Restaurant review: Luca is the Italian nobody expected from The Clove Club’s Isaac McHale January 18, 2017 Isaac McHale was such a rebellious Young Turk that while he was still cheffing at the Ledbury, he ran a series of pop-ups under the name The Young Turks. He and James Lowe – then the head chef at St John Bread and Wine – would serve up whatever they damn-well pleased, in venues not [...]
Working Lunch review: Gunpowder, E1: This humble Indian cubby-hole in Spitalfields is sure to gain a cult following January 17, 2017 Gunpowder 11 White’s Row, E1 WHAT? A home-style Indian restaurant packing a cubby-hole on the cusp of the City out with big, bold, colourful flavours. WHERE? Squeezed next to a building site between Spitalfields and Brick Lane. The name refers to the area’s former use as an Old Artillery Ground. Expect stripped walls and nudey [...]
Our resident chef Mark Hix on why it’s about time rhubarb overcame the bad reputation your mother left it with January 17, 2017 Some consider rhubarb the devil’s fruit. Well, allow me to correct you: it’s actually a vegetable, and the only reason you don’t like it is because your mother doesn’t know how to cook. We grew up in a lost generation of terrible rhubarb crumbles that never used enough sugar to balance the sharpness. I’ve grown [...]
Hidden on Sri Lanka’s south coast is architect Geoffrey Bawa’s ultimate project, now a boutique hotel called The Last House January 17, 2017 Geoffrey Bawa is Sri Lanka’s most renowned architect, the creative force behind what’s known as “tropical modernism” and among the most influential Asian architects of his generation. But while his works include such notable sites as the Sri Lankan Parliament Building, his style is best appreciated in the subtle details of his smaller, more rural [...]
Wish List at the Royal Court peers inside the warehouse of online retailers like Amazon January 17, 2017 A barely concealed swipe at the working practices of big online retailers, Wish List tells the story of a young woman caring for her OCD-afflicted brother while struggling to make ends meet at her warehouse packaging job. Tamsin’s (Erin Doherty) jittery existence involves trying (and failing) to meet her impossible packaging quota, as a relentless [...]
If you dream of hurtling down deserted mountains, slaloming trees and ducking overhanging branches, the Canadian Rockies may be for you January 17, 2017 Sunshine Village sounds like a misnomer for a ski resort deep in the Canadian Rockies. A Caribbean beach complex, maybe, but a ski arena that straddles the Continental divide of the Americas? But when you’re at the peak of Mount Standish, an impossibly blue sky hanging over a seemingly endless white expanse, it starts to [...]
Lotus Evora Sport 410 review: Short, sharp bursts of pleasure that the Porsche can’t come close to January 16, 2017 W hen former PSA Peugeot Citroen boss Jean-Marc Gales took over as CEO of Lotus in 2013, things were looking a little desperate. His predecessor, Dany Bahar, had made a hasty departure amidst court cases, the company was losing money hand-over-fist, and it simply hadn’t got the cash to replace its ageing model line-up. Since [...]
FiSahara takes place under the baking heat of the African sun. Alex Dudok de Wit finds an event unlike any other January 16, 2017 There’s a territory sandwiched between Morocco and Mauritania, divided from the former in atlases by a dotted line, that carries the opaque name of Western Sahara. You might occasionally spot footage of it on the news, grainy shots of a sand wall lined with landmines and Moroccan soldiers, although most will struggle to place it [...]
My Holiday: An amazing trip from Mumbai to Delhi on the Maharajas’ Express January 16, 2017 My most memorable holiday was taking the Maharajas’ Express from Mumbai to Delhi back in 2010. I was born in India but on the other side of the country in a coal mining town called Asansol, about 200km west of Kolkata. I hadn’t really seen the western part of the country, certainly as a tourist, [...]
How to get into the world’s top airport lounges, from Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong to Qatar Airways’s Al Safwa lounge in Doha January 16, 2017 When flying long-haul, I tend to get to the airport early. Not because I’m one of those anxious flyers who likes to sit around in departures for three hours staring at the flight status screens, but because some airlines have upped their lounge game to such a point that it’s essential to allow enough time [...]