The Weekly Grill: Rotunda head chef Jai Parkinson on the delights of Barcelona and why you can’t beat his granny’s cooking January 15, 2019 Who are you and What do you do? I’m Jai Parkinson, head chef at Rotunda Bar & Restaurant, managing a small team of seven chefs. My main focus is developing new dishes based around our gate-to-plate ethos, featuring beef and Texel lamb produced at Corneyside Farm – our own farm in Northumberland. I introduced cooking [...]
Seven of the best mocktails: Keep your January dry with this selection of the best non-alcoholic cocktails in London January 15, 2019 1. Summer Cooler Margot, Covent Garden, £9.50 Pretend it’s the middle of July with this fresh orange juice and ginger ale punch, picked up with a splash of lime and garnished with a selection of berries. 2. Afternoon Reviver American Bar, Strand, £12 A fruity and coffee-based pick me up, this does exactly what it [...]
The Drinks Master: How Brexit could affect the wine industry (spoiler – it’s not good news) January 15, 2019 Howard Marks once said “there are no facts about the future, just opinions”. Has this ever been more true of a topic than of Brexit? Even after last night’s vote, it’s entirely unclear what’s going to happen. Many of us take solace in a glass of wine – but even that simple pleasure is under [...]
Weekly Grill: Nieves Barragan, the chef at Sabor, tells us why the best feasts are to be found in Madrid in winter January 8, 2019 Sabor chef Nieves Barragan on why Madrid in the winter is the best place on earth to eat Who are you and what do you do? Nieves Barragan, executive chef director at Sabor. What’s Sabor? It’s a journey through Spain from our bar, to the counter and upstairs to the Asador. The Asador itself is [...]
Working Lunch: Ormer is a fine dining restaurant in the heart of Mayfair that both impresses and surprises January 8, 2019 Ormer Mayfair, Flemings Hotel, 7-12 Half Moon Street, W1 WHAT: A proper fine dining restaurant in a proper old Mayfair location, Flemings Hotel, which opened its doors 167 years ago. The ground floor dining room is a lesson in restrained art deco design, with wood panelling, woodland green banquettes and glazed tiles offset by gold accents. It’s [...]
Our resident chef columnist on how to jazz up your dahl breakfast with some festive leftovers January 8, 2019 Often at weekends I have the urge for a spicy breakfast, usually in the form of a masala omelette, but between Christmas and New Year I was having a bit of an annual larder clear out and made a kind of dahl soup with chestnuts in to finish. I had a bit of mid-morning inspiration [...]
The age old problem: When buying spirits you shouldn’t rely on age as a sign of quality January 7, 2019 If you’re a rum distiller, you need to watch out for those pesky angels. You see, the tropical climates in which rum tends to be made accelerates the aging process: while in Scotland the angels’ share of whisky – that which is lost through evaporation – might be one to three per cent a year, [...]
From Veganuary to Dryathlons, so begins the month of self-inflicted misery… January 4, 2019 The first few weeks of the year are when the office mood is at its glummest. Blue Monday, a concept created in 2005 (albeit by a holiday company trying to get people to book), and billed as “the most depressing day of the year” falls soon. No one agrees if it’s the second or third [...]
From sugar to saving, this government is treating us like a nation of children January 4, 2019 The morning I turned eight, I woke up and told my father that I was “halfway there”. This, in my home state of Connecticut, was in reference to getting my driving licence, a process I could start on my sixteenth birthday. As a kid, this was the milestone that I was most excited to reach, [...]
How to Mix: Sympathy for the Devil at Bar 190, which played a renegade role in Rolling Stone history December 20, 2018 This is hardly the time of year to be having sympathy for the devil – but don’t let that stop you from ordering this cocktail at Bar 190 in South Kensington. The devilishly fiery drink is named after the opening song on The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet owing to the bar’s special connection to the [...]