Food
This food needs a little less grandeur, and a little more love: Simpson’s in the Strand reviewed
Simpson’s in the Strand stopped serving breakfast in 2017, after it had been renovated to stop it smelling of cabbage.…
Sumptuous, remote – and forgettable: Locket’s reviewed
Locket’s is a new café from the owners of Wiltons in Jermyn Street. Wiltons is the restaurant that dukes visit…
Nauseating, but I like the garlic bread: Legoland Windsor reviewed
The theme music to Legoland in Berkshire is the theme music to The Exorcist. It appears from speakers hidden in…
Back in the Babington Triangle: Roth Bar & Grill reviewed
The Roth Bar & Grill exists on an art-farm called Durslade in Bruton, Somerset, which is also the country outpost…
Stringfellows for the sex robot age: Bob Bob Cité reviewed
Bob Bob Cité is a restaurant dangling like testicles from the underside of the Leadenhall Building in the City of…
An enemy of the people? Or an above-average sandwich chain? Pret A Manger reviewed
The sandwich restaurant Pret A Manger is accused of harbouring centrists. Those are words I never thought I would type,…
I’ve had my fill of brasseries: Moncks reviewed
If you review restaurants professionally you would not think Britain wanted to leave the EU. You would think she wanted…
It’s so easy to go mad in Oxford: Chiang Mai Kitchen reviewed
Oxford is a pile of medieval buildings filled with maniacs, and is therefore one of the most interesting places on…
I wouldn’t suggest you eat here, but I doubt there’s a better place to drop acid: Camelot Castle reviewed
The Camelot Castle Hotel is a pebble-dashed late-Victorian excrescence on a cliff. It overlooks the ruins of Tintagel Castle. A…
Like Twitter, but with food: Market Hall Victoria reviewed
The Market Hall Victoria is an international food shed opposite the station terminus. I have long hated Victoria, thinking it…
Lunch on Leonard Cohen Island: The Pirate Bar reviewed
The Pirate Bar is an oddity, even for this column: a bar and restaurant themed in homage to a pirate,…
A hotel dressed like the Queen Mother: Siren at the Goring reviewed
The Goring is a tiny grand hotel near Victoria Station and the Queen’s garden wall. Victoria is not pleasant —…
The devil eats Prada: Patisserie Marchesi 1824 reviewed
The Prada Café is both a cake shop and a historical inevitability. It sits on Mount Street, almost opposite the…
I didn’t know kosher food this good existed: Decks in Tverya reviewed
Decks is a restaurant built on the Sea of Galilee. It is Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu’s favourite restaurant (it is…
An alternate reality in Heathrow’s Terminal 5: Fortnum & Mason reviewed
I am obsessed with Fortnum & Mason, and the jams of the England that never was but could be. It…
A princess of greasy spoons: Café Diana reviewed
Café Diana is a Princess Diana-themed greasy spoon in Notting Hill Gate. It is a mad place, but it is…
Tantrums and a top-notch tabbouleh: Ergon House in Athens reviewed
Ergon House is an epicurean boutique hotel in downtown Athens. (I quote the blurb — I never write ‘boutique’ willingly.)…
Soho hasn’t deteriorated – you have: Kiln reviewed
Each suburban soul yearns for the Soho of their youth. It isn’t that Soho was better in the 1990s when…
The ideal restaurant for the mythical Spectator reader: Bellamy’s reviewed
Bellamy’s is a Franco-Belgian brasserie in Bruton Place, a dim alley in the charismatic part of Mayfair; the part that…
The joy of garlic and easy listening: Pucci in Mayfair reviewed
I grew up in south-west London in the 1970s when Italian restaurants had exposed brick walls and paper tablecloths in…
Farringdon’s Quality Chop House is macabre, but at least it has character
I love the drug of television, which is slightly less awful than the drug of social media because the conversation…
Pale pomp and £100 Beijing duck: Imperial Treasure reviewed
Imperial Treasure is a restaurant in the part of St James’s where Leopold von Hoesch, the German ambassador to George…
A temple to small food in a room for rich people: the Ledbury in Notting Hill reviewed
A serious restaurant for serious times: the Ledbury in Notting Hill. It’s a good time to do it, as the…
Eclairs, cheesecake and unhappy women: Cakes & Bubbles reviewed
Cakes & Bubbles is an unhappy woman’s restaurant. I thought it was a child’s restaurant, but I took a child…
If Tony Blair was still prime minister, I’d be less terrified of Holborn Dining Room
The 1930s aesthetic is not quite as fun as it used to be. You can enjoy the detritus of fascism…
