Food
Snog a Tory: Why you should learn to step outside your comfort zone
Ew! Are you squeamish? Are you grossed out by meat, by fish, by eggs, by scales and suckers and shells…
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…
Letters: Of course Brexit is David Cameron’s fault
All Cameron’s fault Sir: In this time of febrile political speculation, there can have been few more arresting subject headings…
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…
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…
The balletic, bum-baring rituals of sumo
An early morning in late November in the peaceful glades that surround an ancient temple complex. A Shinto priest in…
This is a restaurant for affluent halfwits: Bob Bob Ricard reviewed
In January, you could go to Bob Bob Ricard in Soho. I do not know why it is called Bob…
This is capitalism as its most gaudy: Fortnum & Mason reviewed
I admit I had a falling out with Fortnum & Mason a few years ago over its new brasserie on…
In the midst of Brexit agony, one thing remains certain: disputation needs drink
It is enough to drive a fellow to the bottle. I am not given to agnosticism. My view is that…
A cruise-ship menu inside a giant Venetian cake: Caffè Concerto reviewed
Caffè Concerto is a chain of Italian cafés sprouting, lividly, across London and the world. There is one on Piccadilly,…
It’s a Jewish homage to the Wolseley, and that is no bad thing: Tish reviewed
Tish is a new grand café in Belsize Park, north London, but kosher. There are not really enough Jews to…
How violence in France led to the creation of London’s Courtauld Gallery
Darkness, but not the blanket of the dark. This was a sinister darkness, beset by smoke and flames, by the…
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…
The curse of having to go vegan
I’m on a no-alcohol, no-caffeine, no-sugar, vegan diet. It’s less fun than it sounds. Occasionally I cheat, but mostly I…
Dear Mary: Is it really forbidden to eat with a fork’s tines facing upwards?
Q. My husband and I have been invited to the birthday party of a distinguished public figure with whom we…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
