Bronte restaurant on The Strand review: the Pacific Rim-inspired menu takes few risks and makes few mistakes July 19, 2016 "How do you find enough new restaurants to review a different one every week?” asked my father during our monthly chat. Bless the old fool: he lives in Derbyshire and can’t be expected to know any better. He’s oblivious to the fact you could bankrupt yourself visiting a new restaurant every night of the week [...]
Albion Clerkenwell review: The café chain’s latest opening is a maelstrom of dining, bars, oysters and pies July 19, 2016 The newest and largest site of café chain Albion which includes a maelstrom of offerings from dining areas serving seasonal British food to an oyster bar and what they call a pie room. Which is a special room where all the pies are kept. WHERE? 63 Clerkenwell Road. On the corner of the old Turnmills building [...]
Our resident chef Mark Hix on that most overlooked of ingredients, olive oil July 19, 2016 How much do you care about oil? I see lots of people with various types in their kitchens but I’m a little dubious about whether they use them for their unique qualities and flavour, or just because they happen to be the first out of the cupboard. Olive oil is a good case in point [...]
Oval Space Terrace: the hip bar, club and events space in east London launches a brilliant new food venture July 12, 2016 We pick out the best new spaces to eat around London. This week Oval Space Terrace, the hip east London venue that now sells restaurant-quality food five days a week. WHAT? If you live in east London and you don’t know about Oval Space, you’re doing it all wrong. It’s an events and club space with a [...]
Our resident chef Mark Hix on the incredible weed samphire, and how the bounty of the ocean can yield salty treasures July 12, 2016 Most people who know samphire, love it for its culinary qualities. Not many people know, however, that back in the 16th century, it would have been used for making glass. It’s a member of the glasswort family, plants whose ashes could be used for making soda-based glass as opposed to the now more common potash. [...]
Eight of the best bottles of bourbon, from Hudson’s whiskey to Old Forester July 7, 2016 Bourbon is the American spirit. This is the sort of line that might be used in an advert, but it’s true – bourbon is only bourbon if it’s brewed in the USA. And for some purists, only Kentucky will do. The most well known American whiskey is Jack Daniels, which uses the same method of [...]
The newly crowned king of pastry Pierre Hermé talks about getting a sweet deal July 7, 2016 This time, it was personal. Experts across the world had voted on the world’s best pastry chef for two years running, and neither time did the accolade go to a Frenchman. For this proud nation of dessert-makers, this is tantamount to a national disgrace. This year Pierre Hermé, the man variously called the Picasso of [...]
Foley’s in Fitzrovia review: Food that’s from everywhere and nowhere, but still impresses with its sense of fun July 5, 2016 The spice trail, if your GCSE history is a little cloudy, is the network of shipping routes linking Japan to Europe, via China, Indonesia, India and the Middle East. It formed the primitive tentacles of globalisation that began to inch around the planet from around 2000BC, giving man the first opportunity to screw over his [...]
Eight of the best cheese boards in London: Post-Brexit, are you wondering where your next brie is coming from? July 5, 2016 1. Fenchurch at Sky Garden, 20 Fenchurch Street, EC3M If you like to scoff cheese and wine while looking down at the great thronging crowds of London town, then there are few places that can compete with the glass magnificence of the Walkie Talkie. Its cheese platter comes from Covent Garden-based Neal’s Yard Dairy and it’s accompanied [...]
Our columnist Mark Hix on the importance of buying sustainable caviar and branching out into piranha June 28, 2016 I was introduced to Mottra caviar some eight years ago and have never looked back. Caviar always has – and always will be – one of those ingredients with luxury status. There have, however, been issues with its sustainability over the years: sturgeon stocks have depleted in many parts of the world because of the [...]