An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Michelin, alone within the hospitality industry, possesses the ability to provoke elation or tears in professional chefs. If you thought the victims on the receiving end of an expletive-laden tirade from Gordon Ramsay were a sorry sight, just imagine the faces of the poor broken chefs who lose one of their coveted Michelin stars. Some
When it comes to cooking, I make no secret of the fact that I’m something of a traditionalist: I like old-fashioned steamed puddings, I like the classic and the heritage. I like blancmange and rice pudding and suet. I am unashamedly unfashionable. I’m not sure whether I chose the Vintage Chef recipe writing life, or
This August will see the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic crime drama The Godfather. The picture and its 1974 sequel raised the cinematic depiction of The Mob from being crowd-pleasing shoot ‘em ups to a subject worthy of serious filmmakers and subsequent movies in the genre made explicit comparisons between organised crime and wider
Cornwall has a boast this week and it has nothing to do with ice-cream or tides: we have made more than 2000 offers to house Ukrainian refugees. I am not surprised. The duchy is filled with second homes, and they are very often empty. Harboursides are dark in winter and the old town in St
Knots in the stomach? An overwhelming sense of despair? Nervous, restless and tense? That’ll be the anxiety talking and for good reason. What with the financial crash, austerity, Brexit partisanship, climate change catastrophising, social media derangement, pandemic pandemonium and now the possibility of a third world war, I’d be concerned if we weren’t all feeling
In recent years Portugal’s been pulling away from its image as a place for golf-playing retirees. Now it’s a fashionable and increasingly upmarket destination for home buyers who are drawn by its tax benefits coupled with its unspoilt coastlines and low-octane lifestyle. As of December 2021, there were 42,071 Britons resident in Portugal, according to
‘Always order your Guinness first in the round,’ Aaron begins ‘when you get it, let it settle before your first sip – half the pleasure is in the patience.’ He’s pouring a pint at Homeboy, his bar in Nine Elms where he and his business partner Ciarán Smith serve some of the best Guinness in
I don’t know about you but I’m a rather a fan of Batman or The Batman, if you prefer to give him the definite article as the new film does. It’s also rather heartening to see so many fine British actors earning a pretty penny portraying him – Robert Pattinson dons the cowl in the
Sunday was fairly typical. The police picked up Mum, 73, wandering in distress near Halifax bus station, cold, disorientated and lost. Son, 15, was walking with a friend in north London when two older boys stopped them and demanded to know if they were dealing drugs before scrolling through their phones to check. Daughter, 18
Fancy a dabble in the wine business, at a knock-down price? The Prieuré of Saint Jean de Bébian, a trophy asset owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch, is set amidst 32 majestic hectares of artfully tended vines nestled in a beautiful corner of southern France. A brand-new climate-controlled production hall has all the mod cons.
The sexiest scene in Adrian Lyne’s new film, Deep Water, starring Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck, may be de Armas eating an apple—a distant echo of the iconic food scene in Lyne’s 9 ½ Weeks (1986). Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel, in which an openly adulterous wife suspects her husband of drowning her latest
Jane Campion’s BAFTA-winning western The Power of the Dog is distinguished by both great acting and a surprising ending, which I won’t reveal. The strength of the picture’s denouement is that it doesn’t come across as an M. Night Shyamalan-style contrivance, rather as a logical development of the characters. Of course, twist endings are nothing
Kitsch is something of my stock-in-trade. And it doesn’t get more kitsch than Black Forest gateau. Pots of cream, pints of cherry schnapps, a storm of chocolate shavings and some very baroque decoration: it ticks all my old-school boxes. Of course, we are very familiar with the Black Forest gateau’s – BFG to its friends
Just before the pandemic, I spent several months travelling through Europe from the north of Norway to Istanbul and beyond to Azerbaijan. I saw unforgettable sights: the endless daylight of the Arctic summer; the vast Hammershus castle on the Danish island of Bornholm; Vienna’s ornate Prunksaal library; and the sandy beaches of Corfu. But the
