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Neven's English Food Tour 2026 Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00we do do sponsor Nevins English food tour to the gas part is only part of it
00:30hello and welcome to new castle and welcome to new castle which is the oldest building here in
00:45the city now i've had the pleasure of doing food tours in italy portugal spain and of course ireland
00:51but this is my first time doing one in england and i've visited manchester and london many times
00:57but i'm visiting an area which i haven't been to before i'm starting my food tour in the north east
01:01of england and it's an area i'm really looking forward to exploring and seeing what's on offer
01:20david thank you so much for having me here i was told this was the best view in newcastle and look
01:25at this it's spectacular i mean the views are pretty much unmatched i mean that's why this is
01:28built here you know it's the the sort of strategic spot where you build a castle the building we're
01:33stood on is 847 years old and it's the main tower of the new castle which is what gives the city its name
01:40and it's really to look out over the rebellious northerners um so just over the way there in
01:45gateshead the little church um was uh the scene one of william the conquerors um his bishop of durham
01:52was murdered there um and he sends his son up to build a big castle to stop the rebellious northerners
01:57from causing too much bother one of the interesting things about um where we're stood is this is
02:01one of the parts of the castle that was restored back in the 1800s so the turrets that you see
02:06were stuck on in the very early 1800s they they sort of found this castle you know in the middle
02:10of their town and thought it doesn't really look very castle-y though does it um needs some nice
02:14turrets so the the stuck some big turrets on the on the top these kind of battlements to make it look a
02:19bit more i know like a proper and it does doesn't it it does it gives it a certain thing doesn't it
02:23and you can go up there and just look out even you can you get a fantastic view from those out
02:27over the city and the many steps do you have to walk up from top to bottom here so top to bottom
02:31it's 137 steps at those spiral steps god bless your fitness carves of steel talk to me about the
02:37bridges here so yes i mean we love a bridge in newcastle as you can see there's like seven over
02:41the time like within a very short space but yeah you've got the the gateshead millennium bridge over
02:45there's the probably it's the newest one and the time bridge i mean this is kind of iconic you know
02:49this is what people think of when they think of newcastle and that's built in 1928 and it's one
02:54of the first bridges in the world designed by a woman and she designed this and the sydney harbour
02:58bridge very impressive isn't it it's just beautiful it's a lovely bit of work isn't it and then yeah
03:03you've got the swing bridge so like beautiful bit of victorian engineering there um which was to allow
03:09ships to come up and down the time and then moving over you've got like the high level bridge and then the
03:13various metro bridges and road bridges going over that are more modern as well and it seems a busy
03:18part of the city you can hear the trains coming and going where we are absolutely so in the 1830s
03:22when they're building this they'd literally drive the railway line through the middle of the castle
03:26they demolish a lot of the walls and carry the railway viaduct all the way through so the railway
03:31at the central station over there is beautiful bit of victorian engineering it's a victorian train
03:36station it's grade one listed and that used to be the largest railway crossing in the world
03:41david thank you so much for your time your wealth of knowledge and i'm looking forward
03:43to exploring the city i hope you have a great time looking around
03:54i'm going to meet a hero of mine terry layarborn terry is a chef and restaurateur who's been hugely
04:00influential in transforming newcastle into a culinary and cultural destination
04:05terry i have to say it's an honor to meet you because i'm a young chef i always followed you
04:10and i always admired what you did so thank you so so much for having me here in your beautiful pub
04:15coming in the door i noticed the the statement proper pub proper beer and proper food indeed
04:22what in your definition is a proper pub well i think first and foremost it's not a restaurant that
04:27masquerades as a pub of which there are quite a few of these days i think the proper pub's got to have
04:34a bar um potentially has to have a snug as well like we have here and whether or not it has a dining
04:40room i think is is is academic but it's it's the bar and the snug that really make a pub for me tell me
04:47about the building and the history of it like how long has it been a pub here well believe it or not
04:51it's not not not so very long it's been a pub for 11 years okay uh we inherited a a redundant cafe
