I am not an anxious person, but I do get a deep feeling of unknown dread every time anyone asks me for a restaurant recommendation. The fear is that someone will go somewhere I suggest, and hate it. After all, eating out in London isn’t cheap, and I’d be mortified if someone dropped their hard-earned […]
A few years ago I had my birthday brunch at Pachamama, Marylebone, where we gorged on ceviche and the (justifiably) much-hyped Pan Con Chicharrón burgers, and my housemate James got so drunk on pisco punch he accidentally broke our mate Chris’s arm.
Happy Chinese New Year! So begins the Year of the Dog, which apparently is amicable and kind, cautious and prudent. I’d be quite interested to know how the Dog ended up being the emblem of caution and prudence since all the ones I know will joyfully launch themselves into a freezing bog or gorge themselves […]
Big news: I am Over the West End. Sort of. At weekends, at least. Monday to Friday, I work in an office directly across from the septic shit-swamp that is Leicester Square, so I’m used to nights out – both impromptu and planned – in Soho and Covent Garden. But whereas the area is a […]
A client once told me in a Paris bar that if you order an Old Fashioned, you’ll always have the respect of the barman. “Sod the barman,” I said, inwardly, because they were a client after all. “If I’m paying a tenner for a drink it’s going to be something I actually like.”
Once upon a time steak was the thing you ordered on your birthday and/or when someone else was paying, because a big hunk ‘o beef was – and still is, in many places – the most expensive thing on the menu.
I’ll eat my socks if Ormer Mayfair doesn’t win a Michelin star this year. The sister restaurant to Shaun Rankin’s highly-decorated original in Jersey launched only nine months ago, but it’s enjoyed runaway popularity with almost everyone, from professional critics to armchair foodies.
The Squash. The Beef. The Tart. It read like a haiku from a Post-Modernist remake of Beauty and the Beast, but it was, in fact, my lunch.
I’ve always thought that if Leicester Square is London’s bumhole and Victoria its armpit – albeit a recently groomed, freshly deodorised one, in light of its recent reno – then Canary Wharf is its prosthetic thumb. Grey, functional and conspicuously lacking in anything that resembles a personality, it is populated by besuited unsmiling types who, without […]
After the most excruciatingly tedious and prematurely middle-aged Saturday of our lives – cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs and installing a wine rack – Mike and I popped into town with the vague notion of perhaps going paint shopping after a nice brunch at Mayfair brasserie, The Balcon, which I’d been invited to […]
