Samuel Muston: On the Menu

This week I've been eating... Buttermilk Fried Chicken

The dining room is full of hipster clones and expecting people to eat the same tasting menu is ­arrogance on a plate – two of the complaints tossed at the Young Turks’ new opening, The Clove Club in east London. What they failed to say, however, was that it’s also bloody brilliant, well-executed and inventive.

I went twice and spotted not one ironic shellsuit top, or any excessive ’taches. Hipster? Don’t think so. “But those tasting menus,” I hear you say. Well, back up three steps and eat in the bar, where you can get individual dishes from the restaurant’s tasting menu.

I did just that on Saturday. Stopping in for a drink, I ordered the buttermilk fried chicken with pine salt (my second batch of the week). Crisp outside, soft inside, and with a light tickle of fresh pine. Pure joy on a plate. £6.40, thecloveclub.com

Cooking with flowers

Violet jam, pansy petal pancakes, and hibiscus whipped cream – Miche Bacher’s Cooking with Flowers is an unlikely cookbook, but a fascinating one all the same. I’ve been interested in the whole cooking-with-flowers thing since I skipped around the hot houses at Le Manoir with an excitable Raymond Blanc. His enthusiasm rubbed off – well, a bit; I sometimes put a bit of lavender with a melting goat cheese and tomato sandwich. Not quite the candied orchids you’ll find in the book, but a start.

Psy needs a chef

As adverts for kitchen jobs go, it’s pretty unusual. Psy, the newlt world-famous South Korean pop star, is looking for a personal chef for the first leg of his round-the-globe tour and has ­decided the best way to find one is to, er, ask applicants to send in a video of themselves “mixing it up”.

What “it” is, isn’t clear (a roux maybe?). Anyway, the “winner” gets $40,000 (£26,000) for a month’s work and will travel alongside their new boss, staying in the same hotels and generally ensuring he is “well fed”. Don’t all rush at once, but if you do fancy the gig you can find details here: psygobibigo.com

Leeds's latest opening

D&D restaurants, the group ­behind Quaglinos, Kensington Place and a host of other well-thought-of London joints, opens its first place outside the capital this week. Crafthouse and Angelica are housed in the Trinity Leeds development. Both restaurants will serve a changing seasonal menu from breakfast through dinner. Expect Bridlington Bay lobster bisque and beef rib for two cooked on a josper grill. Champion, as they say. danddlondon.com

LED vodka

The news that Belvedere has put LED lights in its 175cl bottles is perplexing. I mean, why? It seems to me a bottle of vodka needs a light like a fish needs a bicycle. But then again, if it stops nightclubs festooning them with sparklers when they send them out, it can only be to the good. belvederevodka.com