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 [...]
Changing Chanel: How the design house has adapted to modern times September 21, 2015 Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only,” said Coco Chanel. “Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” For Chanel (that’s “Mademoiselle” to you and I) fashion was always more about the inherent predictability of the moment. When [...]
The only way to shoot big game, with wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein September 21, 2015 One June morning I found myself in the back of a mud-splattered four-by-four, the savannah sun beating down upon my head, a torrent of profanities drumming my ears, and a full-grown cheetah eyeing me down the barrel of my Canon lens. As she prowled the long oat grass I struggled to keep her in focus. [...]
Interview: The life of Limmy September 21, 2015 Brian Limmond, AKA Limmy, is the type of comedian you’d have a hard time explaining to your gran. The former web-designer rose to fame with a caustic blog, which was followed up by a sketch-based podcast. He hosts regular webcam sessions and often invites fans to play Counter Strike with him. These days he spends [...]
Art review: Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy September 21, 2015 VISUAL ART AI WEIWEI ROYAL ACADEMY RATING ★★★★☆ Ai Weiwei’s profile is so high, the stories of his struggle against the Chinese regime so ubiquitous, that you might be surprised to learn there’s never been a major UK exhibition of his work. The Royal Academy rights this wrong with a show collecting pieces from 1993 onwards, [...]
Pop goes the easel: The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern reviewed September 21, 2015 VISUAL ART THE WORLD GOES POP TATE MODERN RATING ★★★☆☆ The World Goes Pop could have as its unofficial tagline: “There’s More to Pop Art Than Tins of Soup.” It sets out to dispel the myth that pop art is a US-centric, male-centric, consumerist-centric art form. This, of course, is a rather easy thing to do, [...]
Gotta be in it to wine it: 26 miles, 20 wine tastings, 1 Medoc Marathon September 21, 2015 A burly man is trying to force me to eat an oyster. Beside me, a group of fancy dress Caesars are jostling with a herd of pantomime Norwegian cows (they have udders on their heads, for some reason). They are all drinking glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. I’ve just run 24 miles, I still have another [...]
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 [...]