You’ll hurt at Hawksmoor. If you don’t then you’ve failed. It needs saying. One of those basic but necessary announcements, like a restaurant’s preface. Perhaps it should even be a rule? But rules can be be broken, disrespected, and ignored. You can’t ignore fact…the reality: you’ll hurt at Hawksmoor. Aching, distressed, belly-burning protein poisoning. It’s [...]
January 18, 2012
Tsuru
Tsuru’s Bishopsgate branch sits neatly in a glistening cyber vessel. Prodding into the air, arena scaffolding connects the Star Trek design to other neighbourly offices, underneath which Tsuru is settled. Trying to find the address was a relentless navigation, eventually overcome by asking a fat businessman for directions. My hefty cherub pointed me in the [...]
January 12, 2012
Rainforest Cafe
If it were ever decided to add a tenth circle to the Inferno, then surely it would be in the bowels of Piccadilly. More precisely, the soul sinking fathomage of the Trocadero. There is a place, a themed-hole, so bent on parent and tourist extortion that the staff hide behind trees and dress in camouflage. [...]
January 3, 2012
Roganic
It’s a cheeseboard, but not as we know it. Not in London anyway, where menus regularly offer a selection of mainly French cheeses, that pong the clammy air through their mouldy greeny-blue pores. Snooty. Like the French. Roganic’s cheeseboard is impressively British. Most of the selection is represented by England and without the famed obvious [...]
December 22, 2011
Worst Meals of 2011
1. Rainforest Cafe www.therainforestcafe.co.uk “… a themed-hole, so bent on parent and tourist extortion that the staff hide behind trees and dress in camouflage.” “The food is pompous, not in the haute cuisine sense, it’s just completely, totally, cleverly aware of its theme-park status and child catchment area.” “Ambience rules in the swamps of Piccadilly. [...]
December 21, 2011
Mr Trotter’s
Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling was the brainchild of food writers Tom Parker Bowles and Matthew Fort with Cotswold farmer, Rupert Ponsonby. Their dream was to create a new interpretation of the scratching made from 100% British pigs. Cooked by hand in small batches using a new process, Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling [...]
December 20, 2011
Best Meals of 2011
1. Uri Buri www.uriburi.co.il “Sashimi salmon in soy sauce is served with a wasabi sorbet that triggers the tongue, injecting life into the raw salmon strips, and a bromidic named ‘fish soup’ combined shrimp and calamari in a coriander, basil, ginger and coconut base – a Thai-inspired chef-d’oeuvre.” “Pan-fried scallops in a cream sauce were [...]
December 16, 2011
Nespresso Breakfast: a capsule carnival
Whether you’re aware of it or not, we all share the same structured mornings. We rise – always earlier than we’d like – and we sit up, stretch, bemoan our jobs and flick through all the available excuses we can as to how we can avoid leaving our snuggle cocoon. Then we yawn, shower, dress, [...]
December 15, 2011
The Crown at Bray
When Heston Blumenthal bought his second pub The Crown in 2010, a few disgruntled locals of the gastro-hamlet of Bray expressed their irritation. There were puffed out cheeks and the waving of fists. It’s not as if Bray is bulging with boozers, and Heston already owned The Hinds Head, a fine tavern in its own [...]
December 8, 2011
The Meat Liquor
What do I write? Well, what do you want me to say? That it’s a burger. A perfectly executed meat patty held in a toasted bun. Slices of oozing cheese squeezing out of the middle crevasse. Dripping grease lubricating the fingers and waxing the lips. Lettuce at the base of the bun, but who really [...]
December 7, 2011
The Arbuturian’s Festive Gift Guide
“At The Arb, we adore shopping. We also enjoy knowing it all, based on tireless ‘research’ in the realms of fine wines and spirits, exquisite tailoring, heart-stopping jewels and luxury beauty products. So we are ideally placed to bring you a Christmas gift guide, with this year’s guide offering personal recommendations from our writers who [...]
November 25, 2011
Identità Golose
The day Italy’s top chefs came to London. David J Constable digests Identità Golose 2011… ‘Fragrant. Delicate. Savoury. With a fine grainy texture….’ Is the eloquent advertised description of Grana Padano, however it could very easily be used to define the Italians and their olive oil tones. Even when shouting and asserting their command during [...]
November 24, 2011
Nicola Bealing exhibition at the Cadagon Contemporary
Nicola Bealing’s playful approach to the canvas is strangely juxtaposed by her paintings evoking a stranger, darker study of the male. In her new exhibition at the Cadogan Contemporary, there are the colourful injections: Adam and Eve with Yellow Birds (oil on linen) and Funny Farm (oil on canvas) both of which lift their images [...]
November 15, 2011
Israel
It started with a frisk. A padding down. Then the shoes were removed, followed by trousers and shirt until goosebumps prickled the naked skin. The authorities exert their questions with a tone implying a ‘guilty’ sign hangs from your neck. Immigration is tough, and I haven’t even left London. Israel is a work in progress. [...]
November 7, 2011
Koffmann’s
Brian Turner ate my cheese. Without trepidation, the fork rose and picked the cube of Dunsyre Blue from my plate. Chef Brian Turner was hosting the farmision.com launch with a menu devised by Pierre Koffmann and Jeff Baker. When John Pallagi and Lee Simmonds invited me to have lunch at Knightsbridge cornerstone Koffmann’s at The [...]
October 29, 2011
The Gaggle of Geese
I’m bored with Kings and Queens. Of Ships, Sails and Dinghies. Red Lions, Foxes, Goblins and Griffins. A pub name should not follow trend. We need more character taverns: Dirty Dicks in Bishopsgate, or how about Duck Butt in New York. The Gaggle of Geese is fine, named in the Telegraph and Famous Grouse Top [...]
October 27, 2011
Chocolate & Diamonds
The organic fairly-traded chocolate brand Chocolate and Love (who were awarded two Gold Stars in the Taste Awards 2011) have collaborated with boutique jeweller Diabloms to offer the ultimate carat and cocoa treasure hunt: One lucky winner will receive a stunning one carat cut diamond worth £10,000! From now until 14th December 2011 four Chocolate [...]
October 26, 2011
Chipotle Salsas
With the American Mexican Grill outlet Chipotle opening a second restaurant in London (with more to follow.. Chelsea? Knightsbridge?), I thought I’d offer an introduction to their zingy salsas. The burrito chain operates over 1,100 restaurants in the United States and following the success of their UK debut restaurant at 114-116 Charing Cross Road, a [...]
October 20, 2011
Combal.Zero
Lunch was booked for one o’clock at Combal.Zero in the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rivoli, a small village outside Turin. As I approached the entrance and rang the bell I was unequivocally on time. Combal.Zero had only re-opened two days previously, after the summer sojourn (apparently it lasts longer in Italy), and perhaps word hadn’t [...]
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January 30, 2012
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