I love the origins of the Michelin Guide. In 1900, hardly anyone drove and even fewer people ate out regularly. Employees at Michelin, whose livelihood relied on cars being driven (and thus more tyres wearing out), spotted the problem. Only 300 people had them in France. They needed to make people drive more. Being where […]
About eight years ago, I started to discover my love for cooking. I was attempting to put Sunday Roasts together seamlessly. I was trying my hand at omelettes. I tried doing things other than chips with a steak. And I started watching Saturday Kitchen a lot. For a long period, Saturday Kitchen used to […]
I remember going to an Ask in Grantham when I was probably nine or ten years old. To little me – who would have been happy in (and probably preferred) McDonalds – it felt like the height of sophistication. People were in suits. There was exposed brick. The waiters were friendly and polite. We […]
“That’s quite continental” I was told recently that when I say “the continent” it ages me into a Brexit-voting, Clarkson-loving, red trouser-wearing old man. And only one of those things is true. But for once, there’s legitimate reason to refer to “the continent” and that’s because of the latest restaurant from the Hope & […]
Rochelle Canteen review. The Mall was like something from an old Russian film last week. On peak snow day, it was almost deserted. Colour had vanished from sight. Everything was white, grey or black. Cars passed just once ever few minutes. The odd couple trod carefully, clutching each other for warmth. The ICA […]
One of the bookmarks in English food history arrived at the same time as the explosion of the wool trade. Wool became a vital part of English trading, and so agriculture became a national rather than local interest. Two things happened as a result: (1) landowners moved away from rearing animals to be eaten, […]
From tapas bars to high end dining and everything in between Years ago, I told a friend that the only history you needed to learn about a place you could learn from its food. It was the sort of bullish statement I’d make, where I’d have to make up reasoning on the spot. While it […]
There’s a brilliant review called Secrets inside Elizabeth David’s An Omelette and a Glass of Wine. Taken from her Spectator column, she reviews the modest Chelsea-Kensington-Fulham restaurant Beau Geste. The 1963 review differs* from restaurant review columns you might read today. Most significantly, is that she visits Beau Geste on four or five occasions […]
Whenever a restaurant closes, I’m reminded of the closing stanza of T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men. There is often no grand finale, just a slow deterioration and the acceptance that things are over. For punters, it’s often a matter of simply walking past and discovering a notice on the door with the lights out. In […]
London between Christmas and New Year often reminds me a bit of last days of school in December. It’s raining outside. Half the kids you know have already been whisked off out of town. There’s a strange emptiness to the city. Everyone’s a bit mischevious. Everyone sneaks off to the pub at 3pm and gets […]
My grandfather used to run The George Hotel in Shipston-on-Stour. I remember tobacco-stained, yellow walls in a dark dining room with a piano in one corner. I remember the kitchen where my grandfather used to cook the family a Sunday lunch. I remember the occasional passerby through Shipston who might ask if they were serving […]
Considering it was the day after the pseudo-crisis on Oxford Street, we were expecting central London to be quiet on Saturday. Turns out, the British shopper is never deterred. All the way from Oxford Street to Shaftesbury Avenue the roads were rammed. Even the more typically quiet Soho streets were buzzing and restaurant queues overflowing. […]
Last year, in the sort of no-man’s land between Old Street and Angel, I visited a restaurant called Sardine. Wood fire, Provencal cooking, a small changing menu, a bowl of unpodded peas to nibble on while you wait. It was an early date with my now partner. In retrospect, I really called those early restaurants […]
Four or five years ago, my flatmate and I started a tradition we called #gamesundays. The premise was: we didn’t know enough about game, and wanted to learn. Each week, we bought some game and cooked it in a different way. It was formative in my love for this season. But despite all of […]
Market in L’Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue It’s Sunday. After a day’s rest, the mistral has woken back up and is disturbing various parts of the town’s market. We wander through. There’s saucisson flavoured with things like ceps, roquefort, truffles. A fishmonger sells dozens of types of fish, almost all of which are sold out by midday. Grocers sell […]
The explosion of neighbourhood restaurants over the past few years has been a delight. The idea of eating in central London now only feels like a good idea if you’re having lunch with an out of towner – or a south Londoner. Instead, we have been blessed with great local eateries. Michelin has picked up on […]
I was reminded recently of the film Ratatouille. Towards the end, the chef creates a jazzed up version of the eponymous dish. A food critic eats it and is immediately given a flashback to childhood. It is powerful. The dark Parisian restaurant disappears and we see the critic as a boy standing in the doorway: sunfilled, Provencal hillsides […]
I fondly remember one Christmas about four years ago, when having a work team lunch before break. I was sat next to my boss (Sicilian), and opposite the company COO (also Sicilian). The mood of the lunch went a bit sour somewhere between the first and second courses, when asked my favourite cuisines. Without hesitation, […]
Italy is not a country I am familiar with. Unlike with France where I could tell you regional differences between beef stews. With Italy, I don’t even know all the different region names. When we decided to visit the Ligurian coast in mid-August, it was not planned like my usual trips. Instead of chasing the […]
I rarely take part in many Twitter memes, but one caught my eye this weekend that I loved: #firstsevenjobs. Most people’s sixth or seventh jobs were roughly in the fields they were working now. But it was the first few that were most interesting for everyone. I only listed jobs which in the end made […]
The news that the BBC is culling 11,000 of its recipes from their website comes at a fitting time. Last week, myself and thirteen friends rented a Provencal bastide in the Bouches-du-Rhone. I spent most of the week cooking, and yet I went with just three cookbooks. The trip has now become an annual celebration […]
On May 18th last year, myself and a few friends hosted the inaugural #libdempint. What began as a pint for five people turned into an event of 200 with Nick Clegg as a surprise guest speaker. The evening was inspiring. People from different walks of life came together on a warm, May evening to discuss […]
When the Larry Heard sample drops in Fade, I went a bit giddy. I had never imagined an acid bassline, which I had previously only heard in darkened clubs, as the perfect beat for hiphop. This moment of delight with sampling, is where Kanye West eats. When I got into Kanye West at 15 or […]
After the attacks on Paris happened in November, I reread Hemingway’s ode to Paris, A Moveable Feast. The moment I finished it, I went online and booked this holiday. Refined stews and Hotel du Nord I had a brilliant meal in the bistro at Hotel du Nord on the first night. The bistro was a caricature […]
I’ve listened to more new music this year than in any other.
