Bites

Some chefs clog from job to job so quickly that they gain a certain dizzying ubiquity. Only one quick- change artist has consistently left a trail of rave reviews behind him. He is Richard Corrigan, an Irishman who in six short years has been head chef at no less than Stephen Bull in Marylebone, Mulligan's in Mayfair, Bentley's in Piccadilly, Fulham Road in Chelsea and Cafe East 15 in Hackney. He is now resurfacing at Searcy's Brasserie in the Barbican Centre in the City of London. The restaurant, which has lovely views over St Paul's, formerly had tired food and dozy service. I somehow doubt that Searcy's have the flair to keep Mr Corrigan, but, in the short term, the cooking at the Brasserie should be worth seeking out.

Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book has been out of print for a decade or so. Oldies may remember her writing on food for the Sunday Times in the Seventies, or eating in her London restaurant, Lacy's. Others may have wondered how to get hold of the book that Simon Hopkinson keeps going on about, the book Nigel Slater names as his desert island cookbook, the book that Grub Street Publications, 10 Chivalry Road, SW11 1HT, plan to reprint in May, price pounds 17.99. Well done, Grub Street.

"The future of drinking has just been defined," blags the press release for something called "Sub Zero alcoholic soda". This may be so, but only a week after the launch, its representatives, a firm called Smith and Jones of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, were unable actually to name the ingredients of Sub Zero. Evidently, the two blokes who defined it were out - out cold perhaps. More trick hooch for the kiddie market, methinks.

Max "Hitler" Hastings has at least got one thing right since leaving the Daily Telegraph to edit the London Evening Standard. He has hired Lindsey Bareham to do a daily cookery column. Ms Bareham has the skill and taste to make sense of that rather confusing movement, Modern British Cooking. She has had practice: former restaurant critic of Time Out and the Sunday Telegraph, she is now author of a string of cookery books, including The Potato Book (Penguin pounds 9.99); Celebration of Soup (Penguin pounds 12), and Onions without Tears (Michael Joseph, pounds 17.50). By way of taster, her idea of macaroni cheese has three sorts of onion, including meltingly sweet leek, and is topped with Parmesan and served with roast tomatoes.