London
Who is – and isn't – welcome in Sadiq Khan's London?
Right-wing Frenchman Eric Zemmour, who is expected to run for the presidency of his country next year, has been designated persona…
Lord Lucan, Joan Collins and the greatest dinner ever
There’s a narrow stretch of Chelsea, south of the King’s Road from Oakley Street to Ormonde Gate, that reminds me…
Dregs of fake Provence: Whitcomb’s reviewed
Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first…
The real Greek: Lemonia reviewed
Lemonia lives in the old Chalk Farm Tavern in Primrose Hill, which is better known as the set of Paddington.…
Harriet Harman calls for Cressida Dick to resign
Labour’s Harriet Harman has called for Cressida Dick to resign as chief of the Metropolitan Police after Wayne Couzens was…
I was the next Truman Capote
It’s nice to be back in London, and Glebe Place is a delight. Mind you, it’s not the mansion I…
Scarface’s lair with nibbles: Louie reviewed
A French creole restaurant rises in the sullen ruins of London. It is called Louie, for French king or trumpeter,…
At last, a dose of up-close culture in London
In London for the first time in 18 months, I was as excited as a child on a birthday outing.…
The watery life of the capital
To write about London and its rivers is to enter a crowded literary field. Many aspects of watery life in…
France's provocateur is coming to London
Five years ago, London’s affluent French poured their dosh into the campaign of Emmanuel Macron. This time around, supporters of…
The Liberal Democrats have a dangerous vision for the City of London
Liberals have always set great store by laws and declarations. It was joked about Lord Loreburn, the liberal Lord Chancellor…
A glimpse of lost London – before the yuppie invasion
In a 1923 book called Echo de Paris, the writer Laurence Houseman attempted to conjure up in a very slim,…
How two literary magazines boosted morale during the Blitz
William Loxley’s lively account of ‘Bloomsbury, the Blitz and Horizon magazine’ begins with W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood emigrating to…
The clever radical who led the City’s transformation
It’s a vivid example of unintended consequences that the swimming-pool builders of southern England should owe so much to Sir…
Is London being ‘levelled down’ already?
In his ‘levelling up’ speech in Coventry this week, the Prime Minister insisted time and again that this was no…
An utterly convincing dreamworld: The Ritz reviewed
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Don't 'Kill the Bill'
Are the rights of protesters and the rights of all other citizens fairly balanced? Think back to the Extinction Rebellion…
My voyage back through the landmarks of my life
I was looking forward to my dinner at Daquise in South Kensington, a Polish restaurant that’s been there for ever…
Don’t pity me for living in London
Don’t pity me for living in London
A nicer side of Nero
New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam…
A careful parody: Noble Rot Soho reviewed
Noble Rot sits in Greek Street, Soho, on the site of the old Gay Hussar, which squatted here from 1953…
The Dickensian delights of London in lockdown
I’m blessed by the fact that I live almost smack-bang in the middle of old London, a pebble’s toe punt…
Bad food is back: The Roof Garden at Pantechnicon reviewed
The Roof Garden is a pale, Nordic-style restaurant at the top of the glorious Pantechnicon in Belgravia — formerly a…
Boris's levelling up risks leaving behind London
Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘level up’ Britain sounds long overdue. It implies the creation of a less geographically unequal United…
Pretty food with a side order of pollution: 28-50 reviewed
You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is…
