Last week was rather epic in eating out terms. It all kicked off on Wednesday with a meal at the City outpost of Le Relais de Venise with some friends I was recently in France with. We needed an excuse to consume lots of calories while drinking cold rosé and feeling vaguely like we were […]

He’s only gone and done it again. Russell Norman, that is. The opening of Da Polpo, on Covent Garden’s Maiden Lane – a street largely occupied by uninspiring chain establishments, comes just a month or two since Spuntino made Soho’s porn district a place to eat and drink. Of all his openings, Norman admits that Da […]

As if you didn’t already know, René Redzepi’s Noma was voted number one at this year’s S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. I was lucky enough to catch up with the triumphant Danish chef for Chef Magazine while he was over for the awards… What’s the past year been like for you, since topping the […]

Had I been the sort of prodigal monarchist jet-setter with the desire to stay in London during the Royal Wedding, I know where I would have laid my Pimms-soaked, bunting draped cadaver. Forget the glitz of The Ritz; the pomp of The Dorchester or the Middleton-favoured opulence of The Goring: The Zetter Townhouse is my […]

“This is real, old Soho,” says Russell Norman as he leans on the bar of Spuntino. Through the window, just across the way, neon signs for ‘DVD Extra XXX’ and ‘£2 Peep show’ are offering the sort of entertainment that Soho was famous for long before Norman stormed the district, redefining London dining with his boutique […]

The buzz surrounding Heston Blumenthal’s first London restaurant, Dinner, which opened on the 31st of January, has been Brobdingnagian in its proportions. Early reviews from Giles Coren and Matthew Fort rhapsodised about its brilliance, and the morning that I visit The Sun has published an article by Alex James that calls the food at Dinner “the best I’ve […]

I found myself in Birmingham – the land of pleasant taxi drivers, balti houses and a growing culinary scene – not so long ago. I was up there for an Arcade Fire gig (there were only seated tickets left at the 02 and I’d rather snog Brian Blessed than sit down to Arcade Fire) but […]

When I was a kid, we used to go camping in Spain and France every summer holiday in our Conway Tardis (a sort of weird caravan/trailer tent hybrid). My parents would let me and my sister amuse ourselves for hours in the surroundings of whichever restaurant they’d chosen to settle in while they indulged in […]