London

Everything Ottolenghi should be but isn’t: Delamina Townhouse reviewed

10 May 2025 9:00 am

Delamina Townhouse is on Tavistock Street in Covent Garden. It is an Israeli restaurant, and a very fine and subtle…

The creeping Dubai-ification of London

3 May 2025 9:00 am

In December 2023, a TikTok influencer called Maria Vehera opened a packet of ‘Dubai chocolate’ in her car and filmed…

Northern Europe doesn’t get salads: Claro reviewed

26 April 2025 9:00 am

Claro is at 12 Waterloo Place, St James’s, and, when I tried to find out what it used to be…

Long live the long lunch!

26 April 2025 9:00 am

I keep on my bedside table, where others might place religious texts, Keith Waterhouse’s seminal The Theory and Practice of…

Smart even for Chelsea: Josephine Bouchon reviewed

12 April 2025 9:00 am

Josephine is a Lyonnaise bistro on the Fulham Road from Claude Bosi. It is named for Bosi’s grandmother and is…

A creche for nepo babies: the River Cafe Cafe reviewed

29 March 2025 9:00 am

The River Cafe has grown a thrifty annexe, and this passes for democratisation. All restaurants are tribal: if dukes have…

A great-day-out cafe that’s good value: Kenwood House reviewed

15 March 2025 9:00 am

The immaculate bourgeois socialists of north London – that is not code for Jews – like to eat and drink…

Things Fall Apart: Flesh, by David Szalay, reviewed

8 March 2025 9:00 am

The fluctuating fortunes of an ambitious young Hungarian in London provide a gripping study of the choices that can make or break a life

The tiramisu is one of the loveliest things I’ve eaten anywhere: La Môme London reviewed

1 March 2025 9:00 am

La Môme is the new ‘Mediterranean’ restaurant at the Berkeley, Knightsbridge’s monumental grand hotel. It has changed, as all London’s…

Three’s a crowd: The City Changes its Face, by Eimear McBride, reviewed

1 March 2025 9:00 am

Tension mounts between young Eily and her 40-year-old partner, Stephen, when Stephen’s daughter, Grace, appears, underlining the couple’s different ages and experiences

Have I been blacklisted by the binmen?

22 February 2025 9:00 am

Monday, and Camden council have yet again failed to empty my food waste bin. They never miss my rubbish or…

The supreme conjuror Charles Dickens weaves his magic spell

22 February 2025 9:00 am

Peter Conrad reminds us how the skilled stage performer, always yearning for enchantment, even introduced a few disguised magic tricks into his fiction

How to get a table at Audley Public House

15 February 2025 9:00 am

The Audley Public House is on the corner of North Audley Street and Mount Street in Mayfair, opposite the Purdey…

Is this London’s most anti-car borough?

12 February 2025 3:04 am

In a city at war with the car, there’s plenty of competition. Lambeth has hiked the cost of residents’ parking…

Is a soul the only thing unavailable in Harrods?

1 February 2025 9:00 am

The Harrods bookshop, which I browse for masochistic reasons, is mesmerising: an homage to the lure of ownership. The first…

Dictator dining

18 January 2025 9:00 am

The Savoy Hotel is a theatre playing Mean Girls with a hotel attached to it, so you can expect it…

Not worth its salt: Wingmans reviewed

4 January 2025 9:00 am

I see this column as an essay on cultural polarisation: artisanal butter can only take you so far into wisdom.…

My business predictions for 2025

4 January 2025 9:00 am

Headed for ‘the worst of all worlds’ is not where any of us would wish to find ourselves at the…

Something out of a Spectator reader’s dreams: The Guinea Grill reviewed

14 December 2024 9:00 am

Back to the past: it’s safer there. There is a themed restaurant dedicated to George VI of all people, near…

Ideal for winter: The Dover reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

For British people, America is an idea brought by cinema, and The Dover, the New York Italian bar and restaurant…

A light in the darkness: Home Kitchen reviewed

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Home Kitchen is in Primrose Hill, another piece of fantasy London, home to the late Martin Amis and Paddington Bear.…

The appalling truth about London’s ambulance service

16 November 2024 9:00 am

‘An old lady’s fallen down – quick! She’s bleeding. Come help.’ An elderly woman lay on the entrance steps of…

Gen Z love ecstatic dance. Would I?

9 November 2024 9:00 am

Two months ago I moved to London and found it a disorientating experience. Most of my friends were already settled…

You’re spoiling us: The Ambassadors Clubhouse reviewed

2 November 2024 9:00 am

The Ambassadors Clubhouse is on Heddon Street, close to Savile Row and the fictional HQ of Kingsman, which was a…

An otherworldly London: The Great When, by Alan Moore, reviewed

26 October 2024 9:00 am

Is occult knowledge even possible in the age of the internet? If a recondite author obsessed you back in the…