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 …
Food and Fashion
Babaji Istanbul Pide Salonu
Since Wagamama, Hakkasan and Yauatcha, Alan Yau seems to be making it increasingly tricky to pronounce the names of his enterprises. The last one, a Bangkok cafe called NaamYaa, maybe even suffered from this, although most seem now to have got their tongues round the Thai chain Busaba Eathai. Until we have the opening of …
Grain Store Kings Cross
The January before last, the restaurant critic AA Gill declared 2012 to be the year of the vegetable. In the event, this prediction did not materialise as it was instead the rise of Mark Hix’s Tramshed serving only two types of meat: steak and chicken, Meat Liquor, Meat Wagon, and as many other name permutations …
Septime – Paris
I don’t much like booking weeks ahead for a restaurant. Necessary perhaps when there’s a special occasion or a group of people to get together, but otherwise, to have to plan at least 4 weeks ahead to eat some food seems excessive. And somehow the build up is bound to end in disappointment. One advantage …
Dafna’s Cheesecake Factory
You can find cupcakes with complex flavour combinations in abundance at farmers’ markets, and as elaborate showpieces in shop windows in sophisticated cafés, with prices to match, but what about the good old fashioned homemade cake shop? Anne Lev is one of a dying breed. She has manned her business, Dafna’s Cheese Cake Factory, for …
Nanashi, Paris
Nanashi is so achingly hip, it’s almost painful. But all good for the owner, Lionel Bensemoun, also of Le Baron and La Fidelité, who must be relishing the success of the new concept now in two venues. The influence of Rose Bakery where the Japanese chef Kaori Endo was an employee is evident: the crates …
Merci – Paris on tap (2)
Merci, a much written about enterprise in Paris 3eme, combines two marketable qualities: style and altruism. The building is cool; a former factory with an old red Fiat 500 visible at its entrance through a courtyard. Once inside, the floors are filled with cabinets/tables/racks of interesting desirable things to wear and for the household, all …
Paul A Young – chocolate artisan – 19 June 11
Chocolate has always been associated with luxury. It has a quality which induces the hormone serotonin, and therefore a feeling of well being. Mayan and Aztec civilisations made drinks from the cacao bean often flavoured with chilli and offered it to the gods. And it has long been used in Mexican cooking in their mole …
Food for the weekend (10) – Tomato confit – 17 June 11
I’ve never been a great fan of sun-dried tomatoes. They appeared in the UK at the end of the eighties, and throughout the nineties no self-respecting sandwich cafe or restaurant was without at least one item of a mozzarella (usually of the Danish rubbery variety) and sun-dried tomato combination. To me, they were chewy, salty …
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