An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
I’m driving a dirt road in the wilds of central Sardinia. And I mean what I say by ‘wilds’. This rugged region in the sunburned Supramonte mountains was called ‘Barbagia’ by Cicero – i.e. ‘land of the barbarians’ – as even the Romans never quite managed to subdue it. Centuries later it became famous for
31 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Matthew Parris reflects on the gay rights movement in the UK; faced with Britain’s demographic declines, Stephen J. Shaw argues that Britain needs to recover a sense of ‘futurehood’; Henry Jeffreys makes the case for disposing of wine lists; Tessa Dunlop reviews Valentine Low’s Power and the Palace: The
Wine lists give me the fear. I can still recall the prickle of adrenaline when my father handed me the leather-bound menu when I was in my early twenties because I had started working for a wine merchant after university. Should I play it safe or take a punt on something unusual that some people
There is an immaculate brasserie called 74 Duke at 74 Duke Street, Mayfair: this is postcode etymology. Duke Street runs from Selfridges to what used to be the American embassy in Grosvenor Square but is now (I assume) a paranoid hotel: the Chancery Rosewood, which has kept the monstrous eagle on the roof. If Duke
There have long been Le Creuset fanatics. During lockdown, John Lewis reported that sales of Le Crueset increased by 90 per cent. And last year, a sale at a Hampshire outlet store brought a crush of hundreds of people; police even had to attend. Then there was the affair of Pauline Al Said over the
My partner’s mother, Enid, introduced me to duck with 40 cloves of garlic. She told me it originated from an old Jewish Ashkenazi recipe, although the French claim it’s theirs. It doesn’t matter because it’s delicious, with most of the cloves shoved under the crispy duck skin, permeating the meat, and several pushed into the
Long Compton is in the Cotswolds, but to the east, where there are no boutique hotels or shops selling artisan candles to tourists. Banburyshire and its surrounds are actual countryside. Fields roll away in the manner Germans call Kulturlandschaft, meaning landscape shaped by centuries of human care. This is the sort of country that makes
‘As American as apple pie’, or so the saying goes. But what happens if the apple pie in question isn’t actually American? America is the source of many of my most beloved vintage recipes, especially puddings, and particularly pies. But the knock-on effect is that sometimes they can overshadow similar dishes that come from other
Last weekend, I was in England: among two very diverse aspects of the nation. In recent months, every Saturday, central London has been plagued by demonstrations. I suppose that there must be a right to protest. But what about the right to mosey around Westminster and Whitehall without blocked roads and with any hope of
I love Roquefort, having been introduced to it when I was 16 by our French exchange student Geneviève, whose father was a producer of the cheese. She brought some in her luggage, wrapped in many layers of brown paper so that the unique, pungent smell wouldn’t invade her clothes. My parents, gourmet cooks and gourmands,
Given that almost 1.7 billion litres of beer were poured in British venues in the past year, you’d think we’d be able to keep the country’s biggest beer festival afloat. It is therefore sad to hear that the Great British Beer Festival will be taken off tap next year, its organisers claiming it can no
Who first thought of grinding up all those little unused odds and sods from an animal carcass and stuffing them into a bit of intestine? Many people, apparently. Sausages are one of those products which, while seemingly not intuitive, emerged independently all around the world thousands of years ago. As far as we can tell,
The Lavery in South Kensington is named for Sir John Lavery, official artist of the Great War and designer of the currency of the Irish Free State, who lived here, though he died in Ireland and is buried in Putney. Lavery, of course, would no longer recognise South Kensington as his home, and his white,
Autumn: surely one of the most beautiful words in the language. All the other seasons are expressive, almost even onomatopoeic, worthy of being serenaded by Vivaldi, but autumn has a gentle resonance. Mists and mellow fruitfulness, not to mention the grouse season. School and university accustomed most of us to think of the year beginning
