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…
Tea in the hallowed grounds of Lord’s: The Long Room reviewed
As dreams of winning the Ashes became, well, the only word is ash, for 4-0 is not a number even…
It’s survived universal suffrage and two world wars: restaurant Rules reviewed
Rules looks as if it voted for Brexit, and now finds itself inside an eternal Christmas Eve, where it is…
What will Katie Hopkins do next?
In her memoir Rude, the former Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins reveals her true self. She does this by accident,…
From good witch to female Alan Bennett: the Queen on the big screen
If cinema is propaganda, Elizabeth II can be grateful to it. Film is a conservative art form, and almost nothing…
Henrietta: a casual restaurant with formal food for people wearing hats
Henrietta is a restaurant in a boutique hotel on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, around the corner from the actors’ church…
Farmacy’s food is the worst I have eaten in London
Farmacy, which opened last year, is London’s most fashionable ‘clean eating’ restaurant; it is, therefore, a restaurant for people who…
This new Bake Off diner is just half-baked Hollywood
Knead is the first of Paul Hollywood’s new strain of bakeries that sell coffee, and which will encircle capitalism. This…
The queen of hotels
Jean-Georges at the Connaught — formerly the Prince of Saxe-Coburg Hotel, but it was renamed during the first world war,…
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