Food
In the midst of Brexit agony, one thing remains certain: disputation needs drink
It is enough to drive a fellow to the bottle. I am not given to agnosticism. My view is that…
A cruise-ship menu inside a giant Venetian cake: Caffè Concerto reviewed
Caffè Concerto is a chain of Italian cafés sprouting, lividly, across London and the world. There is one on Piccadilly,…
It’s a Jewish homage to the Wolseley, and that is no bad thing: Tish reviewed
Tish is a new grand café in Belsize Park, north London, but kosher. There are not really enough Jews to…
How violence in France led to the creation of London’s Courtauld Gallery
Darkness, but not the blanket of the dark. This was a sinister darkness, beset by smoke and flames, by the…
Like Soho House in the country – but marginally less hateful: The Pig at Combe reviewed
The Pig at Combe is a restaurant in a country house hotel in a valley in Devon. I actually went…
Breakfast for idiots: it was the wrong time of day for a visit to Gazelle Mayfair
I couldn’t find Gazelle. I walked up and down Albermarle Street, in which Oscar Wilde once plotted his own doom…
The curse of having to go vegan
I’m on a no-alcohol, no-caffeine, no-sugar, vegan diet. It’s less fun than it sounds. Occasionally I cheat, but mostly I…
Dear Mary: Is it really forbidden to eat with a fork’s tines facing upwards?
Q. My husband and I have been invited to the birthday party of a distinguished public figure with whom we…
It is essentially a crap Le Gavroche, and that is not an insult: Roux at Parliament Square reviewed
Politicians are having a terrible time of late, along with the rest of us — it’s not much fun watching…
Food that’s prettier than you are: The Petersham reviewed
The Petersham is a fading hotel on Richmond Hill. I went to a bar mitzvah there in 1986, which gives…
Here’s where you come to eat dreams – for £95 a head: Ollie Dabbous’s Hide reviewed
Hide is a £20 million restaurant at the Green Park end of Piccadilly, on the three lower floors of a…
It reeks of Alan Clark and the 1980s but all is forgiven for the food: Le Gavroche reviewed
Le Gavroche is named for ‘the urchin’ in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and lives in a basement on Upper Brook…
Too good for the kleptocrats of Knightsbridge: Harry’s Dolce Vita reviewed
In 2007 Mikhael Gorbachev starred in a Louis Vuitton advert. He was driven past the Berlin Wall with Louis Vuitton…
As restaurants go, it’s important – and it knows it: the River Café reviewed
Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black has ‘never been to Hammersmith’. I have but I wish I hadn’t. I love…
A Soho steak house that used to be a pornographic cinema: Sophie’s reviewed
Sophie’s lives in an old pornographic cinema at the south end of Great Windmill Street, Soho. It is opposite McDonald’s…
A new addition to north London’s underwhelming restaurants: Café Hampstead reviewed
Café Hampstead is a new café in — big reveal! — Hampstead, the gaudiest of the old villages on the…
How Christmas lunch became Christmas dinner
It was a culinary triumph. My hosts do not spend much time in the UK, and are determined to entertain…
It’s survived universal suffrage and two world wars: restaurant Rules reviewed
Rules looks as if it voted for Brexit, and now finds itself inside an eternal Christmas Eve, where it is…
Farmacy’s food is the worst I have eaten in London
Farmacy, which opened last year, is London’s most fashionable ‘clean eating’ restaurant; it is, therefore, a restaurant for people who…
Forget open-plan kitchens – the traditional dining room is back
Dining rooms have been in the doldrums for decades. Even Mary Berry has given up on hers. ‘Most of us,…
The queen of hotels
Jean-Georges at the Connaught — formerly the Prince of Saxe-Coburg Hotel, but it was renamed during the first world war,…
Cabbages and kings
The first pastry cook Chaïm Soutine painted came out like a collapsed soufflé. The sitter for ‘The Pastry Cook’ (c.1919)…
Elle Decoration meets pub food
The Mandrake is a new ‘design hotel’ in London, which means it is for people who treat Elle Decoration magazine…
In silent misremembrance
Foxlow is near Golden Square in west Soho, where drunken hacks used to take long drunken lunches before having stupid…
Our big fat problem
The good news is that Theresa May has dropped the threat to withdraw universal free school meals. Thank God (and…
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