04:59um and it belongs to the theater next door a small fringe theater a creative uh a creative outlet
05:07um and together we we we created the pub you know from the ground up that's brilliant and the name
05:14the name is very unique isn't it it is i mean the name has reference to the address in fact the street
05:20that it's on is the broad chair a chair is a break in the city walls generally a narrow break
05:27that people could walk through but every city wall had a broad chair or several broad chairs
05:32which was wide enough for a cot because you're born and bred from here aren't you pretty much
05:37six miles west wow you were the first to get the michelin star you've won so many different awards
05:42and then recently the freedom of the city is that what i heard yeah that's right don't be modest
05:47tell me who else got that not very many people generally men of learning and men of medicine
05:52and here was i a lowly cook so it was it was a humbling experience i have to say but i think it's
05:58what you've done for hospitality i mean like i've spoke to many chefs and they all say you were the start
06:03of the you know the whole food scene here in newcastle so you've been very modest i think yeah
06:08uh okay thank you i'll take it you should talking about food you have an amazing display here of
06:14food talk me about some of the products we have here well starting from this side we have monkfish
06:18cheeks an unusual cut that we breadcrumb and deep fry and serve with tartar sauce there's a pork pie
06:24that we we make ourselves from middle white pork and you're famous for your pie here aren't you
06:29your pies okay we set up a scotch egg which again is produced very traditionally this percentage of
06:36haggis crispy pig's ears um this isn't here it is it is what it is it's a pig's ear that we
06:44shave and soak and brine and then cook very very slowly in a bouillon very soft and delicious you know
06:49crispy what yeah yeah yeah and then pork cracklin itself the cracklin comes from a gloster oil spot we
06:56found that that does the best result for us in a bromley applesauce the applesauce and vegetables
07:02beautiful these are local oysters linda's farm yeah yeah just up the coast in northern and what
07:07have you here cauliflower fritters so there's something here for everyone we like to think
07:11so yeah so terry that's the food offering now i know newcastle is very famous for its brown pale
07:16tell me about that well there's a bottle over here the blue star there is is something of an emblem
07:23in the city you know you'll see it all over the place it's something that's never been produced
07:29on draft always in a bottle would always be served with a glass on top that's referred to as a schooner
07:34and what is the difference between an ale and a lager okay so an ale is a much more traditional
07:39process it's produced with a different yeast to to lager it's a yeast that ferments from the top so it
07:47floats and works downwards it's a live product it's essentially quite challenging to manage and then
07:54it's poured through these hand pulls and it's effectively pulled through via via hydraulics
08:00and is this only found like in newcastle these ales yeah these are all pretty local yes indeed
08:05um the writer's block is our own we had that developed in response to the pork pie we developed
08:11the pork pie recipe first but of course it's um it's quite rich and it's quite fatty yeah so i needed
08:18something with some cleanliness and some bitterness i felt um in order to offset that you know it's been
08:24an absolute privilege to meet you and wish you good health and continue your success terry thank you
08:29well we get stuck in oh come on i'm gonna go for another crispy big beer
08:37so this is the dining room above the pub and i can really see what terry meant by proper food
08:41look at this this is absolutely glorious so looking forward to tasting this so went into the
08:45kitchen i was watching dan cook some beautiful calves liver really thinly sliced seasoned it with
08:50a little bit of salt pepper and then really good hot oil and finished up with butter and it cooks
08:55so quickly so it's really really soft tender and full of flavor and then with the kale kale is a
09:00beautiful vegetable in some boiling salt and water to blanch it just to cook it quickly start the cooking
09:05process finish it with an emulsion of butter so it gives a lovely taste and kind of shines the
09:10cabbage and then some buttery mash and then crispy streaky bake and look at that like it's wafer tin
09:16lovely and crispy and that's going to give so much flavor and what he did here was some crispy shallots
09:20these tiny little shallots sage is a classic herb with the liver and then to finish it off he made a
09:26beautiful veal jus finished it with a touch of rosemary and thyme and look at that it's i mean like what
09:31i see here is a generous plate of food using the very best of ingredients as i say you need to cook liver
