Food
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.…
Sumptuous, remote – and forgettable: Locket’s reviewed
Locket’s is a new café from the owners of Wiltons in Jermyn Street. Wiltons is the restaurant that dukes visit…
Remarkable and imaginative: Fitzwilliam Museum’s The Art of Food reviewed
Eating makes us anxious. This is a feature of contemporary life: a huge amount of attention is devoted to how…
Nauseating, but I like the garlic bread: Legoland Windsor reviewed
The theme music to Legoland in Berkshire is the theme music to The Exorcist. It appears from speakers hidden in…
Back in the Babington Triangle: Roth Bar & Grill reviewed
The Roth Bar & Grill exists on an art-farm called Durslade in Bruton, Somerset, which is also the country outpost…
Stringfellows for the sex robot age: Bob Bob Cité reviewed
Bob Bob Cité is a restaurant dangling like testicles from the underside of the Leadenhall Building in the City of…
A slice of history: how did Britain’s pizza industry begin?
A slice of history Pizza Express is to undergo financial restructuring, leading to fears that it could go under. How…
I’ve had my fill of brasseries: Moncks reviewed
If you review restaurants professionally you would not think Britain wanted to leave the EU. You would think she wanted…
It’s so easy to go mad in Oxford: Chiang Mai Kitchen reviewed
Oxford is a pile of medieval buildings filled with maniacs, and is therefore one of the most interesting places on…
I wouldn’t suggest you eat here, but I doubt there’s a better place to drop acid: Camelot Castle reviewed
The Camelot Castle Hotel is a pebble-dashed late-Victorian excrescence on a cliff. It overlooks the ruins of Tintagel Castle. A…
Prue Leith: My plan to get real catering back into hospitals
Picture the scene: we are filming the opening link for The Great British Bake Off. Here I am in the…
How did my children become more middle class than me?
In a café in Norfolk last week, my seven-year-old son uttered words that mortified me. No, he didn’t comment loudly…
