Celebrity Chef Supermarket Sweep

Tweedies, Kissonerga, Paphos

It has become a bit of a bug barer of recent times. Picture the scene. There you are, sat comfortably in the restaurant of your choosing. G&T in hand, happily contemplating the menu in front of you when the waitress comes over and drops the bombshell;

“Have you been here before, do you know how the menu works?”

“Do I know how it works, you ask yourself?” I always thought I had a good idea.

My modus operandi to date relied heavily upon choosing restaurants on hearsay, vague internet rants or eavesdropped conversations. Booking said restaurant, showing up as close to the agreed time as family allow, ordering the best or sometimes the worst sounding dishes on the menu, eating, drinking, paying, going home, sleeping and writing about it all the next day.

Unless of course too much drinking happened, in which case there may be a little sleep before paying, sometimes a little trying not to pay (apologies Pizza Hut, Tottenham Court Road circa 98), and when I wake from my comatose state, the whole night will be a blackout, in which case I’ll just make something up, which I hope you’ll find mildly amusing and promise not to drink too much, again.

“Our menu is new every day; the chef goes to market, buys his produce and cooks his menus around what is good that day” carries on the waitress.

It’s a statement I have heard many times over the years albeit not often enough in Cyprus and each time I do so I picture a bronzed Dale Winton hosting a celebrity chef supermarket sweep special around the isles of Tesco on the Old Kent Road.

Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver drawing bread sticks over the claim to ticket number seventy two in the deli queue. Heston Blumenthal calculating weather apples or pears will earn him the most club card points and Ainsley Harriot stocking up on tomatoes and peppers in the best before yesterday section.

I tried to find a fresh food market in Paphos once. You know? The sort of place that Rick Stein stumbles upon during his travels around the Mediterranean, huge temples to gastronomy where they do a thousand things with pig, and sell most of the shellfish landed in British waters.

All I found was a half built shop by the bus stops in the old town with three women dressed in black wailing about melons.

Tweedie’s is a small room with art and ornaments from a primary school craft fair. The menu is reassuringly short and from it we ate smoked haddock, leeks, a perfectly poached egg and peas, let down only by undercooked/ overcooked/ never been cooked dried peas.  Vegetable tempura was crisp and dry with on vogue teriyaki emulsion.

Fillet steak was well cooked but poorly sourced, lacking in any flavour. Most of the fillet steak served on the island seems to be imported from New Zealand which has all the character of an under hung frozen piece of meat, flown halfway around the world. It’s going to take a butcher with cahones to buy Cypriot beef and hang it for a good two to three weeks until most of the profit margin has drained out of it before we get anywhere near a good piece of steak on this rock.

Crispy skin duckling was nice idea, taken off the bone with a spiced pear sauce but the cooking of both breast and leg together brought out the worst in both cuts. Slow cooked at too high a temperature to leave any pink in the breast but not for long enough to render the leg tender.

Great wedges, proper chips with skins on that had been boiled and then roughed up before frying to a golden, crisp, crunch somewhat saved the day along with a bottle of Angelos Tsangarides superb Ayios Efrem, served slightly chilled as recommended by the waitress and owner Hillary.

Credit should also go to Tweedies for supporting a number of Paphos wineries on their list which is one of the more extensive around. Particularly for true local wine with Vasilikon, Kolios, Sterna and the forever seems to be closed when I go out there, Ezousa all represented.

Desserts were an almost great lemon tart and strawberries in balsamic which just seemed to be a crime against strawberries having been cooked in the balsamic and served in a mushy puddle with panna cotta and shortbread on the side.

A great idea lacking in execution would sum up the whole Tweedies experience. If I lived in Kissonerga, this would be the perfect neighbourhood restaurant. A family run, friendly and reasonably priced restaurant, with enough ambition to try something new, without rocking the boat of their large and faithful following.

Let’s be honest it’s still one of the better ones around but would I boot up and travel for it again, not on this showing.