower was a poster boy for high-end cooking, his image featured everywhere from the San Francisco Chronicle to the glossier spreads of Gourmet magazine, his chefs’ whites always pristine, a glass of champagne always in hand. A self-taught, Harvard-educated cook from a well-to-do east coast family he rolled up at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California in the early 70s. Displaying his acute knowledge of the classic French food they were hoping to serve, he had within a year become its head chef. He left in 1978 and in 1984 opened Stars.

A menu from the early 90s shows dishes carefully hinged between the luxurious and the rustic. There were wood-oven roasted chanterelles and roast duck breast with truffled parsnip puree. So will the food at his Tavern be Tower’s greatest hits? “No, I’m doing food that people can eat every day,” he says. “It will be healthy and vital.” There’s classic iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, a rib-eye sandwich, grilled yellow fin tuna and braised lamb with fresh mint salsa verde. What about the critical reception? “For me, I don’t care. For the restaurant, I care a lot.” And will he actually be cooking? He looks horrified. “Of course.” There’s a brigade of 45. Someone needs to lead them, and Tower is the man for the job. JR

37: John Broadley

In an age of solemn menus listing where every ingredient lived and died, John Broadley’s idiosyncratic work for Quo Vadis is to be treasured. This is no one-off Hockney menu for Peter Langan, Broadley’s illustrations change constantly and are often laced with playful menace. “There is no shying away from the fact that a lot of these things are shot,” he says. Chef Jeremy Lee sends him a list of what is coming up: wild garlic, say, or game birds, and Broadley lets his imagination run riot. Humpty Dumpty eggs on the breakfast menu, bare-knuckle boxers with steaks for black eyes on the à la carte, a cat that’s got the cream for pudding. A recent Valentine menu featured a gangland massacre. “I draw what I want to draw,” says Broadley, “and sneak some food in there. There is a logic to it.” AJ

38: Pressed duck (and lobster) at Otto’s

At a time when everything is kimchi this and fermentation that, there’s still a place for old-school pampering. And few do that better than Otto Tepassé. The napery at his eponymous restaurant is starched within an inch of its life, the wine list features grand crus you’ve only ever read about and Otto mine-hosts with the best of them. His pièce de résistance, however, transports you way back to French cuisine’s late-19th-century heyday: the duck press looks the sort of thing that would have Vlad the Impaler licking his lips, but its purpose is pure culinary pleasure. Your duck is roasted rare, then, tableside, Otto carves off the breasts and legs. The carcass is scrunched in the gleaming screw-press, and the blood-rich juices mixed with wine and cognac, thickened with the bird’s liver and poured over thinly sliced breast (the legs come back grilled as the next course). So far, so Escoffier, but Otto recently upped the ante with an even more ancient lobster press. I’ve been saving up for a return visit ever since. ottos-restaurant.com BG

39: Caramel custard and honeycomb doughnut

Borough Market’s Bread Ahead is the first stop on any London doughnut pilgrimage; unsurprising as Justin Gellatly is the man behind the bakery’s pillow-like creations. There’s a range of flavours but the caramel custard and honeycomb remains the one to sharpen your elbows for. The cherry on top of the cake (OK, doughnut) is a sea salt honeycomb shard topping, a perfect foil to the rich filling. breadahead.com SM

40: Mikkeller’s Book of Beer

A key text for beer lovers, co-written by Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, founder of the revered Copenhagen microbrewery of the same name. More than mere handbook for the would be small brewer, it’s also part memoir, capturing some of the relentlessly competitive edge that led to Mikkel falling out with his twin brother and rival brewer Jeppe. Not to mention Mikkeller being probably the only brewer with its own international running club (there are chapters in London, Barcelona and São Paulo). Jacqui Small, £20 GG

41: Mast Brothers come to London

Buying Mast Brothers chocolate in the UK has always felt like getting your hands on precious contraband. One British chocolatier liked their bars so much he would carry them back from New York in a suitcase to sell in his London shops. Now we can buy direct from the source: the Iowan brothers Rick and Michael Mast have just opened an impressive new premises on Redchurch Street in east London, their first outside Brooklyn. “It’s a full-on chocolate factory,” says Rick. “We’re making chocolate from bean to bar onsite. You can see it all happening when you go in.” As well as branching out, they’re expanding their range. “We’re debuting our first line of chocolate confections,” says Mast. “We’ve been doing it sort of casually in Brooklyn, putting out a few bonbons and pastries here and there, but this is our first complete collection: small chocolates with various ganaches made with single-origin, single-estate cocoa beans.” They’ll be making these fresh in Redchurch Street. The 2,000 sq ft site also features a brew bar selling hot and cold chocolate drinks. No need to carry that extra suitcase next time you go to New York. mastbrothers.com KF

42: Man in the Maze

This seven-minute documentary, which premiered at the Sundance film festival in January, reveals how a rural community in southern Arizona is rising up against a broken food system and rebuilding it from the bottom up. Welcome to the US border town of Nogales, home to the largest fresh-produce gateway into the US – a Big Food superhighway where convoys of vast trucks roll in from Mexico, sometimes dumping mountains of crops into landfill if, for example, the price of Florida tomatoes suddenly drops. This is an area of rich biodiversity and yet diabetes and unemployment rates are high, and one in five people are food insecure. Since people started reconnecting with the land and each other, more than 18m kilograms of jettisoned produce are being rescued and redistributed locally each season. A 220-acre, community-supported organic farm is thriving, along with smaller market gardens and domestic veg patches. Seismic shifts can happen. AF

