Moura Restaurant

What Black Garlic Actually Is Black garlic is regular garlic transformed through slow cooking over several weeks at low heat and high humidity. The result? Soft, glossy, jet-black cloves with a complex flavour profile. It’s sweet, mellow, and rich in umami. Imagine the tastes of balsamic, molasses, roasted garlic, and liquorice all in one. Tip: Black garlic’s unique flavour comes from the Maillard reaction, not fermentation. The Misunderstanding of Fermentation When black garlic became...

An £8 starter isn’t really £8. Before the chef even picks up a knife, around 20% of that price has already gone to VAT. So that “£8 dish” is actually £6.40 of usable revenue. From that £6.40, the chef typically has around £2–£2.50 to spend on ingredients. That’s the true budget behind the plate — not £8, not £6.40, but a couple of pounds. The remaining £3.90 disappears into the everyday machinery of running a restaurant: wages, rent, electricity, gas, laundry, insurance, equipment repairs,...

Let’s start with a truth bomb: “affordable” is one of the most misunderstood words in the restaurant world. It’s right up there with “artisan,” “homemade,” and “deconstructed.” Everyone thinks they know what it means — until they see the bill. When a guest looks at a menu and sees a £50 starter, the immediate instinct might be, “Fifty quid? For a bit of pâté?” But that’s where the great misunderstanding begins. Because that pâté might not just be a bit of pâté. It might be foie gras from...