Rap label boss-turned-super foodie Steve Plotnicki says of his regular visits to restaurants across the globe: “It’s like record producers in the 1950s going to the Deep South to find blues artists.
“Not necessarily as profound,” he adds. “But it’s the same search for regional authenticity.”
It’s this quest for authenticity that finds the 63-year-old New Yorker in the North Pennines, wrapped up against the biting cold in layers of Loro Piana. I’m to join him on a tour of the most talked-about restaurants in the north of England.
Plotnicki’s eyes and ears in the region – the cohort of local gourmands who contribute to his annual Opinionated About Dining survey, the results of which he’s announcing...