The first and best guide to eating and drinking in Chester's pubs, bars and restaurants

The new Michael Caines restaurant at Chester's Abode Hotel is very good indeed. The standard of cooking puts it right up there in the same league as the two gorillas of the Grosvenor Hotel. It's accessible, unpretentious, comfortable and – if you play your cards right - remarkably inexpensive. It would be a welcome addition to any city. In fact it's the best thing to happen to Chester's eating and drinking scene in years.

But only just. In what is by any measure a small city, excellent new restaurants – and bars – continue to open with astonishing frequency. The quality of these establishments today is on a different plane from what it was when Chester@Large first started in the mid 1990's. It has become almost a matter of routine to

see places of this quality open up. MC@Abode follows 1539, Joseph Benjamin, Oddfellows, Blackhouse Grill, Coach House and the rest. We are no longer surprised. We have come to expect the highest standards.

It's almost as if we've won. After years of pleading, cajoling and ranting it seems that we are pushing against an open door. Chester today is noted for eating and drinking ahead of anything apart from its history. The tourism office's promotional material mentions eating and drinking before it mentions the Romans. Such is the strength of the city's hospitality industry.

As if to drive the point home, new places continue to open, deep as we are in the teeth of a grinding recession. Hickory's Smokehouse has opened up

on the old Groves site by the river and is doing roaring business, the Terrace (the erstwhile Got Wine!) has become Pelican and the new deli/restaurant from Antonio Carluccio has opened in Bridge Street. Coconut Hut, a new Afro-Caribbean BYOB in Brook Street looks fun if your tastes run to ackee and saltfish. For those who find it more appropriate to curb the restaurant spends and cocoon themselves at home, there is even talk of a new Waitrose.

This wouldn't be Chester@Large if we sat complacently back on our arses. There will always be room for improvement. Our Forum and our reviews will continue to report the highs and lows. But there is much to be happy about.