Food
Comfort eating
Brasserie Zédel is a grand salon under Piccadilly Circus and the only place I desired when lockdown (or lock-in) ceased…
I’ve resorted to cooking
We cannot bear more drive-through or take-out or near-fatal snack. I am convinced of the boredom of my female ancestors,…
The sheer hypocrisy of the food culture wars
Alison Roman, a celebrity chef and Instagrammer, has come under attack from woke warriors because of her dish ‘#thestew’. Her…
A wing – and a prayer
Drive-through restaurants were invented so Americans could spend more time in their cars. I don’t blame them. American cars are…
Crunch time
Now that I have considered Monster Munch I decide to eat one mindfully. I put it in my mouth, and…
Only the worst will survive
What does a critic do when her genre collapses? Mostly I panic. I speak to restaurateurs who believe that without…
Go fish
Britain’s strange aversion to seafood
Who can still make a Sunday joint last a week?
Sunday lunch was always roast beef and, in the traditional way, the Yorkshire pudding was served first with gravy, supposedly…
Hope in a takeaway bag
You don’t dine in the age of pandemic: you scuttle about in the wreckage. If you can afford food, and…
Doggie style
This week I’d like to point you in the direction of the British Film Institute and its free online archive…
Fare game
A fictional Spectator restaurant critic called Forbes McAllister appeared on Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. He was played…
Eating Easter
Stop the clocks: Fortnum & Mason is still delivering hampers. I am not surprised, because this shop — or rather…
Barometer
People power Boris Johnson said that the reaction to the coronavirus crisis showed ‘There really is such a thing as…
Barometer
Time out When did British workers start being ‘furloughed’? The word furlough is first recorded in the English language in…
A tale of two takeaways
I love eating while watching bad films like Battleship, so I love takeaway food from local restaurants. I am not…
Dry cake in a red-brick crab
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and it sits like a red-brick crab on the…
What waste!
Ugly Butterfly is a zero-waste restaurant and champagne bar on the King’s Road, Chelsea. The ‘champagne bar’ addition is so…
A dish served cold
Is the pangolin having its revenge?
Criminally good
The Yard is a defiantly themed restaurant in Hyatt’s new Great Scotland Yard Hotel, an Edwardian red-brick block which once…
Low life
I’ve no interest in food. None. But for the three other journalists on our press trip, eating was a consuming…
A taste of Wild Honey
Wild Honey is a ludicrous name for this restaurant: there is nothing wild about it, and I do not think…
Fairy food for fairy wives: Julie’s Restaurant reviewed
Julie’s is a 50-year-old restaurant in Holland Park, London, newly emerged from three years of closure as plushly renovated as…
Eggs and hard liquor: Spectator writers on their favourite examples of meals in literature
P.J. O’Rourke I love poems but hate poetasters, love wine but detest oenophiles, love food but can’t stand foodies. Therefore…
‘Cook it like a prayer’: Bip Ling’s Christmas curry
This dish is refreshing and super yummy. It’s a recipe that Didas (my Indian grandmother) taught me. The zesty tomato…
This food needs a little less grandeur, and a little more love: Simpson’s in the Strand reviewed
Simpson’s in the Strand stopped serving breakfast in 2017, after it had been renovated to stop it smelling of cabbage.…
