Drink
‘The food is as good as you will find in London’: Saison at Raffles London, reviewed
The Old War Office (bad acronym OWO) on Whitehall is now a Raffles hotel: you can stay in Winston Churchill’s…
The world is a mess. Why not find escapism through wine?
In most children’s stories, the good characters live happily ever after. Works suitable for older readers tend to greater realism.…
‘They do better spaghetti bolognese in Hampstead for a tenner’: The Lobby at The Peninsula, reviewed
The Peninsula is a new hotel at Hyde Park Corner. It is part of the trend for absurd expense: rooms…
It’s time to take Italian wine seriously
Tuscany: earth has not anything to show more fair. The landscape is charming. The gentle hills seem to smile down…
Revised Criterion
There are cursed restaurants and cursed women, and this makes them no less interesting. One is Maxim’s in Paris, which…
Party spirit
I feel old, and feelings are not always wrong, This eheu fugaces mood came on me at the Conservative party…
Market values
Origin City is a good name for this restaurant, whether it knows it or not. It is at West Smithfield,…
Burgundian beneficence
Paris has enough great restaurants to maintain its claim to be the world capital of gastronomy. That said, Parisian residents…
A pastiche pub
Poundbury is the King’s idealised town in Dorchester, built on his land to his specifications: the town that sprung out…
A slice of Calabria – in London
The Romans wrote the history, or at least the myths. But long before Romulus murdered Remus, the Mediterranean – the…
Et tu, Bruton?
At the Chapel, Bruton, is a restaurant and hotel in a former chapel in Bruton. This was once an ordinary…
A red fit for a matador
We were talking bulls. A friend of mine, Alexander Fiske-Harrison, is a remarkable character who can claim at least two…
Homage to Hobbiton
Sarehole Mill is four miles south of the centre of Birmingham. If this were a fairy tale, and it should…
Port sunset
I once drank some excellent port at Ted Heath’s table. The invitation came as a surprise, but it almost certainly…
Plainly perfect
The BBC made a very odd documentary about the renovation of Claridge’s: The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild. They filmed, agog, as…
A serious Burgundy
It was the English summer at its most perverse. We were drinking Pimm’s while hoping against hope for better news…
First draught
I am not sure the vast Bierschenke bierkeller in Covent Garden is successful, even if it is skilful: I worry…