09:36really really quickly it's so beautiful there's loads of lovely butter in that match so now we have
09:45our pork pie that very particular where he sources the pork which is of course a local a local farm he
09:51said just literally across the river this is the local ale the writer's block so i'm going to taste this
09:55first it's very light there's lovely acidity in that it's a really good ale to work with food so it is
10:03because the pork pie is nice and rich and of course the scotch egg which is here and not an easy dish
10:09to make you know doing your eggs having it lovely and soft and you see that there it's kind of like
10:14a sausage farce like a mousse with some haggis that is superb beautifully seasoned lovely crust from the
10:22crumbs also the technique of keeping the egg yolk if you can see that nice and soft that is beautiful
10:28you know i've had such a great afternoon meeting one of my food heroes terry what he's done here
10:32particularly in newcastle with the whole food scene it's been an absolute privilege meeting him
10:37and i wish him and the team continued success
10:42we do do sponsor this show too
10:48we do do sponsor this show too
10:52this is saint james's park the home of newcastle united now i was hoping to get a stadium tour here
11:02but they have a big premiership game tomorrow and there's no access into the stadium 24 hours before
11:07the game but i do have something very special for you i'm going to be chatting to colin young who wrote
11:11jack charton's biography
11:16colin it's an absolute pleasure to meet you thank you for coming along i have to ask you firstly how did
11:20you get to write jack charton's biography i got to know jack uh through covering the republic of
11:26island uh for a couple of english newspapers for about 20 years and at the start of of that kind
11:34of career um jack and i used to travel on the same flight into dublin and just over that period we got
11:40to know each other really well i got to know his son john and during that got talking about the fact
11:45that um the the original autobiography peter byrne the family couldn't get it republished at that
11:51point so we kind of had a discussion and just decided well what why don't we do the book again
11:56kind of thing um well i think it took about six months in the end going up to john's pub um up on
12:02the coast in uh in northumberland and just spending a few hours with jack and his wife pat and and john and
12:08the grandkids and it was just just brilliant you know just telling the old stories and the stories
12:13were so unique and so jack you know so you'd have someone like john aldrich or now quinn could just
12:19remember specific dates all these things are just imprinted in you know big professional footballers
12:25memories and jack had that effect on his players on his teammates and the public but i think coming
12:32over here like the people i've met very similar to irish people humble warm honest good fun that's it
12:38jack loved that i mean that to me was always why and i'm sure it was to jack uh why they hit it off
12:44together you know you can see so much of the geordie in the irish people in the mid 80s obviously it was
12:51a difficult time politically for ireland and it was a difficult time in terms of the um kind of opposition
12:59that there was between english and irish you know there was a there was a massive chasm wasn't there
13:04there was a big divide massive to the extent where obviously when the appointment was made it wasn't
13:09universally popular and that wasn't just down to the fact that um jack had a certain style of football
13:14which actually turned out to be very very productive in international football with ireland
13:19but also that he was a you know he was a protestant 1966 world cup winning center back you know so
13:27but he overcame that just by being himself but he must have had a great way with him with the irish team
13:31the way he bonded them all and there was great unity wasn't there like they'd they'd run through a
13:35brick wall for yeah what jack did i think which was really really important was he just created a club
13:42environment within the island squad and i think he just realized that if you're going to get these
13:47guys to come over and get the best the best way to do it was to make it an open fun kind of environment
13:53where actually if you wanted to have a pint the night before a game or if you wanted to have two pints
13:58two nights before that was okay that's not a problem like when you think his leads united career
14:03like one club all his career like that never happens now you're right he was a one club man very loyal
14:09i don't think we will see many players that will be as loyal or long serving at one club as as jack was
14:17and i know another passion of his was fly fishing he was an expert wasn't he coming over to ireland to
14:22ballenaar he used to come over the fishing was just as attractive to the football for him um and you
14:28you know he bought the place in ballenaar and i think it's pretty well known that um on some