Two AM at the main lobby bar of the Marriott Hotel, Bournemouth. The queue is four deep as it has been for the past three or four hours. The main room is overspilling in every direction. It’s loud. There’s shouting. There’s hugging. Someone spills a drink. A couple have a fight in the corner. A debate erupts in […]
Mark Pack’s recently blogged asking what Lib Dem policy on Uber should be. What prompted it? Sal Brinton’s six concerns for Uber. I’m not going to answer the six points, because #libdempinter Pete has answered each point very effectively in the comments. What really bothers me is the precedent this sets if we were to […]
Ferro di Cavallo is a side street trattoria with bright red walls and a maître d sporting a James Murphy beard. Its clientele was reflective of what we had seen elsewhere: the odd young group of friends, but mostly older families – and large families they were too.
“If you look at my last three end of year lists, there’s a pattern” “Yeah some good music with token contrarian pop choices as talking points”
Cassis Elizabeth David’s anecdote about the English still selling olive oil in chemists in the 50s is renowned. Even in post-rationing Britain, the thought of the dishes David covers in French Provincial Cooking, while we were using powdered eggs, must have sounded incredibly remote. A lot has changed in the fifty-two years since that book’s […]
“I’m going to really embarrass my son here and say that we’d both love the lobster, but have never eaten it. Is there anything we need to know?” I had very, very limited seafood experiences growing up. Aside from the rather tasteless fish and chips or fish fingers I might have on the odd […]
The rules of attraction & Tinder data analysis I joined Tinder around August last year, and within a couple of months, I started to notice a pattern — certain names featured more frequently than others. There could have been any number of reasons for this. I could have simply been noticing some names more than others — I’m sure subconsciously […]
TL:DR? Jump to the list Well that wasn’t a very good year for pop music, was it? We had to wait until November until we were given a half-way decent pop hook (Rihanna’s Monster chorus), but even that was replicating the exact same formula Ri and Slim nailed for the first time a few years […]
I am a huge fan of lists. To-do lists, checklists, and my favourite of them all – end of year lists. This is a task I have undertaken before (2011, 2010) and have for some time now been looking forward to writing this years. ‘But it’s only the end of November’ I hear you shout […]
EAST DULWICH, 8th March – Around 7.20pm, I walk in to Green and Blue Wineson Lordship Lane. I have been invited along for a wine tasting and supper. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I was certainly looking forward to it. After all, I am a great appreciator of wine (even if my […]
It’s December, it’s sodding cold and it’s that time when music hacks all over the world sharpen their pencils and start penning their end of year lists. As an ex-wannabe-music-hack, music-lover, and addicted-list-maker, I too like making end of the year lists. If for no other reason than it reminds me the following year how […]
After I wake up I check Twitter to find that Bret Easton Ellis has published the unedited, full-length version of his Newsweek article, “Notes on Charlie Sheen and the End of Empire” to The Daily Beast. The Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack remains looping as it has been throughout the night and suddenly the sullen sitar of […]
10. Top Girls – Faded Feeling In the year of chillwave and Sleigh Bells, over-compressed and lo-fi should not shock anyone. Faded Feeling leads by that example, that is isn’t until the undistorted vocal swoons in. Haunting melodies echo and lead toward a beautiful solo synth pad that, in turn mesmerises you until the drums […]
I love lists. I’ll make them for almost anything: shopping, plans, ideas, books, films, and of course music. It seems to be a universal truth acknowledged by Nick Hornby that music fans are one of the greatest fans of lists. I will make playlists of favourite tracks for each season, each mood, and each genre. […]
When Kanye West performed for VH1 Storytellers his, already analytic, self-prophesying and auto-biographical, songs grew with an extensive stream-of-conscious flow. Arrogance shone through because Kanye had only ever been self-agrandising, he was was just going through the motions. In between segments of songs he called “I am so disappointed that I can never see me […]