First printed in Spectator Scoff!   You’ve got to admire Nuno Mendes’ tenacity. Having once tried, and once failed, with Bacchus – a restaurant serving his elaborate, inventive cuisine from the run-down depths of Hoxton – forcing him to create a supper club (and a very successful one at that) from his loft apartment – […]

First published on The Spectator’s Website Chef Simon Rogan’s Michelin-starred L’Enclume restaurant is in Cartmel, one of the most picturesque, remote villages in the Lake District: all cobbled streets, country lanes and babbling brooks. The course begins with a trip to Rogan’s organic Howbarrow farm, where you’ll pick seasonal bounty like broad bean flowers, lettuces, […]

A few weeks ago I went for a meal that, quite unexpectedly, blew me away completely. Anyone who’s seen me in the subsequent weeks has probably been gabbled at about the fantastic British food Neil McCue is cooking at The Curlew. So here is a review I wrote about the meal, which was first published […]

This week has been a whirlwind of eating… Bar Boulud Viajante Landseer British Kitchen, Bloomsbury Hotel

As I’m sure you won’t have failed to notice, it’s British asparagus season – and it won’t be here for long. I’ve celebrated 1) by buying loads of the stuff and 2) by writing the first of my new blog series for The Food Network on the lovely green stalks. You can read that here. […]

First published on the Spectator’s website We emerged from our deceptively named ‘sleeper’ train to the hot fug of Nha Trang and the imitable stench of dried squid. It was early morning, but vendors lined the station’s platforms, proudly gesturing toward the fetid, dehydrated cephalopods which had about as much chance of getting near my […]

First published on the Spectator’s website The Vietnamese are masters of the two-wheeler. People carry their entire lives, families and livelihoods on the back of their mopeds – no matter how diminutive. On the lush, green three hour drive past the rural expanse of paddy fields from Hanoi to Halong Bay I saw a man […]

I first tasted the sour, sweet, savoury and fragrant cuisine that is Vietnamese food in Song Que restaurant on the Kingsland Road in east London. It was there one dark and resolutely grim Shoreditch night that my palate was ignited by the herbal deliciousness of grilled beef wrapped in betal leaf and soft shell crab […]