14:33international occasions the the trip to ireland and the match would be worked around the fishing or
14:39you know he'd be playing norway at lansdowne on the wednesday night and first thing thursday morning
14:44he's he's in the river at uh at ballenaar so it always helps if you're winning if you're a football
14:50manager good point if he had been unsuccessful he hadn't been the first manager to take them to
14:55the euros and the world cup then the the narrative would be different wouldn't it and of course they
15:00made a song you know put them on the pressure yeah there's a few songs i'd say there yeah yeah but
15:04that's what that was always one of those in the old days that lands down in the wooden stands and that
15:10when that came on the public address system it was uh there was always a little bit of a tingly
15:15moment that wasn't it's such a great iconic uh tune song well can i tell you my claim to fame i met him
15:21in 2009 okay so um i was invited to an afternoon tea i was having me cup of tea and a wee scone and
15:27he was having this pint of guinness and it was in a local football club about half an hour from me
15:31and he was just an absolute gentleman big tall man but made time for everyone that's what i loved about him
15:35yeah he did yeah i mean that was him he was just down to earth and just a normal normal bloke who
15:42just happened to be very very good at managing football teams and drinking guinness because
15:46i bet he didn't pay for that finally well i hope he didn't conan absolute pleasure to meet you and
15:51the book is a great read thank you so much for your time thank you lovely to meet you
15:55just a short walk away from the city center is an area called shieldfield which perhaps
16:06hasn't enjoyed the same increase of prosperity as other neighborhoods
16:12i'm meeting andy hadden a baker who realized that establishing a community bakery here
16:17could have a really powerful and positive social impact
16:20the big river bakery is renowned for making a bread known as the study a newcastle speciality
16:28which i've never tasted before
16:33andy it's a real pleasure to meet you i've read so much about your community enterprise it's a
16:37fascinating story thanks very much yeah well it's uh 13 years in six years in this site here and it's
16:44grown from just a very small idea and the study has been a really instrumental part of our growth
16:52so andy whereabouts are we in the city we're not far from the center of town it's like a 10 minute walk
16:56to right the middle of the city but it's an area called shieldfield a bit of a passed over place
17:02where not much investments happen for a long long time the shops here were a lot of them were derelict
17:08how can we do something here that will bring people here and bring some positivity in a community
17:13where not a lot happens now you have an amazing enterprise here in a bakery tell me about the
17:17whole journey so the idea of healthy local food affordable sustainable for everyone not just for
17:26the affluent because often your artisan word i don't really like but an artisan bakery would cost more
17:31so we wanted to come up with a way that could work for a local community so putting the bakery
17:35in a community that isn't affluent was part of it it's a bit of a hub we've created here a hub of
17:41something a little more kind than a lot of traditional businesses are there isn't any
17:46shareholders driving it it's about social good environmental good and yeah making some product
17:51people can afford and like and then you employ local people too yeah quite a few uh yeah we've got
17:57bakers and front of house staff that yeah just walk across the road to the bakery yeah we've brought in
18:03people who are like on the neurodiverse spectrum so they've come in and become bakers and other roles here
18:10and they would maybe not have had a job maybe ever so that's quite a powerful thing to have done as
18:16well no i've never heard of this study is that what you call it yep yeah it's not quite clear where
18:21it came from but some say you know started off the ground if it bounces on the ground then you've got
18:26to study it's right because it should be a bit chewy a bit textured and you have a feel and then you've
18:32got the hole in the middle which is key because that's what would happen if that went in the oven it
18:36would peak like any bread would it would rise so the hole stops that happening so you stay with a
18:41flat round loaf it came about you know all those coal mining industrial ship building homes with a
18:47hearth at home you've got some scraps so while the big loaves are going to be proving take longer take
18:53the scraps flatten them and you so you'll get something to eat for that big hungry family really
18:58quickly what would you normally serve it is the northeast classic is ham and peas pudding
19:03study sandwich so what's peas pudding this is it here for you to try so the geordie hummus as you
