Spectator Life

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.

The bottle I’m most looking forward to pouring

There is one advantage to a stay in hospital followed by confinement to barracks: time to read and to think. I have devoted a lot of thought to great topics; do I hear ‘sublime’ and ‘ridiculous’? My two subjects have been the existence of God and the prospects of the Tories winning the next election.

Bring back the railway restaurant car

It’s six o’clock and you’ve fought your way on to a train at a major London terminus. The carriage is rammed – heavily pregnant women, the stricken and the young stand in the corridors like it’s A&E – and everywhere people are diving into takeaways. The pungent egg and cress sandwich from Pret is bursting

Tanya Gold

Still thrilling: the Wolseley reviewed

Restaurant and dog years are similar, and so the Wolseley, which is 20 this year, seems as if it has always been here. Other restaurants fall so swiftly you have only fragments of impressions. Breakfast on Bond Street in what feels like a one-bedroom flat belonging to Patrick Bateman. Pasta in a cellar with art,

The horror of gastropubs

Last week saw the publication of the 14th annual Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs of Great Britain, a list consumed by middle-class foodies as eagerly as a £27 fish finger sandwich served on a piece of slate, washed down by a non-alcoholic cocktail in a jam jar. Couples scroll through former drinking holes transformed into Michelin-starred

Lara Prendergast

With Harriet Hastings

20 min listen

Harriet Hastings is the founder of hand-iced biscuit delivery company Biscuiteers which delivers over 2 million biscuits worldwide every year.  On the podcast she speaks to Lara and Liv about growing up as a fussy eater, the trials and tribulations of starting her own business, and her desert island meal.  Photo credit: Mark Harrison

Where to break Dry January

Anyone who did Dry January will by now be eyeing the door and contemplating a night on the town. Because it would be a shame to break your sober streak with any old rubbish, here’s a list of the very best places in London to drink right now. Even if you did that very British

Olivia Potts

A slice of comfort: how to make a proper apple pie

Apple pies are synonymous with domesticity: both here and across the pond, the image of an apple pie, fresh from the oven, possibly cooling on a windowsill, speaks of family, and of homeliness. While they’re not difficult to make, they take time and care, and the making of one is an act of love. Perhaps

Julie Burchill

In praise of drunkenness

Europe, I’m told, is entering the age of the ‘sober-curious’. Curiosity is a wonderful thing; why, then, did hearing this make me want to drink whisky until I talk in tongues and pass out? I’ve had such a long and varied relationship with alcohol since we met when I was a shy provincial child. It’s

The surprising joy of involuntary sobriety 

I have just finished a sojourn with a curious twist. Readers of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain will remember Hans Castorp, who set off to visit a cousin confined to a sanatorium in the Alps. Nothing went according to plan. The cousin fell into a sharp decline and died. Castorp himself was diagnosed as suffering

10 Scotch whiskies to try on Burns Night

Burns Night always feels like a particularly well-timed celebration. Hot on the heels of ‘Blue Monday’ – supposedly the most miserable day of the year – it’s certainly nice to have a reason to get merry. It also happens to be the perfect refutation to those killjoys determined to make Dry January the new Lent.

The best cocktails for Burns Night

Tomorrow evening, fans of whisky, poetry and sheep offal will come together to celebrate the birthday of the great Robert Burns. In the dog days of January there are few pleasures as great as demolishing a plate of haggis while trying to twist your tongue around Burns’s immortal verse. No Burns supper is complete without

London’s best bakeries

If anyone knows how to do winter, it’s the Scandinavians. The concept of snuggling up with a steaming mug of something caffeinated and a buttery pastry is at the heart of their culture, from the Danish concept of hygge (cosiness – often involving sugar and carbs) to the Swedish ritual of fika (taking time for

Olivia Potts

Sussex pond pudding: the perfect January pick-me-up

I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself in the kitchen making a lemon drizzle cake. But now I actively plan my citrusy January. As Christmas recedes, I make notes of recipes that I’m craving, and almost all of them call for a

Tanya Gold

Better than the original: Scott’s Richmond reviewed

Scott’s, Richmond, is a fish, champagne and oyster bar, and a new branch of Scott’s, Mayfair. The original Scott’s was part of what became the Trocadero Centre. (Ian Fleming was a regular. He would take captured U-boat officers there to get them drunk and chatty. James Bond visited too.) It moved to Mount Street and