As sure as eggs is eggs, what was once comfort food will be reinvented as fine dining. Lancashire hotpots will be turned fancy, served with teapots of lamb jus. Fish and chips will become canapés, spritzed with atomisers filled with malt vinegar. French onion soup will be served in teeny-tiny shots; Scotch eggs gussied beyond
This summer has been the hottest on record where I live in Burgundy. It could have been disastrous for the grapes as temperatures reached nearly 40°C. Luckily, most of the vineyards in the Côte d’Or were able to move les vendanges to mid-August instead of early September, when they were expecting to harvest. Apparently, it
On holiday in the Dordogne, I face an annual dilemma. My weekly Any Other Business column ruminates on the financial world with occasional restaurant tips to lighten the tone – and many readers tell me they frankly prefer the menus du jour to the boardroom dramas. My difficulty is that in a single page of
I like a picnic weighted with history and class terror, which means Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly, which is historical re-enactment with dreaming. I have written about this for years or tried to: food is never just food, only fools say that. You can learn almost everything about people from the food they want. And
28 min listen
Ben Lippett is a chef and food influencer whose recipes and cooking tips are hugely popular online. His new book How I Cook: A Chef’s Guide To Really Good Home Cooking is out on the 2nd September. On the podcast, Ben tells Lara and Olivia about how he went about writing his debut cookbook, what makes
It has been a disastrous summer for France’s restaurants. On average, visits have dropped by 20 per cent on previous years, but at many coastal resorts they’re down by 35 per cent. ‘Consumption is well below previous years,’ says Laurent Barthélémy, president of a hospitality union. ‘Restaurant owners see customers passing by, but they don’t come
Jack Gervaise-Brazier is a restless romantic. He was brought up on Guernsey, which filled him with a love of islands, but also a desire for wider horizons. As Jack was a head boy and a good historian and classicist, his schoolmasters assumed that he would move on to university and he was offered a place
The double-edged sword of eating with the seasons is the glut. A blunt, un-pretty word, which is a joy in theory and delicious in result, but which can feel daunting when you’re facing down a bench full of berries to be picked over, or countless apples to be processed. My husband and I were once
The best pint you’ll ever have is whatever you can find at 5 p.m. on a Friday. But close behind, and available wherever there’s a willing bartender, is whatever your local brewery has a fresh keg of. That, at least, is what I’ll tell anyone who can’t make a speedy exit. I am a craft
This column sometimes shrieks the death of central London, and this is unfair. (I think this because others are now doing it.) It is not the city we mourn but our younger selves. Even so, the current aesthetic in restaurants is awful and needs to be suppressed: beiges and leathers, fish tanks and stupid lighting,
30 min listen
Brett Graham is the man behind the Michelin-starred The Ledbury in Notting Hill, which is celebrating 20 years this year. He’s also the director of The Harwood Arms in Fulham, London’s only pub with a Michelin star. On the podcast, Brett tells hosts Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about why being in the kitchen is
Honey enjoys almost superpower status. It is credited with healing viral infections, cuts, hay fever and insomnia, to name but a few of honey-curing maladies. On a regular basis, a particular honey is discovered that bodybuilders swear by, or religious leaders have considered akin to holiness. I had never been keen, considering it an overly
There are at least two Long Islands. One of them, eternally famous for The Great Gatsby, is a fascinating blend of glamour and meretriciousness. It is separated from the other one by 3,000 miles of ocean and a totally different culture. In this Long Island – actually about 70 islands of various sizes, also known
I admit to feeling a little intimidated by charcuterie. I have a clutch of books on my shelf all laying out in step-by-step detail how to craft your own salami or whip up a perfect pancetta. They’re well-thumbed, but not a single one has a cooking stain on it. I’m just too nervous when it
So far this summer we’ve had the blackouts in Portugal and Spain, that rather astonishing Heathrow fire, yet more sabre-rattling between Russia and America and the former head of the Army warning that Britain must be ready for the ‘realistic possibility’ of war within five years. Then there was an old general on the radio
