Food
Fine food in a fine restaurant: Origin City reviewed
Origin City is a good name for this restaurant, whether it knows it or not. It is at West Smithfield,…
As gaudy as Versailles: The Duchess of Cornwall in Poundbury reviewed
Poundbury is the King’s idealised town in Dorchester, built on his land to his specifications: the town that sprung out…
Why I’m addicted to Australian MasterChef
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Bruton is suddenly the place to be – and I have a theory why: At the Chapel reviewed
At the Chapel, Bruton, is a restaurant and hotel in a former chapel in Bruton. This was once an ordinary…
Fish and chips: the fast food that made me
The last meal my parents had before I graced the world with my presence was fish and chips, so I…
A Margherita in Tolkien’s Middle-earth: Pizza in the Courtyard at Sarehole Mill reviewed
Sarehole Mill is four miles south of the centre of Birmingham. If this were a fairy tale, and it should…
‘Thinks of the diner, not the chef’: Claridge’s Restaurant, reviewed
The BBC made a very odd documentary about the renovation of Claridge’s: The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild. They filmed, agog, as…
Pavlova: the crumble of summer
Whenever I tell someone that I’m making a pavlova the response is the same: sheer joy. Even the most fervent…
Big Little Bavaria on Thames: Bierschenke bierkeller reviewed
I am not sure the vast Bierschenke bierkeller in Covent Garden is successful, even if it is skilful: I worry…
A taste of 1997: Pizza Express reviewed
As the government withers this column falls to ennui and visits Pizza Express. As David Cameron, who left the world…
As good as pub food gets: The Red Lion, East Chisenbury, reviewed
The Red Lion, East Chisenbury, is in the Pewsey Vale on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Wiltshire’s strangeness surpasses even…
Home cooking, but idealised: 2 Fore Street reviewed
The restaurant 2 Fore Street lives on Mousehole harbour, near gift shops: the post office and general store have closed,…
Price caps are a slippery slope
Sometimes it’s the little things that depress most. I groaned last week to hear the news item. The government is…
Wuthering Heights in Devon: the Pilchard Inn, Burgh Island, reviewed
The Pilchard Inn sits at the entrance to Burgh Island, a minute tidal island off the coast of south Devon.…
A themed restaurant done right: The Alice, Oxford, reviewed
The Alice lives in a ground-floor room of the Randolph Hotel in Oxford, which venerates the fantastical and the savage,…
In defence of the supermarket
Supermarkets are once again back in the firing line. Henry Dimbleby, the Leon co-founder turned government food tsar, has blamed…
Echoes of John Lewis: Piazza at Royal Opera House reviewed
The Piazza is not a piazza – a realisation which is always irritating – but a restaurant in the eaves…
If Blairism were a carvery: the Impeccable Pig reviewed
Labour is 30 points ahead, and in honour of this I review the Impeccable Pig in Sedgefield (Cedd’s field), a…
What Soho House has got right: Electric Diner reviewed
Electric Diner is from the Soho House group, which has done terrible things to private clubs, luckless farmhouses, domestic interior…
Among the best puddings I’ve ever eaten: Richoux reviewed
Cakeism is offering the voters everything they desire, knowing you will never give it to them because you live in…
A great chef at his best: Lisboeta reviewed
In 2014, Nuno Mendes, a chef from Lisbon by way of Wolfgang Puck’s kitchens and his own Viajante in Bethnal…
Escaping the memory of Liz Truss: Noci reviewed
Sometimes this column has a guest reviewer: a dining companion. It was Liz Truss in late summer 2011, for the…
The etymological ingredients of ‘flageons’
‘Don’t you know the answer?’ asked my husband with mock surprise, throwing over to me from his armchair a copy…