Ask anyone what their favourite smell is, and 90% of the time they’ll say it’s old books. (For the other 10% it’s either freshly baked bread or the aftershave of a long-dead but beloved relative.) Everyone loves old books, even people who’ve only managed half a Ben Elton paperback on holiday since 1999, like my […]
Tucked away in Clerkenwell is my favourite cocktail bar. Which is a big deal for me, because I usually view cocktail bars with suspicion and distrust. Anywhere that waters down my booze and doubles the price just because some lunatic in a waistcoat has plonked it on a napkin and made a lot of washing-up […]
I took my mother to the Queen of Sheba in Kentish Town on the recommendation of a workmate. It serves Ethiopian cuisine, which my flatmate once unkindly remarked must not consist of very much. Turns out he was wrong, they have loads of cuisine. Cuisine coming out of their ears.
Boom Burger is one of those places you just want to root for. After a few years living the nomadic life as a pop-up, it’s finally taken root in a little nook off Portobello Road, serving up its Caribbean-inspired burgers from a permanent kitchen. We were greeted by Josh de Lisser, Boom Burger’s Jamaican-born founder and […]
If you’re into kitsch, you can’t go to Central London without visiting Les Néréides in Covent Garden, the French jewellery-maker’s flagship UK store. The tiny boutique on Long Acre is packed full of its whimsical collections, which range from pretty-pretty pieces from the original Les Néréides brand, and quirkier ones from its lower-priced diffusion line, N2, which is […]
Haché is a small, London-based micro-chain of burger restaurants that over the last decade has tentatively spread its meaty tentacles all across London. It now serves four of the trendiest corners of the Capital with locations in Shoreditch, Clapham, Chelsea and Camden.
So while everyone genuinely does love a lie-in and all-day eggs, people who bang on about how much they simply love brunch always come across as…you know. Tossers. That said, if you’re going to get on board with the most pretentious meal of the day, you may as well do it right. Islington’s Upper Street is to brunch […]
“Do you think we’ll have to draw a girl or a guy?” I asked Carla as we walked down Regent Street towards our life drawing class. “Because I’m not sure if I can stare at balls for a solid hour.”
Confession time: I hate raw fish. I hate the smell of it, I hate the taste of it, I hate the idea of it. My one lame attempt in the past to appreciate the stuff with an open mind resulted in a faceful of tears and smeary mascara after I unwittingly scooped up a whole swirl of […]
Billed as London’s ‘original Arabic den’, Momo of Heddon Street’s Food Quarter has been dishing out the tenderest, more flavoursome North African cuisine for over seventeen years – practically venerable by London standards – and still going strong.
