Finding My Foodie Feet

As these photos may suggest I like to have a drink or two, so the foodie pursuit may have been brought to life after a few wines but reality is that I was posting on my personal Instagram page a lot and majority of it was food related. I had a few people message me from time to time asking for recommendations on places to go so that inspired me to make it more official with a page of my own which is how Love at 1st Bites came to be.

The ethos behind the page has always been honesty and integrity. If I think something wasn't that great then I will always be respectful in the way that I deliver that message and always from the view point of improvement as opposed to being critical. I know everyone has their off days so it is important to give people the benefit of the doubt and I know everyone's experience will vary. Ultimately I can only give an account of how I found the food to be and I wouldn't want someone to go on my recommendation to then be disappointed.

I have always said that if I can pay for a meal and give money back into a business then I of course would choose to do this majority of the time. I was hesitant at first to accept invites from businesses only because I wouldn't want people to think that will have swayed me to give a favourable review (which I assure you that has never and never will be the case). What I will say is that the way things are going in the hospitality industry the reality is that content creators are a big part of spreading the word and so more recently I have been more inclined to be open to accepting invites as long as these places align with the type of place that I would usually go to. What I have also done is either before or after made a conscious effort to return as a paying customer to see if this experience is consistent which I think is important too.

It has blown my mind as to how long a process making a post or a reel on Instagram can take, it has very much been a passion project alongside my day job but it isn't a quick thing to put out into the world and takes a lot of time and thought to bring these reviews together. I focus on the written review just as much as the photos and I like to give as much detail as possible hopefully in turn giving the reader as much information as possible to allow them to make a call on if this is somewhere they would visit.

I love to hear from people about the trips that they have made off the back of my reviews and a lot of the time its a case of them DM'ing me to let me know they have loved it which is something that makes this feel worthwhile. So please do let me know if you visit any of my recommendations!

Food Club

Food club was established in December 2021 by accident after only four of us showed up to a meal pre drinks with friends. The others weren't interested in coming for food (criminal) and somehow this ended up being a blessing in disguise, we all had a feast of epic proportions in Uchi in West Bridgford and after that the decision was made that we should do this again, which we have done multiple times since and it has escalated to weekends away in Manchester and London too.

The rules of Food Club is that we talk about Food Club...all the time.. Well we plan our next spot to eat diligently, latest instalment being Roka in Mayfair. The next rule is that we order whatever our heart desires and we all split the bill evenly regardless if someone had lobster and caviar and the others had a soup. The whole point of this meal is to indulge in great food and enjoy every mouthful and that's exactly what we do.

The 'members' include my husband Tim, Sanpreet and Ed who I used to work with which is how we'd originally met. We sometimes have guest drop in's from our friend Alice too.