Let’s face it: we have all been having quite a party in London for the last 10 years. There has been exceptional creativity, and the rewards have been prolific for the best, but the sheer quantity of eating out venues has been mind-boggling. The current model of highly leveraged operations reliant on packing people into …
Hospitality
Eating in and out in Paris
These days London is acknowledged to be a hot contender for food capital of the world, thanks to its diversity and the creativity of its concepts. And although we blasé Londoners may think that the bubbling cauldron has reached saturation point, foreign investors re still looking to join the party. The rate of enquiries in …
Brasserie Zedel
It takes guts to open a restaurant in a basement these days, but this is no ordinary basement. The master practitioners of the art of hospitality, Jeremy King and Chris Corbin, have got well into their stride now in London opening a series of restaurants with lavish interiors. The premises of the erstwhile Atlantic Bar …
Italian Spring Cooking with Silvana de Soissons at the Vegetarian Cookery School, Bath
It was a perfect excuse for a bit of mother-and-daughter bonding. I had met Silvana de Soissons, a charismatic Italian foodie chef a few weeks ago at Thyme at Southrop, at the launch of her Foodie Bugle lecture series. Her warmth and energy had made that a special day, and so what could be more …
Italian Spring Cooking with Silvana de Soissons at the Vegetarian Cookery School, BathRead More
Postcards from India (1) – Ananda in the Himalayas
It’s difficult to pigeon hole Ananda, because it is unlike any other spa or retreat I have come across. Was I going to an ashram? I was asked before going there. No, it wasn’t quite like that – too comfortable, based as it was in a maharaja’s palace with British Raj connections. It is a …
The Delaunay Counter
The Delaunay Counter from the Wolseley stable does not look like your average takeaway. There are suited managers to greet on entry, and to talk you through the system, particularly necessary on my first visit, as the blackboards had been removed for rewriting and it was all a bit of a mystery. Of course the …
Ducksoup
This place is so relaxed in its fit out, it’s almost falling apart, but in a good way. There is obviously a big advantage in the current trend of stripped-down, lo-tech and natural finishes: low cost. Where the billing system consists of hooking paper-written orders on to numbered nails, and then simply inputting it all …
A Night at the Opera and Les Deux Salons
A visit to an opera implies a bit of a special occasion, mainly because of the ticket prices. Putting on the large scale productions, involving orchestra, highly trained singers and lavish sets costs thousands and even then needs subsidy to survive. Last Wednesday I went to Fiona Shaw’s production of A Marriage of Figaro, beautifully …
Villa Maroc, Essaouira
Essaouira in Morocco has a special resonance for me. Within an hour’s drive of the town from the heat of Marrakech, the air temperature suddenly falls by about 10 degrees, with the accompanying smell of the sea. There is something affecting about the light for about an hour in the evening when the women and …
