How Tampa went from forgotten fast food badland to supercool street food trailblazer September 3, 2018 On a Friday night in Seminole Heights, The Refinery restaurant is buzzing. Every seat is taken and diners spill onto the terrace, their tables heaving with colourful food. This isn’t what I expected to find in Tampa, a city that was once known as the best place to trial fast food franchises. “We opened in [...]
Native restaurant review: Neal’s Yard’s loss is Southwark’s gain as this zero-waste restaurant moves across London September 3, 2018 Last month I wrote about how Covent Garden is changing from a bunch of fancy shops to an all-singing, all-dancing billionaire’s paradise, complete with luxury flats and restaurants like Petersham Nurseries, where you can drop £200 before you’ve even glanced at a wine list. In a fortuitous segue, this month I’m writing about Native, a restaurant [...]
Working Lunch: Jikoni in Marylebone is an excellent fusion restaurant that feels as cosy as your nan’s kitchen August 29, 2018 Jikoni 21 Blandford Street, W1 WHAT AND WHERE? A cosy, cushion-filled spot in Marylebone that feels more like your nan’s kitchen than a neighbourhood fusion cafe. Jikoni actually means ‘kitchen’ in Swahili and the food reflects the culinary influences of its founder, the food writer-turned-restaurateur Ravinder Bhogal, who was born in Kenya to Indian parents, [...]
To celebrate and honour National Burger Day, here’s our pick of the five best plant-based burgers in London August 21, 2018 1. The Vurger Co. The Auburger, £8.45 This minimalist, plant-based burger joint across the road from Rich Mix has the cool vibe of an east London creative agency, and a menu of easily the best vegan burgers we’ve had in London. Their classic burger is a black bean, pepper and corn patty number, but be [...]
Vice Media’s online food brand Munchies is to expand its physical presence with a food hall venture August 21, 2018 Munchies, the online food channel owned by Vice Media, is to expand its presence in the physical world. The publisher has agreed to a brand licensing contract for a food hall at American Dream Meadowlands, a retail complex an under construction in New Jersey. Agreed between the online brand and the centre owner, Triple Five [...]
Working Lunch at Zoilo: This Marylebone restaurant celebrates the diversity of Argentinian cuisine July 25, 2018 Zoilo 9 Duke St, W1U 3EG What? Argentinian food is dominated by the cow. In an interview with City A.M Magazine, chef and steak connoisseur Mike Reid ascribed the popularity of the country’s top beef to the mountainous terrain on which the cattle roam, giving the cows an intense workout that imbues them with [...]
The Petersham at Petersham Nurseries in Covent Garden review: Some decent, basic food for those willing to splurge an obscene amount July 5, 2018 Covent Garden has reinvented itself more times than Madonna, had more facelifts than Mickey Rourke, seen more costume changes than Matthew Kelly. Once a Monk’s vegetable patch, it’s been home to prostitutes and drunks, clowns and mimes, apples and Apple. Before Capital & Counties (Capco) bought the market and the surrounding seven acres in 2006, [...]
Wine over matter: TV wine expert Amelia Singer on working with Jamie Oliver and binge-drinking Brits June 25, 2018 “I wasn’t going to start with this statement, but hey why not – I’m all about cross-dressing when it comes to wine,” says Amelia Singer, with a glint in her eye. What she means is that wine is best served with life’s other great enhancers – like art, music, and food. That might sound obvious [...]
These are the seven best fish and chips in London, and I’ll hear no more on the matter June 1, 2018 1. Golden Union 38 Poland St, London W1F 7LY Fish are basically the potatoes of the ocean. And potatoes are just a kind of fish that lives in the dirt. When these two edible stewards of the underworld come together we call it fish and chips, and nowhere is the pairing better exemplified than [...]
Where’s the beef? Meat substitutes are suddenly big business: we try the UK’s first plant-based ‘bleeding burger’ and ask if meat will one day be a thing of the past March 8, 2018 In the mockumentary Carnage, Simon Amstel imagines a future in which eating meat is as socially unacceptable as cannibalism. Groups of elderly people sit in therapy sessions trying to come to terms with the atrocities they committed against the animal kingdom, with the narrator quipping “‘Meat-free Monday’ now sounds about as appealing as ‘ethnic cleansing-free [...]