In this edition of Observer Food Weekly: Sam Grainger on food aversions, Anna Hedworth on fabulous ferments, plus our eating and drinking tips for the week ahead View in browser Hold the eggs Sam Grainger on food aversions, Anna Hedworth on fabulous ferments, plus our eating and drinking tips for the week ahead Sponsored by Killian Fox • Friday 8 August 2025 Dear friend, What can't you eat, even to be polite?   It's a great question, the answers to which – as someone who used to have a whole encyclopaedia of food aversions, but now has just one or two – I find endlessly fascinating. Innards or eyeballs are understandable enough, but what causes people to feel so strongly about broccoli, say, that they'd rather risk social death than pop a floret in their mouth?   In our Q&A with Sam Grainger this week, the Manchester-based chef draws the line at poached eggs. His reason is simple: he can't stand the smell of the pan afterwards. He has the same issue with octopus. I'm with him on both counts, though my reasons for the latter vary. But if poached eggs are bad, then surely a hard-boiled egg with its overpowering sulphuric stench and deathly pallid interior is far, far worse?   Or maybe that's just me.   That question aside, we've done our best to keep this week's newsletter as appetising as possible, beginning with Anna Hedworth's advice to enliven aiolis and grilled cheese sandwiches with glorious, funky kimchi. And who can resist the "silken tang of confit garlic-spiked labneh with warm, fluffy pita" which Joanna Taylor describes in her restaurant write-up? Or a plummy dark chocolate bar from one of the world's great chocolatiers? Or, for that matter, a classic citrussy beer that has outlasted many of its flashier rivals?   May your week ahead be free from traumatic food encounters, and thanks for reading. A message from Inspired by Nutella's limited edition jars showcasing sunrise spots around the UK and Ireland, discover the six best places to eat your breakfast in the great outdoors this summer. From a pebble beach in Cornwall and a lovely loch in the Scottish Highlands, to the perfect place to perch in the Lake District, seize the day this summer with a spot of dawn dining. Plus, find six breakfast recipe suggestions from Nutella. Click here to read more → Read Pinot noir is transforming the red wines of Germany Click here to read more → Anna Hedworth's secret ingredient: kimchi When we first opened Cook House, we were getting amazing cauliflowers from the farm opposite with huge leaves on them and it seemed terrible to be putting them on the compost heap. So we started making mountains of kimchi with all the excess leaves (also beetroot leaves and outside cabbage leaves) and our customers are now obsessed with it.   We use kimchi in all sorts of things: served straight as a snack at the start of the meal; chopped up and added to aioli to make a brilliant dip for anything fried or barbecued; mixed with butter to go with steak. At home, I often add it to a grilled cheese sandwich. And whenever there's juice left over, we make a bloody mary out of it at the bar.   To make kimchi, we massage the leaves with salt and then leave them for a day or two at room temperature to draw out the moisture. Then we make a dressing with ginger, chilli, garlic, spices and vinegar, mix it with the leaves, and let it sit at room temperature for another couple of days, so it's got a bit of a funk to it. If you don't have time to do this at home, you can buy it pretty much everywhere these days – I'll get it often from the Chinese supermarket, but it's in Tesco too.   At the moment we're adding kimchi to a reduced cream sauce with chicken stock and pouring it over the top of a pork chop when it comes off the barbecue. It's so good, I'm getting quite hungry just thinking of it. Anna Hedworth is chef-owner of Cook House in Newcastle and author of Service: One Day in a Restaurant, 150 Recipes Say we sent you Tabure, St Albans Joanna Taylor     If you live in a commuter hub, when it comes to seeking out great restaurants it can be all too easy to forget about your immediate surroundings and fall into the well-trodden trap of going into town. Yet, sitting among the various mega-chains servicing St Albans is a restaurant which demands a sense of occasion — one you don't simply rock up to, but travel for.   Delivering bold flavours with precise, gentle cooking, Tabure has been winning over locals with its comforting, contemporary mish-mash of Mediterranean and broadly Asian flavours for more than a decade, but it still maintains the same thrill as a polished new inner-city opening. (Two more have since appeared in Berkhamsted and Harpenden.)   