London
Social distancing in Soho: The French House reviewed
London is gasping — so where to go but Soho, which is so good at despair? It is often necrotic…
Have big cities had their day?
About 15 years ago I noticed a few surviving chattel houses in Barbados and wondered what they were. As it…
A perfect luncheon wine
I suspect, though this may be romanticising, that if a French lorry driver with hitherto suppressed culinary tastes won France’s…
The joy of commuting
My train journey to work is bliss
A great Dane: Snaps + Rye reviewed
Snaps + Rye is a Nordic-themed restaurant and delicatessen on the Golborne Road, at the shabby and thrilling edges of…
The joy of eating birdseed
Rather like unpacking after a holiday, when you take unworn clothes from the case still neatly folded because the occasion…
London in limbo: can the capital survive this crisis?
The capital is the motor of Britain’s economy. It needs to get moving again
Stringfellows with fish instead of women: Sexy Fish reviewed
Sexy Fish is an Asian fusion barn in Berkeley Square, near the car dealerships and the nightingales, if they are…
Our exile in NW1
Laikipia The sweetest sound to me now is the dawn chorus of birdsong at home on the farm. I lay…
Cyclists have become an easy police target
Most Britons assume at the outset that any misfortune involving a cyclist is the cyclist’s fault. After all, many a…
The food is almost too superb: Wild Honey reviewed
Wild Honey is a ludicrous name for this restaurant: there is nothing wild about it, and I do not think…
A river of lost souls: the extraordinary secrets of the Thames
If you spend enough time on the Thames, you will eventually come across human remains. It is a river of…
Sumptuous, remote – and forgettable: Locket’s reviewed
Locket’s is a new café from the owners of Wiltons in Jermyn Street. Wiltons is the restaurant that dukes visit…
Trump is saving Nato
It’s almost Nato as usual when Emmanuel Macron calls Nato ‘brain dead’. It’s Nato as usual, and Donald Trump as…
Joan Collins: why I love London taxi drivers
Percy and I have seen quite a few movies recently and enjoyed many of them, which is rare. But the…
I’ve had my fill of brasseries: Moncks reviewed
If you review restaurants professionally you would not think Britain wanted to leave the EU. You would think she wanted…
Why no one ever moves back to London
In last week’s Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer replied to a couple with a baby who had sought his advice on…
Like Twitter, but with food: Market Hall Victoria reviewed
The Market Hall Victoria is an international food shed opposite the station terminus. I have long hated Victoria, thinking it…
Like Team Boris, I’m staying in London this summer
Foolish me. I could have been writing this by the shore of Lake Trasimene, with only one problem: how to…
Worried about sky-high rents? Learn to love a bedsit
‘I’m not going to your place, it looks like a crack den.’ It’s not exactly a vote of confidence when…
Abandoning stop and search would be abandoning a generation of kids
It was somehow inevitable that shortly after Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick announced a fall in violent crime, there would…
Who needs psychogeography? Plume, by Will Wiles, reviewed
With his first novel about looking after an engineered wood floor, and a second novel about what it is like…
Soho hasn’t deteriorated – you have: Kiln reviewed
Each suburban soul yearns for the Soho of their youth. It isn’t that Soho was better in the 1990s when…
The ideal restaurant for the mythical Spectator reader: Bellamy’s reviewed
Bellamy’s is a Franco-Belgian brasserie in Bruton Place, a dim alley in the charismatic part of Mayfair; the part that…
Celebrities, cars and chickens: Inside the Connaught hotel
You may have noticed the Connaught a little more since 2011, when ‘Silence’, the steamy fountain by Japanese ‘architect philosopher’ Tadao…
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