43: The Real Junk Food Project

Where your local restaurant or supermarket sees food waste, the Real Junk Food Project sees a meal. It was set up 18 months ago by Yorkshire-based chef Adam Smith who couldn’t accept the fact that, according to the charity Wrap, food distribution and retail generates 4.3m tonnes of food waste in the UK a year, some of it due to overly cautious best-before dates. Smith began rescuing produce from farms, wholesalers, supermarkets and restaurants and redistributing it in a cafe in Leeds, which operates a “pay as you feel” basis,. The idea has since taken off. There are now 13 cafes around the country, with plans for many more, according to the project’s co-director Sam Joseph, who started a cafe of his own in Bristol called Skipchen. (The menu, on the day we talked, included goulash, pea-and-ham soup and turkey curry.) “We want to bring a positive debate around why a bottle of milk is fine at 11.59pm and poisonous at 12.01,” says Joseph. therealjunkfoodproject.co.uk KF

44: Fat Cow festival

In northern Italy, fat cows are revered. The hulking Piedmontese cow has its own festival and museum in Carrù. December’s Fiera del Bue Grasso is a bovine beauty show where restaurants and breeders bid to buy the top beasts. It is the start of bollito misto season – the gelatinous flesh you won’t recognise will be its boiled “face”. With luck there will still be white truffles to be eaten in Enrico Crippa’s relaxed La Piola in Alba or upstairs in his smarter three-Michelin star Piazza Duomo. AJ

45: Craft cider

American cider sales have jumped 400% over the past five years, with craft producers leading the way. UK cider has an image problem that can’t all be blamed on the Wurzels. Commercially produced British cider can be as little as 30% juice and packed with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, colourings and chemicals. Producers of quality ciders, such as Orchard Pig, Hogan’s, Sandford Orchards and Armagh are not in short supply. If what happened with craft beer is any indication, craft cider will soon be making the jump from specialist outlets, such the Cider Tap in London and the Apple in Bristol, to a supermarket near you. JW

46: Osaka, Japan

With even the Gallic chauvinists at the Michelin Guide accepting Tokyo outshines Paris, the focus tends to be on the frenetic Japanese capital and the more traditional charms of Kyoto. But there’s a case to be made for Osaka, the country’s second largest city, as modern Japan’s real food capital. It’s famed for takoyaki (battered octopus balls), okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes), udon noodles, oshizushi (pressed sushi), and as the birthplace of conveyor belt sushi. Osaka’s Dōtonbori district is a Disneyland of food, where the restaurant signage includes a giant mechanical crab, a blowfish the size of a hot air balloon and a giant squid that puffs steam. JW

47: Savage Salads

Come 1pm, it’s normal to see hungry workers snake down Berwick Street in Soho, patiently waiting to buy lunch from one of the food stalls lining the road. What is surprising is that the longest queue isn’t for a burger or a burrito, but salad. When you finally make it to the front of Savage Salads, you can see why: £5 gets you a lunchbox filled with halloumi or chicken, or a bit of both , and a choice of four colourful salads (these change according to what’s in season, but you might find cabbage slaw with kale and orange dressing, or roast beetroot and quinoa). “We wanted to make salads that weren’t just leaves and tomato and sweetcorn. It’s something you can eat every day and feel good,” co-founder Kristina Gustafsson says. savagesalads.co.uk SM

48: Mr Vikki’s hot banana habanero

This distinctive chutney – an inspired combination of banana, root ginger and habanero, with a hint of lime – has been adding an extra dimension to our curries all year. The producer, Adam Marks from Cumbria, is a self-confessed chilli addict (he also makes infernal concoctions with super-hot naga peppers) but here the heat levels are more manageable. It’s versatile too: the sweetness of the banana and the subtlety of the habanero mean it’s a great accompaniment to cheese and cold meats. mrvikkis.co.uk KF

49: Gastronomic sabbaticals

Following on from René Redzepi taking the Noma team to Tokyo’s Mandarin Oriental for a busman’s holiday, another cutting-edge Scandinavian chef, Magnus Nilsson of Fäviken, has decided to close his restaurant, Fäviken, in Järpen, Sweden, for 20 weeks a year. Adhering to old adages about change being good and travel broadening the mind, starting this year, from 28 February until 1 July, Nilsson and five members of his team are exploring other projects, fully paid. Plans confirmed so far include travelling to Thailand to live with a family, staying at Fäviken to work in the gardens, and moving to a Finnish monastery to paint religious icons. JW

50: Loco’l’s fast food revolution

You know the fast food business is changing when McDonald’s announce a 15% drop in profits. As younger, better informed diners switch to the relative freshness and variety on offer at Chipotle or Nando’s, it’s an ideal time for some of America’s best cooks to attempt to transform the industry completely. “Fast food with real ingredients” is the mantra of Loco’l, set up by street food guru Roy Choi and two-Michelin-starred chef Daniel Patterson. Their mission is to alter eating habits by offering a delicious burger for 99 cents, in a bun created by Tartine’s Chad Robertson, rather than banging on about kale. The first two restaurants open in Los Angeles and San Francisco later this year. GG