Lessons in wine: A leisurely stroll through the sublime Medoc region September 22, 2015 Those who love Bordeaux will know that the Left Bank is Cabernet Sauvignon territory while the Right Bank is dominated by Merlot. My apologies to readers who are loyal to the wines of the Right, but today I want to delve further into the wines of the Left. The likes of Petrus and Cheval Blanc [...]
Chutney Mary restaurant review September 22, 2015 Chutney Mary 73 St James’s St, SW1A 1PH FOOD ★★★★☆ VALUE ★★☆☆☆ ATMOSPHERE ★★★★☆ Cost for two with wine: £210 All over the country, people are eating. They’re putting food in their mouths and grinding it into a paste for their digestive tracts to deal with at a later date. In lots of cases, they’re not even preparing [...]
Behold: the City finally has a mixologists’ bar September 22, 2015 I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the Square Mile isn’t a great place for cocktails. Sure, you can now get them in most bars (and even some pubs), but most aren’t worth the lemon they’re garnished with. I think it’s a supply and demand thing. Perhaps understandably, the City [...]
Working Lunch: Le Restaurant de Paul at Tower 42 September 22, 2015 WHAT? The name might bring take-out paninis to mind, but Le Restaurant de Paul is actually the celebrated boulangerie’s second expansion into breakfast, lunch and evening dining. A roomy wine and cocktail bar separates the café from the dining room, the final clue that you’re in no ordinary Paul. WHERE? Paul takes pride of place [...]
Mix it up: There’s more to coffee cocktails than the Espresso Martini September 16, 2015 Today, as you sip your morning coffee, take a moment to ponder London’s great institutions built under the influence of caffeine. During one of this nation’s many peaks – from the mid-1600s to the early 1700s – our streets were awash with thousands of coffee shops. These replaced taverns as the place to meet and [...]
Working Lunch: Ceviche Old St September 16, 2015 WHAT? Ceviche Old Street specialises, unsurprisingly enough, in the South American dish of ceviche. Its diverse bar serves up freshly prepared seafood in the classic Peruvian style using tiger’s milk, a sparky and citric marinade that has absolutely nothing to do with tigers. WHERE? A minute’s stroll from Old Street Tube and tucked inside the [...]
Lessons in wine: Don’t be intimidated by fine wine, it’s a fun journey September 15, 2015 Recently in this column we have waxed didactic on popular wine regions for drinking and investment, detailing facts about Bordeaux, Champagne, and Tuscany. But for readers who are new to fine wine and perhaps overwhelmed by the plethora of information, how and where does one start? The easiest answer, of course, is via client dinners [...]
Lobos has bite but good tapas doesn’t come cheap September 15, 2015 14 Borough High Street, SE1 9QG 020 7407 5361 FOOD ★★★★☆ VALUE ★★☆☆☆ ATMOSPHERE ★★★☆☆ Cost for two with wine: £120 Somewhere under London Bridge station, tucked beneath the tracks, is a winding tunnel of a tapas bar. It is the kind of space that further down the line in Bermondsey or Peckham would be full of [...]
Working Lunch: K10, Minster Court EC3 September 9, 2015 WHAT? K10 specialises in, ahem, kaiten-style Japanese cuisine – that’s conveyor belt sushi to you and me – using fresh ingredients and a good selection of booze to wrestle the serving format away from the likes of YO! Sushi, which has trampled all over its good name in recent years. WHERE? It’s tucked away [...]
Why Chile is perfectly suited to making delicious wine September 8, 2015 This week we attended a tasting run by one of Bordeaux’s leading negociants, CVBG. However, it surprisingly featured no Bordeaux wine, instead only Italian and Chilean. The Place de Bordeaux is the wine trading system originating in the middle ages which sells 70 per cent of Bordeaux’s wine by volume into 160 countries. What some [...]