The Portrait restaurant: a secret glade of stone and brick, suspended above Trafalgar Square
The Portrait Restaurant lives at the top of the National Portrait Gallery, London. It is fiercely modern, but likeable. You…
The Ivy Chelsea Garden: Richard Caring has finally built a restaurant I admire
The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a restaurant inside an Edwardian house disguised as a Tudor house on the King’s Road;…
A cemetery with cocktails: La Coupole and the spirit of the brasserie
La Coupole, Montparnasse, is the grandest and most famous of the old pre-war Parisian brasseries; that is, if you have…
Kitty Fisher’s: proof that the PM has good taste in restaurants, if not in friends
David Cameron is too cowardly, or too cynical, to debate with Ed ‘Two or Possibly Three Kitchens’ Miliband — which…
Is the Dorchester the designated grand hotel for fat people? The portions at its new grill say so
The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, is a cake floating in space. All grand hotels create a parallel universe in which…
Rowleys is Did Mummy Love Me Really? food – and it’s perfect
I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street…
Rivea: a London annexe to the world’s maddest expensive restaurant
Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper…
Quaglino’s, the vampire brasserie
Quaglino’s is an ancient subterranean brasserie in St James’s, a district clinging to the 18th century with cadaverous fingers. It…
What The Theory of Everything doesn’t tell you about Stephen Hawking
What’s missing from Stephen Hawking’s hagiographic new biopic
The real reason there’s a queue outside the Cereal Killer Café
The Cereal Killer Café is a temple to cereal on Brick Lane, east London. It serves only cereal — and also…
The most preposterous restaurant to have opened in London this year
Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was…
The hotels trying to turn Cornwall into Kensington
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
There’s only one Alan Johnson (that's why Labour's in such trouble)
Labour voters feel hope and despair; hope, because the Tories are doing no better than we, and despair, for that…
A buffet in an Egyptian tomb
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
Want to shake hands with your dinner? Beast is your kind of restaurant
Beast is next to Debenhams on Oxford Street and it is not conventionally beast-like; rather it is monetised and bespoke…
Gymkhana is morally disgusting – and fortunately the food’s disgusting too
Gymkhana is a fashionable Indian restaurant in Albemarle Street. It was, according to its natty website, ‘inspired by Colonial Indian…
Today’s Disney princesses look like Russian mafia wives. This is their café
The Disney Café is a gaudy hell on the fourth floor of Harrods, Knightsbridge. It is adjacent to the Harrods…
Rextail: a restaurant for billionaire children
Rextail is a restaurant for billionaire children, such as Richie Rich. Its owner, Arcady Novikov, has already opened a restaurant…
Fischer’s is like visiting Vienna without having to go to Austria (thank God)
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
Rhubarb has the loveliest, craziest dining room I have ever seen
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
L’Escargot is Soho as Soho sees itself
L’Escargot, or the Snail, is a famous restaurant on Greek Street, Soho, opposite the old Establishment club; the oldest French…
Does the Duke of Devonshire really want to be my friend – or is he just after my bank details?
The Chatsworth estate, Derby-shire. I am overwhelmed by marketing literature. I am prostrate. I am weeping. I am staying in…
Dean Street Townhouse – at last! Somewhere I'd pay to eat
Occasionally a critic must review a restaurant in which they are prepared to spend their own money. So here is…
At the Chiltern Firehouse, smugness should be on the menu
Here then is Gatsby’s house, after an invasion by the Daily Mail. It is called the Chiltern Firehouse. It is…
Something wild – well, wild for Claridge's – in Gordon Ramsay's old cave
Fera is in Gordon Ramsay’s old cave at Claridge’s. His red and yellow room, like a ripped-off arm, has been…
