'A Family of Friends - Restaurant renaissance in the Near East' for Fire and Knives

"If you'd invented an entirely new way of dining out, revived the very notion of British cuisine, inadvertently coined the phrase 'gastropub' and received accolades by the truck-load, then in our increasingly food-obsessed nation, you would probably be pretty famous, wouldn't you?

David Eyre and Mike Belben, the founders of The Eagle in Clerkenwell, achieved all this -- and more -- but they're hardly household names. They're certainly no Heston, Gordon, Marco or Delia. But then they never engaged a public relations agency, never fronted a supermarket campaign and never had their own television show. They simply had a great idea and worked tirelessly in the kitchen to convince diners that theirs was the way forward."

The feature looking at the emergence of the gastropub in Clerkenwell during the 1990s looks at the central role of The Eagle, of its founders David Eyre and Mike Belben, and interviews Tom Norrington Davies, formerly head chef at The Eagle and now of 32 Great Queen Street.

It appears in print in Fire and Knives, No. 3, a quarterly paperback book produced by Tim Hayward, a key contributor to The Guardian's online food content and also includes features from Tom Parker-Bowles, Tilly Culme-Seymour of The Spectator Scoff and Felicity Cloake of The Guardian Online, Metro and MSN Food. Go to the Fire and Knives food quarterly website to learn more about it.

To read more about Craig Butcher, freelance food, drink and travel journalist, visit the Craig Butcher website