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 […]
The problem with being a thrice-Michelin starred chef is that, naturally, everyone assumes that everything with your name attached to it will be the absolute best thing they’ve ever eaten.
Our time in Islington ended last week, so before Christmas Mike and I went for dinner at The Booking Office at the recently renovated St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel at King’s Cross. (Yes, I know it’s technically Camden, but it’s only a mile from our old flat.) When it opened, my old boss took his then-girlfriend […]
I’m not a huge fan of Christmas. I’m really not. I’ve tried, and there are lots of elements I like – namely the pigs in blankets and goodwill to all men – but the saccharine, schmaltzy side isn’t for me. What I really like is the cosiness of it all – the smell of real pine […]
“There are a lot of girls in here,” said Mike, suspiciously, as though I’d tricked him into becoming the next human sacrifice at an Ann Summers party, or militant lesbian rally.
