Something for the weekend February 26, 2015 DRINK! MEANTIME TASTING ROOMS If you’re into your craft beer, why don’t you, er, hop along to the Meantime Tasting Rooms where all the brewery’s beers are on tap. Open all day till 11pm, Lawrence Trading Estate, Blackwall Lane, Greenwich, visit meantimebrewing.com WATCH! BEST PICTURE WEEK Missed out on some of the films of the [...]
London Fashion Week 2015: The best of the collections February 25, 2015 City A.M. Bespoke fashion director Ozzy Shah gives his take on this year’s London Fashion Week. OSMAN White is a big trend I loved this show. It was an absolutely brilliant collection, one of his best ever. It was very clean and minimal, quite refreshing compared to a lot of busy, complicated shows [...]
The National Theatre’s head chef Simon Flint on organising chaos February 24, 2015 There are two main challenges to running the restaurants at the National Theatre: people have very high expectations because the theatre is so good, and they’re often in a hurry, so we need to serve great food quickly. Our restaurants are open at other times, but pre-theatre – which is 5–7.30pm – is very much [...]
Mix it up: How vermouth, like the Negroni, is experiencing a comeback February 24, 2015 Each generation rebels against the values and fashions of the last, often unaware that they’re drawing on the fashions of their grandparents. Take the Negroni. It’s now the height of cocktail sophistication, but the chances are your grandparents knocked them back like alcopops. And it’s not just the Negroni – people are starting to drink [...]
The rise and rise of the beard: Facial hair gets its own Somerset House exhibition February 24, 2015 Beards are big. Literally. You can’t walk down Kingsland Road without being tickled by the bristles of a hirsute gentleman. And now you can’t walk through the grand exhibition space of Somerset House without a beard to the retina. Style photographer Mr Elbank has a new exhibition showcasing the magnificence of the beard, with dozens [...]
Car review: The Audi TT Roadster 2.0 TFSI Quattro S Line is as cool as it looks February 23, 2015 There's little point trying to deny it: the TT is a great-looking car. It always has been, despite the 1998 model's divisive image. The MkI TT was first sketched as a Roadster before marketing types got their hands on the plans and insisted on selling it with a hard-top roof to begin with. Even so, [...]
Not convinced? February 23, 2015 CHECK OUT THESE ALTERNATIVES… MERCEDES-BENZ SLK 250 AMG SPORT PRICE: £38,705 0-62MPH: 6.5 secs TOP SPEED: 152mph CO2 G/KM: 169g/km MPG COMBINED: 38.7mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN Three Stars PERFORMANCE Four Stars PRACTICALITY Two Stars VALUE FOR MONEY Four Stars PORSCHE BOXSTER 2.7 PRICE: £38,810 0-62MPH: 5.8 secs TOP SPEED: 162mph CO2 G/KM: 183g/km MPG COMBINED: 35.8mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN [...]
Okinawa: Japan, but not as you know it February 22, 2015 Everyone who is serious about travel should have their Alex Garland destination; somewhere you can casually name-drop at dinner parties, safe in the knowledge that nobody else will have been. Garland immortalised – and doomed – Thailand’s then-pristine Koh Phangan when he wrote about it in his novel The Beach. That was in 1996, just [...]
48 hours in… Hamburg February 22, 2015 WHERE TO GO Planten un Blomen is Hamburg’s Hyde Park and you can’t beat it for beautiful flora (its name translates as “plants and flowers”). Look out for the Japanese garden and tea house located in the centre of the park WHERE TO EAT Fried plaice with potatoes, pickled herrings and labskaus (a Hamburgian delicacy [...]
Photography review: Human Rights and Human Wrongs February 20, 2015 Photographers’ Gallery | ★★★★☆ Starting with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Human Rights and Human Wrongs exhibition features 300 prints taken from the Black Star collection of twentieth century photoreportage. The prints depict racism, oppression and a common struggle uniting movements as diverse as American Civil Rights and north Africans’ attempts at [...]