English food has always been a moveable feast

There is a lot to like about Diane Purkiss’s English Food. It’s a hefty thing, packed full of titbits to trot out down the pub, but also a serious consideration of how English food has changed over time, and of the perils of assuming there has ever been a golden age, or even a very

Lara Prendergast

With Luke Farrell

28 min listen

Luke Farrell is a restauranteur and founder of two of London’s fieriest new openings, Plaza Khao Gaeng and Speedboat Bar. He has spent the last few years dividing his time between Thailand and his nursery in Dorset, where he grows a ‘living library’ of south-east Asian herbs and spices.  On the podcast they discuss memories of Chinese cuisine,

In praise of meatless steak

Sirloin, rump, tomahawk, fillet, rib-eye. However it comes, is there any food that gets salivated over more than steak? Restaurant reviewers compete to outdo one another with their florid descriptions of the sensual delights of tucking into a particularly prime example. But then steak comes loaded with far more than a dollop of garlic butter

Olivia Potts

Pasta bake: a recipe to cure the January blues

I love pasta bake more than is reasonable: I would struggle to name a dish that brings the same level of comfort even from first thought. From the moment I consider making one, I am already reassured: confident in the knowledge that it is a dish which will deliver everything that is required for culinary

Noma and the death of fine dining

The Menu is a horror film about fine dining that revolves around a psychotic head chef (Ralph Fiennes) who runs a destination restaurant on an American island. The island is uninhabited apart from the chef and his staff, who pluck it for the most refined marine treats to serve the obnoxious clientele on a nightly

Melanie McDonagh

It’s time to tuck into Twelfth cake

This week we get to Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, when the wise men finally make it to baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Properly, the feast starts the night before, so Twelfth Night is the evening of the 5th, which in some parts of Europe is the climax of the Christmas season. And, as with

Olivia Potts

In defence of duck à l’orange

Duck à l’orange is so deliciously retro, it’s almost a cliché of kitsch. It seems hard to believe that there was a time when it was genuinely regarded as elegant, or subtle-flavoured, let alone exciting; that it wasn’t always a byword for naff. But as its name suggests, duck à l’orange had chic origins. And

Tanya Gold

Rich pickings: Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal reviewed

Alex Dilling at the Hotel Café Royal is a minute restaurant above Regent Street, which has the type of British imperial architecture that looks most like a cake: that is, the most preening, deceptive and pale. For someone who did almost no exercise, the Prince Regent built quite a lot of roads and there my

Dry January is cruel

Allow me to set the scene for you. It is the coldest month of the year and also the darkest. The sun sets not long after lunch, ruling out any after-work revelry more exciting than testing your antifreeze. It’s too chilly to go for a walk; even a trip to the gym looms like an

Confessions of an energy drink addict

So 2022 bowed out with one last surprise. Who can honestly say they had ‘crowds queueing outside Aldi at 5 a.m. for a viral energy drink’ on their bingo card? The must-have product in question is Prime, a caffeine-free energy drink created by YouTube influencers Logan Paul and KSI. Since going on sale in the

Lara Prendergast

With Amber Guinness

22 min listen

Amber Guinness is a cook, author, journalist and co-founder of The Arniano Painting School. Her first book, A House Party in Tuscany, is out now.  On the podcast she discusses growing up in Tuscany, how to host a successful Tuscan dinner party and the best places to eat in Florence.

The best mocktails for Dry January

It’s the new year, and that means time for resolutions. Many of us will pursue food-and-drink-related goals: eating healthier, eating out less, or trying a ‘Dry January’ – giving up alcohol for the month. Non-drinkers have more interesting options these days than coffee or Diet Coke. Commercially bottled kombuchas are a plausible substitute for something

The rise of the high-end curry house

Back in 2000, not one Indian chef in the UK held a Michelin star. For many people, dinner at a curry house meant a formica table, plastic cutlery and warm salad garnishes on Brick Lane.  Two decades later, all that has changed. There are seven Michelin-starred Indian restaurants across London and haute cuisine curry houses