Food
A pastiche pub
Poundbury is the King’s idealised town in Dorchester, built on his land to his specifications: the town that sprung out…
Aussie rules
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Et tu, Bruton?
At the Chapel, Bruton, is a restaurant and hotel in a former chapel in Bruton. This was once an ordinary…
Fish and chips
The last meal my parents had before I graced the world with my presence was fish and chips, so I…
Homage to Hobbiton
Sarehole Mill is four miles south of the centre of Birmingham. If this were a fairy tale, and it should…
Plainly perfect
The BBC made a very odd documentary about the renovation of Claridge’s: The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild. They filmed, agog, as…
Pavlova
Whenever I tell someone that I’m making a pavlova the response is the same: sheer joy. Even the most fervent…
First draught
I am not sure the vast Bierschenke bierkeller in Covent Garden is successful, even if it is skilful: I worry…
Museum pizzas
As the government withers this column falls to ennui and visits Pizza Express. As David Cameron, who left the world…
Roar of approval
The Red Lion, East Chisenbury, is in the Pewsey Vale on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Wiltshire’s strangeness surpasses even…
Strangeness and charm
The restaurant 2 Fore Street lives on Mousehole harbour, near gift shops: the post office and general store have closed,…
There will be no price cap on ‘basic items’
Sometimes it’s the little things that depress most. I groaned last week to hear the news item. The government is…
No mucking about
The Pilchard Inn sits at the entrance to Burgh Island, a minute tidal island off the coast of south Devon.…
Alice in gastroland
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…
All muted
The Piazza is not a piazza – a realisation which is always irritating – but a restaurant in the eaves…
Pig heaven
Labour is 30 points ahead, and in honour of this I review the Impeccable Pig in Sedgefield (Cedd’s field), a…
A feast for the eyes
Jonathan Meades on the art of menus
Fine diner
Electric Diner is from the Soho House group, which has done terrible things to private clubs, luckless farmhouses, domestic interior…
Hot cakes
Cakeism is offering the voters everything they desire, knowing you will never give it to them because you live in…
A personal best
In 2014, Nuno Mendes, a chef from Lisbon by way of Wolfgang Puck’s kitchens and his own Viajante in Bethnal…
Barometer
An idea past its sell-by date Waitrose has announced the removal of ‘best before’ dates from many food products. –…
My lunch with Liz
Sometimes this column has a guest reviewer: a dining companion. It was Liz Truss in late summer 2011, for the…
Flageons
‘Don’t you know the answer?’ asked my husband with mock surprise, throwing over to me from his armchair a copy…
Sack Heathrow’s boss? No, put him on the front line
Airports are on my mind, since I’ve just stepped off an on-time early-morning flight from East Midlands to Bergerac –…
