Food
Poor little rich meals
Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper…
Wild life
Hell’s Kitchen My ambition to open a fish and chip shop in Mogadishu has not happened yet, though I remain…
Sugar rush
The Cereal Killer Café is a temple to cereal on Brick Lane, east London. It serves only cereal — and also…
Winning ways
If ever my near-neighbour William Sitwell is killed in a bizarre shooting accident and I end up taking his place…
Smock and awe
Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was…
Cornish and pasty
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
Station to station
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
Diary
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Dining with death
Beast is next to Debenhams on Oxford Street and it is not conventionally beast-like; rather it is monetised and bespoke…
Diary
‘Please God, make me good, but not yet.’ I know the feeling. As I get older and more deeply retired,…
Colonial cringe
Gymkhana is a fashionable Indian restaurant in Albemarle Street. It was, according to its natty website, ‘inspired by Colonial Indian…
Disney matter
The Disney Café is a gaudy hell on the fourth floor of Harrods, Knightsbridge. It is adjacent to the Harrods…
My little plutocrat
Rextail is a restaurant for billionaire children, such as Richie Rich. Its owner, Arcady Novikov, has already opened a restaurant…
Vienna without the Austrians
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
Bitter
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ is one of husband’s stock phrases — jokes he would think them — in this…
Escaping the Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
Rebooting the Snail
L’Escargot, or the Snail, is a famous restaurant on Greek Street, Soho, opposite the old Establishment club; the oldest French…
Dear Mary
Q. I live far away from my brother and his family, but went to stay with them recently for the…
Through her eyes only
Sybille Bedford all her life was a keen and courageous traveller. Restless, curious, intellectually alert, she was always ready to…
Dinner with the paparazzi
Here then is Gatsby’s house, after an invasion by the Daily Mail. It is called the Chiltern Firehouse. It is…
Old Harry’s game
Harry’s Bar is a dull pale box. This is remarkable in Venice, which is a hospice for dying palaces, held…
Are investment bankers being kicked to death? And should we care – or cheer?
Do we really mean to kill investment banking, or are we trampling it by accident in a fit of righteous…
Oxford blues
It is now two decades since I lived in Oxford. I was then a drunk and lonely puddle of a…
A far cry from Chelsea
London House is in Battersea, which some people call South Chelsea, but is more East Wandsworth to my mind; or…
New ways to open a bottle
Chefs have a problem. Think of much of the best food you have ever eaten. Caviar, English native oysters, sashimi,…