19:09call it i have never had this so traditionally you take the stock from the ham and uh it's yellow
19:14split peas seasoning takes quite a while to boil down to that that's a veggie version we use so
19:20everyone can have it it's delicious yeah yeah and i like it hot actually i've seen it in different
19:24menus and recipes but i've never had it before yes yes the ham and peas bun study soundies are piled up in
19:29here in the morning uh because there's a lot of takers for that andy that was really fascinating
19:34and i want to wish you and your team continued success thanks for having me here pleasure thanks
19:38very much sean you're going to show me how to make the very famous stocky bread take it away right so
19:50in here we have got some oat milk fresh water and we've got a vegetable oil just mix the whole lot
19:56together so the next thing we're going to add is our fresh yeast this is what they use in all the
20:01breweries and then last but not least we're going to use a teaspoon of sugar the yeast is going to
20:07start eating that sugar now and that's going to create the carbon dioxide which is going to make
20:11the bread rice lovely so next step is going to take all your liquids straight in there and then we are
20:17going to add teaspoon of salt and the salt is in there purely for taste god that's coming together
20:22nicely yep so that's all in there together now and all we're going to do is start what we call
20:27kneading the bread so you use the yeah soul of your hand and you're stretching the bread all the time
20:33and that's going to develop the protein the gluten what's in there it's also going to get warmer as
20:37well the friction off your hands so that's going to speed it up how many of these would you make a day
20:42in there including the mini ones we can do up to 450 500 sometimes and it's all by hand how do you know
20:51when it's ready because it looks really nice and smooth yeah you can tell by the temperature
20:55you can tell by how silky the door is as well it always comes up like really silky so that's when
20:59you know it's all working that looks great ready yeah that's done all done ready so the next stage is
21:06we were putting a prover so that'll go in the prover for about 20 minutes that'll double in size
21:12like we've here yep and that's what it looks like after 20 minutes it's really risen isn't it yeah and
21:18that's just for the addition of that teaspoon of sugar we're now going to divide it okay and shape
21:23it yeah you okay i'm gonna go yeah of course you show me absolutely the easiest way go on tear
21:30okay and then just like that tear it like that that's it you're just going to bring it all in oh wow
21:36and then when you flip it over yeah it'll be nice and smooth on the other side okay is there's something
21:41very therapeutic about making red you know we're just going to put these on a baking tray and then
21:45we're going to put it back in the prover for 10 minutes it's a long process isn't it you some
21:49down here yeah while bring these over so this is what they look like after 10 minutes lovely so
21:55now you've taken all that time and effort you press it down it feels a shame to do that it does and
22:04everyone gets really worried that you're going to damage them i know there's enough activity left in
22:09that yeast okay where we're going to put them back in the program they'll come up again oh this goes back
22:14in again yep they'll go back in again all right good man any particular shelf or any just top shelf
22:19top shelf lovely okay oh they look great are now ready to go you can see that there's still yeast
22:27yeah they're still bubbling up away lately dust them with flour and then the last thing
22:33put the hole in which is quite satisfying everyone seems to lay doing that for stories to do
22:37after being in a very hot oven for seven minutes the studies are taken out and turned upside down
22:45and baked for another five minutes or so to ensure they are evenly baked with a firm crust and a soft
22:50texture inside you know that was really very special seeing what andy and the team have done here
23:00helping local communities teaching young people how to bake it's the greatest gift we can give our children
23:06showing how bread is made like it's something very very special about that and i hope for people
23:10at home that you'll get some inspiration and we can do something like that in our own communities
23:20in the next episode i'll be heading to northumberland's stunning coast and one of its most famous landmarks
23:26banburgh castle there's plenty of good food in this picturesque town including local lobster
23:33in a pet friendly restaurant and just down the coast i'll see how herring are turned into delicious
23:39traditionally smoke kippers and a trip in a vintage motorcycle sidecar brings me to the beautiful
23:46village of walkwart for even more great food i hope you'll join me
24:02we do do sponsor nevans english food tour too the gas part is only part of it
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