“As we settle into our seats with their fraying edges, and frail wooden armrests, we hear a commotion at the table behind us. Without proper warning a man suddenly falls backwards off his chair and rolls onto the floor. He’s ruddy and broken looking.”
The Docklands area is an unknown land for most of us; a mystery for those of us who don’t get to don a well-tailored suit and head off into its murky depths to worship at the slippery altar of high finance.
“It’s extremely rare that I find myself in Parson’s Green. I love London for all its multifarious gastronomic eccentricity; I love diving on a bus and eating Turkish feasts in Haringey, Indian food in Southall, but you’d have to work pretty hard to drag me down to Parson’s Green.”
“Everywhere in the Capital, everyone is grabbing for their bit of the pie. Whether it’s mediocre no-hopers petulantly clinging to the armrest in the tube, or unjustifiably self-important fat cats creaming off bonuses in the City. It is universally acknowledged that no one wants to share.”
“You can see Copenhagen’s balls from here!”. Excuse me? “What on Earth are you talking about” I said to Mr P, who was stunt double for Lady Stirling this particular evening. “Copenhagen, his balls, you can see them quite clearly from here”. He was right.
“What is the most annoying sound in Edinburgh? Clue: it has nothing to do with football or rugby. You got it? No? Okay, another clue: it can be heard during the day and night? Anything?”
Founded in 1988 by the energetic Ranald Macdonald, Boisdale Belgravia was created in celebration of the best Scottish produce and has since become something of a London institution…
“The old bookworm arose, twitching eagerly, and I sighed. It was his birthday, and I knew what this meant; another day of pandering to every of his whims, which normally verge between the esoteric and the frankly unspeakable.”
“‘First catch your hare’ is the famous, apocryphal statement that is often misattributed to Hannah Glasse as the beginning of her recipe for Jugged Hare in her legendary 19th century text on gastronomy – The Art of Cookery.”
The Hampshire Hog. The name resonates with Englishness. You feel like it should be said by some portly, ancient chap wearing a cravat and a smoking cap as he reminisces about misspent student days in ‘The Hog’.
Chocolate wine first appeared on the English culinary scene in the 1660s, soon after the arrival of chocolate itself, which was known during the reign of Charles II as “the Indian nectar.”
“The Victoria in Richmond manages to straddle a number of hospitality guises in a way that I’ve never encountered before; it’s a local-friendly pub, a restaurant, a café, and a hotel, all rolled into one effortless whole.”