Mother’s Day (more properly, Mothering Sunday) is an occasion when it really is the thought that counts. You can give your mother a bunch of daffodils and a home-made card, and tea in bed if you live at home, and, unless your mother is Cruella de Vil, it’ll make her day. When I was a
Michael Gove has announced that members of the public will be able to offer rooms and accommodation to named refugees through a government portal – Homes for Ukraine – which was launched on Monday. Gove said that he was confident there would be no shortage of people coming forward, although he gave a somewhat roundabout
Jemini sits on an unenviable plinth in the UK’s cultural history. In 2003, this pair of enthusiastic Liverpudlians were the first ever UK entry to score a spectacular nul points at the Eurovision Song Contest, with Cry Baby. Oh, we did. In 2021, it was the cruel and unusual fate of James Newman to follow
In the fifth century, Ireland suffered from a reptile dysfunction – it happens to the best of us. Pesky pagan snakes were everywhere, slippery anti-Christian evangelists making a nuisance of themselves, shedding their skin, swallowing hamsters whole and sticking their tongues out at everyone. But then the great Irish hero St Patrick came along. Except,
After the two oddest years in the history of the red carpet, when Covid restrictions saw stars accepting gongs from their sofas via Zoom, glitzy prizegivings as we (used to) know them are back. Last night’s BAFTA ceremony, from the Royal Albert Hall, marked the opening salvo of a two-week run-in of the biggies, as
I have a confession to make to Spectator readers. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s time to come clean (no, I haven’t become a Labour voter – the Tories have been bad, but not that bad). I’ve been experimenting with using meat and dairy substitutes. Hear me out. I’m not proud of what I’ve
Is the property market stagnating? According to the latest figures from the Nationwide House Price Index you could be forgiven for thinking that everything’s tickety-boo. Prices are up 1.7 per cent and annual growth now running at 12.6 per cent with the typical home up to 20 per cent higher than in February 2020. However, with
The tragic ongoing events in Ukraine have highlighted the plight of refugees, with over 2m people (mainly women and children) fleeing the country since Russia invaded on 24 February 2022. Sadly, refugee crises have been occurring since the dawn of what may ironically be called ‘civilisation’, most notably the Biblical Exodus from Egypt and Caesar’s conquest
I found myself in Berlin at the weekend gasping for breath in a cold shower, doing my bit for Ukraine. Berliners are a phlegmatic bunch but the arrival of a European war two hours from their doorstep is triggering memories of much darker periods of conflict and stirring not-so-dormant feelings of solidarity and direct action.
This week’s recipe is for a chocolate cake that is not a terribly traditional chocolate cake. But that is its charm. It uses only one egg, no butter and, most magically, absolutely no chocolate. Instead, it uses cocoa powder and boiling water: the boiling water releases a deeper, rounder flavour from the cocoa, which is enhanced
When schools were closed during lockdown, it wasn’t only education that suffered. The classroom can offer an opportunity to identify children in danger of abuse, with tens of thousands of pupils on the at-risk register. Take away schools and this safety net vanishes. Now and again, stories emerged of just how badly things went wrong:
I hadn’t thought about Cash’s name tapes for many years. My mother used to sew them into clothes I planned to take to school. Occasionally I find one in a sock or a threadbare T-shirt and feel wistful for the years past. My name tapes were white, with a navy, serif typeface. The other day,
I work in learning support at a prep school in the South-East and have started teaching my pupils handwriting. It seems that the future of education, especially for children with special needs, is digital. But why should those who struggle to write legibly be given a laptop instead of extra lessons in handwriting? Faced with
In 1966 we were 17 and about to do A-levels and leave our convent school for ever at the end of that summer term. Two girls were having a lesbian affair, another had been tempted to sleep with a boy, dramatically confessing this to our head nun, Mother Benedicta, in Mother B’s terrifying private room
‘If this is the top of the class, I would hate to see the rest of them.’ That was the withering verdict of the woman I had just handed over hundreds of pounds to on a hunch that my child wasn’t doing as well as I was being told. Gloria (name changed) is what misogynists