The Bonny Comet, Low Fell: "After a long wait, I suspected all was not well" - restaurant review

Gateshead, where The Bonny Comet lives, may be where my culinary journey began.

When I was a child, Gateshead became home in 1986 to the first major American-style shopping center the North of England had ever seen. The Metrocentre was 2,000,000 square feet of retail space with an indoor roller coaster. Unfathomable joy. Although, to me, the Clockworks food court is more exciting than shopping: a multi-story, pastel-pink world cuisine center. It was the 1980s, so "world food" was largely Italian and American, although at Wok N Roll I discovered the thrills of black bean sauce, Singaporean noodles and chicken au lemon. Life would never be the same.

Thirty-five years later I am back in Gateshead, albeit five miles from Low Fell, for lunch at Bonny Comet, a chic bistro also serving dishes from around the world – although whoever wrote the menu here, in 2022, is certainly a bit more ambitious. Thai rice balls mayonnaise with sriracha on the “bites” menu, oysters and “graffiti eggplant” grilled with ras el hanout. This elegantly positioned all-day bistro clearly wants to be everything, for everyone, all the time, so there's a 'things on toast' part of the menu featuring deviled lamb kidneys or Newcastle Brown Ale Welsh rarebit, but also a section where North Indian tofu palak maize sits alongside braised pork belly with chimichurri and a vegan option of miso-roasted celeriac on butter bean mash. -role="supporting" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-1sioudk">

The menu is imaginative, undeniably global and utterly delicious. Yet, on a Thursday lunchtime,...