Food
Clarissa Tan's Notebook: Why I stopped drinking petrol
Florence was in fog the day I arrived. Its buildings were bathed in white cloud, its people moved as though…
Dear Mary: How can I hide my tattoo from the in-laws?
Q. I have a tattoo the length of my forearm and am worried it will alienate my new boyfriend’s parents…
Don't tax sugar - it doesn't make you fat. Gluttony does
Obesity isn’t a matter of addiction. It’s a question of self-control
Tanya Gold: Child-friendly, sex-free, nut-heavy – just the hotel for my 40th birthday
Woolley Grange is a child-friendly country house hotel that seems, at first, entirely monstrous — a grey Tudor house in…
Boulestin has nothing to do with Marcel Boulestin — but could entice Mary Berry
Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which…
The Wild Rabbit's food may be organic - but nothing else there is
The Wild Rabbit is a pub in the Cotswolds, that small corner of Britain full of evil grinning cottages; if…
A restaurant in a synagogue. How strange can it be?
A restaurant in a synagogue may be too mad even for this column but we are Jews, so why not?…
A Roald Dahl tea? It reminds me more of Jimmy Savile
One Aldwych, an Edwardian grand hotel near Waterloo Bridge, is serving a Jimmy Savile tribute tea. It is not explicitly…
Lose weight the Muriel Spark way
Those of you dieting your way to a svelte physique amid the flesh-exposing terrors of summer should take courage from…
How new food rules could ruin restaurants
Stricter food rules won’t make you any safer – but they could ruin many small restaurants
‘Like a concentration camp run by KFC’: Tanya Gold visits Shake Shack
Shake Shack is a hamburger restaurant in Covent Garden market. It came from New York and it is as needy…
Tanya Gold on eating at the Shard
What to say about the Shard that isn’t said by the fact it is 1,020 feet high and looks like…
Dear Mary: Why it's fine to crash funerals
Q. Regarding the writing of ‘no presents’ on an invitation (Dear Mary, 6 July), my own experience is that many…
The Spectator’s notes
Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign as the Tory Chief Whip last autumn because he called policemen at the Downing…
Christopher Sykes’s diary: David Hockney, Bridlington lobster, and the risks of a third martini
I began my week with a trip to Bridlington, the closest seaside town to my childhood home. ‘Brid’, as it’s…
