There has been substantial publicity around the bankruptcy of Patisserie Valerie. The chairman Luke Johnson is an experienced business man with a high profile and had invested a substantial amount of his own money in the company; retail and catering outlets are generally seen as fairly transparent and straightforward activities. So there is a fair …
Bakeries and patisseries
Comme Des Garcons and Rose Bakery
All my life I have loved fashion. This does not mean shopping. Having to go out and find a dress for a particular occasion, or even far worse, idly trawling round clothes shops in the centre of London is not my idea of fun. However, having a tightly curated core wardrobe of beautiful clothes which …
Baltic Bakehouse Liverpool
I have just spent a year in Liverpool off and on, dispersing and disposing of my late mother’s house and effects, and re-acquainting myself with the city. It is a place beguiling and infuriating in equal measures, and over the decades I have known it, prone to peaks and troughs which don’t necessarily chime with …
The Greek Larder
Theodore Kyriakou is an old hand, with great taste in spectacles. He was instrumental in 1999 in introducing Londoners to a world of Greek food away from the standard kebab, chips and salad formula, sensibly choosing bargain sites. The Real Greek opened in Hoxton Market when the area was edgy. Before this, Livebait in 1995 …
Euphorium and Harris & Hoole at Tesco
Many people have a love-hate attitude towards supermarkets. They can be seen as a massive convenience to which we have succumbed, reducing the tedious process of daily food shopping to a bearable once a week exercise. We have better things to do with our time, we say to ourselves. We promise to trek to the …
Pret a Manger and Exki, Paris
I spent the first decade of my sandwich cafe life when in the North West of England referencing Pret a Manger. The first branch of Mangetout in Liverpool opened in 1992 when Pret at two branches in central London still had to be qualified by its full title. Pret now has branches seemingly on every …
Balthazar Bakery
The most eagerly awaited opening in the restaurant world this Spring was the second branch in London of Balthazar, Keith McNally’s highly successful New York restaurant. Arguably the doyen of the New York restaurant scene, McNally has opened 12 individual restaurants over the last 25 years, all in out-of-the-way places. Although, such is the self-generated …
Nordic Triangle
Scandanavian Kitchen/Nordic Bakery/Fabrique In the late 1960s my mother inherited an interior design business in Manchester. This was not quite the glamorous occupation it has now become. Much of her time was spent lugging colour cards and swatches of fabric across muddy building sites to fit out show houses for new estates which were then …
Princi – The Genius of Alan Yau
If you’re walking down Wardour Street in Soho from Oxford Street at any time of the day or evening, you can easily miss Princi. There is no A board on the pavement, nor hanging sign to stop you in your tracks. It is situated at the bottom of an interesting building, opposite Busaba Eathai, part …