Begin by scooping up the silken tang of confit garlic-spiked labneh with warm, fluffy pita, then cut through the creaminess with glistening chunks of smoky merguez sausage and king prawns in chilli butter. Save room for plump, carefully baked cod set on a glossy, warming bed of lightly spiced sauteed onions, tomatoes, peppers and chickpeas – or the chicken kofte stuffed with apricot, olives and barberries and served in tarragon sauce with crispy potatoes. And don't leave without trying the fudgey helva and chocolate brownie topped with sour cherry ice-cream. Beware, though: one between two may cause a rift. Tabure, 6 Spencer St, St Albans AL3 5EG What does happiness taste like? …with Sam Grainger. Interview by Tony Naylor. What is one dish you haven't eaten but should have by now? It's more Lancashire, but since I moved to Manchester, it's bugging me that I've never eaten a butter pie. I'm intrigued. What is the best ingredient? Shallots. They're a good versatile building block for everything. They make a salad amazing. Pickled, they're fantastic. White onions can do one a bit. Shallots: perfect. What can't you eat even to be polite? Poached eggs. The smell of a poached egg pan! I'll eat eggs any other way, but poached eggs and octopus (again, the smell), I won't touch. Is there one dish you just can't cook? It's always Italian. Me and Italian aren't mates. I always mess up cacio e pepe. What's the one dish you've cooked most in your life? My mum's tuna pasta bake. I haven't lived back home in Liverpool for a long time and that dish is a safe place. I can never get it the same and it really annoys me. Mum won't tell me what she does differently. She wants something I'll still go home for. She's said that openly. What's your most memorable kitchen battle scar? I've got a lovely scar in the webbing between my thumb and finger. I got cocky as a young man cooking in Australia. I thought I could open an oyster with a boning knife, not an oyster knife, and put it straight through my hand. Eight stitches. All your nerves sit in that bit, so you can paralyse your hand. What is your preferred 3am snack? Fried rice. You know the microwavable packets of plain rice? They're the best to make fried rice with. Couple of them and whatever is in that fridge. What does happiness taste like? Eating something you know will evoke a good memory for years after. The kind where you smell something similar and it triggers, "woah, do you remember that dish, in that place?" Recently, me and my partner were walking around Manchester's Chinatown. I got the biggest kick of fish sauce from somewhere and, immediately, I was like, "Remember that fish salad we had in Thailand? Let's go and make that." Chef Sam Grainger is co-owner of Liverpool's Belzan and the Madre restaurants in northern England. We love… Noalya chocolate bars Killian Fox As cocoa prices soar and my consumption falls, I want to be certain that, whenever I do splash out on good chocolate, it's REALLY good. So I was apprehensive when I went into William Curley's central London shop and paid £9 for a 70g bar of Madagascan chocolate by Noalya, a Tuscan brand I'd never heard of before. I needn't have worried. Noalya is the creation of Alessio Tessieri, who co-founded an old favourite chocolate-maker of mine, Amedei, which is now corporate-run. Tessieri is a true obsessive, working on his own terms, and it shines through in his products – the beautifully smooth, plummy Madagascan but also the fabulous Venezuelan bar (with notes of dried fruits and vanilla) that I went back for a few days later. When chocolate is this good, I'll always find ways to get more. Oakham citra session IPA Tony Naylor In 2009, when Cambridgeshire's Oakham brewery created this session IPA (£27.99, 12 x 500ml bottles), it was one of a handful of pioneering British beers made with explosively flavourful US hops – in this case, the eponymous citra. In the intervening years, craft beer would soar and crash as a cultural moment, but Oakham's Citra sails serenely on. Perfect at inception, this now supermarket staple endures as a rare, consistent example of just how arresting in every sip (vivid citrus and tropical fruit flavours, giving way to a well-balanced, bracing bitterness) an everyday, 4.6 per cent beer can be. A modern classic. In case you missed it... A showstopping nectarine salad "Is it a dip or is it a salad?" Georgia Levy wonders of her recipe from our June issue, where she piles nectarines, cucumber, herbs and hazelnut dukkah over liberal swirls of strained yoghurt. When it's this delicious and refreshing – a perfect addition to a long August lunch – who cares? Click here to read more → Second helpings New York Times: For London's blockbuster Indian restaurants, New York is next (£) → BBC: Six summer food trends to watch out for → Retail Gazette: Tesco's birthday cake sandwich divides shoppers → Financial Times: The tiny Pyrenean villages winning Michelin stars (£) → Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up and tell us what you think. 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