Food
Consolation fries
The Corbin & King dining and home entertaining box includes dishes from the Delaunay, the Wolseley and Brasserie Zédel ‘delivered…
My recipe for mayhem
Caroline was pretty heroic during the first lockdown. She’s used to having no children to deal with between the hours…
Brain food
The questionable ethics of eating octopus
Punishment stocks
Welcome to the sunlit uplands which, for me, contain small plastic tubs of stock, which is just the opening to…
Segment
In the aisle of Tesco I stood like one thunderstruck. It was not the print of a man’s naked foot…
Theresa May’s festive cake
This recipe was given to me years ago by an old friend — hence the imperial measurements — and I…
Unhampered pleasure
There is straw inside the Fortnum & Mason Christmas Treat Hamper (£100). As the straw drifts through the house, it…
Roots of happiness
Turnips is an haute cuisine restaurant inside a greengrocer in Borough Market in London. I suspect others will try this…
Meal kits have changed my life
Ford’s Kumar Galhotra once remarked that carmaking is 100,000 rational decisions in search of one emotional decision. You spend five…
Me, myself and Thai
Lockdown is hurting everyone except the chickens. I have bought them a conservatory because Philippa, a Light Sussex, looks like…
Bass notes
It’s a good day to stab something and tear out its heart. Elaine Lorys is the only female master fishmonger…
Rich pickings
Pity the gilded restaurants of Mayfair, if you can: they are dying. Some have reopened; they ache on like men…
Diary
I have been in Istanbul, partly to research a French-born collateral ancestor of mine, Aimée Dubucq, who, according to legend,…
Soho: home of the brave
London is gasping — so where to go but Soho, which is so good at despair? It is often necrotic…
A flash of life
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
Right up my alley
I suspect, though this may be romanticising, that if a French lorry driver with hitherto suppressed culinary tastes won France’s…
Steak at stake
Pandemic has brought many truths, the most minor of which is: I can’t cook steak. I thought I could. I…
Choice cuts
Covid has exposed our muddled thinking about food
Real life
We have beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, butternut squash, plums and strawberries growing in our garden. I dug up and replanted…
Great Dane
Snaps + Rye is a Nordic-themed restaurant and delicatessen on the Golborne Road, at the shabby and thrilling edges of…
Bringing Sexy back
Sexy Fish is an Asian fusion barn in Berkeley Square, near the car dealerships and the nightingales, if they are…
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…
