Like Soho House in the country – but marginally less hateful: The Pig at Combe reviewed
The Pig at Combe is a restaurant in a country house hotel in a valley in Devon. I actually went…
Breakfast for idiots: it was the wrong time of day for a visit to Gazelle Mayfair
I couldn’t find Gazelle. I walked up and down Albermarle Street, in which Oscar Wilde once plotted his own doom…
Can my inner feminist cope with another restaurant named after a prostitute? Cora Pearl reviewed
Cora Pearl is the new, and second, restaurant from the people who made Kitty Fisher’s in Shepherd Market, Mayfair. Kitty…
It is essentially a crap Le Gavroche, and that is not an insult: Roux at Parliament Square reviewed
Politicians are having a terrible time of late, along with the rest of us — it’s not much fun watching…
I am served up a crime against breakfast: Sketch reviewed
Sketch is a restaurant and art gallery in Conduit Street, Mayfair. There is a photograph of the Queen in the…
Empty restaurants are becoming a bad habit of mine: Coq d’Argent reviewed
I wouldn’t normally visit Coq d’Argent, which I think means the chicken of money. It is a moderately famous restaurant…
Temper, a new pizza restaurant in Covent Garden, land of the itinerant rich
Temper is a new pizza restaurant in Mercers Walk, Covent Garden, and it is as glib and polished as you…
The parking is better than the food: Nando’s reviewed
Nando’s, c. 1987, is a restaurant in the Great North Leisure Park, Finchley, N12, off the North Circular, which is my…
A Wimbledon-themed tea has little to do with tennis, but I loved it: Claridges reviewed
Claridge’s is a toff sanctuary and one of the best hotels on earth. It specialises in its own myth, which…
The great nanny shortage
There is an au pair drought in the UK. Since the 2016 Referendum there has been a 75 per cent…
Wedge salad in the shadow of the Tudors: Sargeant’s Mess reviewed
Sargeant’s Mess (2018) is a tourist catcher’s net in restaurant form by the Tower of London (c. 1078). It has views…
A Soho House restaurant in Television Centre is as ghastly as it sounds: The Allis reviewed
The Allis is a restaurant inside the new Soho House at White City — it is called White City House…
Food that’s prettier than you are: The Petersham reviewed
The Petersham is a fading hotel on Richmond Hill. I went to a bar mitzvah there in 1986, which gives…
Here’s where you come to eat dreams – for £95 a head: Ollie Dabbous’s Hide reviewed
Hide is a £20 million restaurant at the Green Park end of Piccadilly, on the three lower floors of a…
How I found curry heaven in deepest Mayfair: Indian Accent reviewed
Indian Accent is an Indian restaurant in Albermarle Street, deepest Mayfair, on the site of Rohit Khattar’s Chor Bizarre (‘thieves…
It reeks of Alan Clark and the 1980s but all is forgiven for the food: Le Gavroche reviewed
Le Gavroche is named for ‘the urchin’ in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and lives in a basement on Upper Brook…
If it’s austere calm you want, Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill is for you
Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill is on Swallow Street, an alley between Piccadilly and Regent Street, which swallowed most of…
How Soho became so-so: Kettner’s Townhouse reviewed
Sometimes I fret that Soho House & Co is doing to this column what it does to London. It places…
I’d rather be fat-shamed than have cancer
Sofie Hagen is a young Danish comic I admire. I didn’t see her most recent show, Dead Baby Frog, but…
Too good for the kleptocrats of Knightsbridge: Harry’s Dolce Vita reviewed
In 2007 Mikhael Gorbachev starred in a Louis Vuitton advert. He was driven past the Berlin Wall with Louis Vuitton…
As restaurants go, it’s important – and it knows it: the River Café reviewed
Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black has ‘never been to Hammersmith’. I have but I wish I hadn’t. I love…
It takes more than a Time’s Up badge to be a feminist
I have not trusted a celebrity activist since 2014, when I read the headline ‘Angelina Jolie and William Hague tackle…
A Soho steak house that used to be a pornographic cinema: Sophie’s reviewed
Sophie’s lives in an old pornographic cinema at the south end of Great Windmill Street, Soho. It is opposite McDonald’s…
A new addition to north London’s underwhelming restaurants: Café Hampstead reviewed
Café Hampstead is a new café in — big reveal! — Hampstead, the gaudiest of the old villages on the…
A glorious theatrical feast at the National: Foodwork reviewed
There is a restaurant on the stage at the National Theatre in London. It is called Foodwork, and it is…
