Wine with oysters? Here are five of the best November 12, 2013 Ranald Macdonald, owner of Boisdale at Canary Wharf, chooses the perfect pairings for his Rock and Native Oysters Bouzeron Aligote 2009 Racy and lemony with plenty of depth and structure, this wine goes down well with the soft texture and gentle flavour of native oysters. Price: £15.40 justerinis.com Blanc de Blancs, Diebolt Vallois This light, [...]
Is Trader Vic’s the worst restaurant in the world? November 5, 2013 TRADER VIC’S Hilton Park Lane, 22 Park Lane, W1K 1BETel: 020 7208 4113 FOOD ★☆☆☆☆ VALUE ★☆☆☆☆ ATMOSPHERE ★☆☆☆☆ Cost for two with booze (but no dessert): £126.50 OK, let’s get this out of the way: Trader Vic’s is awful. Terrible food served in a rudderless, soulless venue for prices that should make you weep bitter tears [...]
Mix it up: Think coffee and beer don’t mix? Well… think again November 5, 2013 @philip_salter AS A general rule, simple solutions trump complex ones. The more variables you bring to bear on a problem, the higher chance you’ll make a mess of things. Take the martini, a perfect solution to near enough any problem. It’s simply gin or vodka and dry vermouth stirred over ice with the addition of an [...]
A hipster’s paradise at 100 Hoxton October 29, 2013 RESTAURANT 100 HOXTON 100-102 Hoxton Street, N1 6SG Tel: 020 7729 1444 FOOD Three stars VALUE Four stars ATMOSPHERE Two stars Cost for two with drinks: £70 OUTSIDE, a young woman draws on a cigarette, her waistline not much thicker than the rim of the spectacles worn by boys who glance at her as they [...]
Aussie wine isn’t all big and loud – there are fine bottles to be found October 29, 2013 Bottle.opener@cityam.com THOSE of us of a certain age will always remember our first Australian wine. They burst onto a fairly turgid scene in the 1980s and turned everything on its head. They were brash, fruity, powerful and, let’s face it, astonishingly cheap compared to the snooty French competition. OK, they were also brutally one-dimensional but [...]
Restaurant review: Urban Meadow October 15, 2013 RESTAURANT Urban Meadow, 150 Bayswater, W2 4RT Tel: 020 7792 7066 FOOD Three Stars VALUE Five Stars ATMOSPHERE Four Stars Cost for two with drinks: £50 THIS is one of those columns restaurant critics write after they’ve been on holiday, where they bang on about the nice places they’ve been eating while you’ve been stuck [...]
The bottle opener October 15, 2013 bottle.opener@cityam.com I HAVE travelled a fair amount in the Middle East and Israel in recent months and one of the things that has struck me is the quality of wine. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Europe lost its monopoly over fine wines decades ago and besides, Jesus Christ himself won considerable praise for his wine-making [...]
Gino D’Acampo polpette recipe: Meatballs like mamma made them October 15, 2013 This is my mum’s recipe. She used to cook this for me once a week. It was a special occasion when she made it because it requires expensive ingredients (meat and parmesan) and mine was not the wealthiest of families. Mum began using smaller meatballs because we used to complain when we only got one [...]
Mix it up: Absinthe cocktail is cultural gem in heart of Mayfair October 15, 2013 @philip_salter OLD HABITS die hard. But after more than a decade in London, I’ve finally managed to offload most of the dingy pubs, sleazy bars and uninspiring restaurants that I frequented when I first landed in the capital. It’s time you did the same. Let those dodgy establishments serving stale beer and saccharine cocktails slip [...]
Foodie heaven in Moroccan town October 9, 2013 Philippe Agnello, head chef at Momo, explains how to make an authentic pigeon pastille I was in Morocco visiting a very good friend of mine, Omar, who returns to his hometown every summer. His family lives in Kebdani, a small remote village near Nador in northern Morocco where few tourists stray and it is rich [...]