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accolades

Ros and I seem to have collected all sorts of accolades since we opened out little 'Village Restaurant' in 1985... starting in the autumn of 1986, when the 1987 edition of 'The Good Food Guide' named us as Lancashire Newcomer of the Year.

This was followed by our first national press mention in the spring of 1987, when, writing in 'The Guardian', Drew Smith (then editor of 'The Good Food Guide') headlined the taste of a piece of rather mature Shorrocks Lancashire cheese, saying "The potency of such things does not translate well on to the page. It might make a hole in it".

During 1987 Ros shared a full page 'Sunday Telegraph' feature on "The changing flavour of British food" with Joyce Molyneux from the Carved Angel in Dartmouth; then in December was paired with John Tovey who ran the famous Miller Howe in Windermere, in a 'Daily Telegraph' article about "two apostles of natural flavour"...

Over the following four years Ros' daily changing dinner party menus attracted the attention of several of the national foodwriters. The late Jeremy Round who wrote for 'The Independent' particularly enjoyed a visit, and was most complementary about the provenance of our locally sourced organic produce.

At the same time I started getting recognition for my wine list; the 1989 'Egon Ronay Guide' rated it as one of the best in Britain but found my extensive tasting notes too pretentious!

The recession of the early 1990's hit our restaurant hard ~ at the same time as Ros began to suffer from back pain. We decided to diversify and offer our lovingly sourced ingredients for sale in a 'dinner party shop' which we built in our basement. Henrietta Green subsequently honoured us by naming Ramsbottom Victuallers as Britain's Best Food Shop in her 1996 'Food Lovers' Guide to Britain', the same year as 'Lancashire Life' gave us their Wine Merchant of the Year Award.

Ros' health continued to deteriorate; we had a couple of years in the wilderness without a proper chef until Abdulla Naseem (Naz) joined us in 2001 and immediately earned us a 'Good Food Guide' regional award as Greater Manchester Restaurant of the Year - as well as a Michelin Bib Gourmand. A couple of years later Ros and I were particularly honoured to receive the Booker Prize for Excellence as Britain's Best Caterer (picture above).

Naseems cuisine continued to attract a fair bit of attention; during 2007 we were named as Lancashire Life Restaurant of the Year and The Good Food Guide North West Readers Restaurant of the Year.

Naz capped both of these achievements in 2008, when he collected The Good Food Guide National Readers Restaurant of the Year award and The Manchester Food and Drink Festival Best Chef prize!

In May 2009 we were delighted to be acknowledged by our peers in the catering industry, when we received the Best Restaurant title at the Northern Hospitality awards dinner.

When the 2010 Good Food Guide was published in September 2009, we were all delighted to find that not only is ramsons officially Greater Manchester's "top caff", but we have gravitated into the guide's list of "Britain's 50 Best Restaurants", the list of only 30 restaurants that have been in the guide for more than 21 consecutive years, and the equally auspicious list of the 20 restaurants with the country's most notable wine lists...

As if that wasn't enough, The 2010 Good Food Guide also lists our romantic basement 'hideaway' with a separate entry in its own right, where "chef Lu Varley (a proficient and passionate Italian cook) prepares a four course, single sitting 'trattoria supper' in the candlelit basement of Ramsbottom's exlemplary Italian restaurant..."

WOW!!!

Of course high profile 'awards' can have a downside when people don't understand exactly what they are for...

Thus I received a personal award from two ex customers who very publicly nominated me Britain's Rudest Restaurateur when I refused to provide them with table salt to ruin their meal...