Lovage

Kleo Tabaku opened Lovage on St George's Terrace in Jesmond in 2022 with Lisa Hide, who runs the front of house. Tabaku was born in Albania, spent years cooking in Italy, and has lived in the North East for more than two decades, a career spanning fine dining kitchens and stately homes before going out on his own. The menu is built around small and sharing plates with Mediterranean leanings, alongside a few larger individual dishes, and a set Sunday roast. Many dishes are marked gluten-free, vegetarian or vegan without much fuss made of it. The room seats a modest number of covers, deliberately intimate rather than grand. It picked up an AA Rosette within its first two years of trading.