An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
My brother went to Japan recently, and I asked him to buy me a knife. As anyone who has entered the bowels of a restaurant knows, Japanese blades are highly sought after. I had to decide between an 18cm utility knife or a metre-long Maguro bōchō. The carbon steel of the latter can fillet a
28 min listen
Julian Metcalfe is a British entrepreneur and one of the most influential individuals on the London high street. He revolutionised the grab-and-go lunchtime food industry in 1986 by co-founding Pret and did the same again in 1997 when he commercialised Japanese cuisine with the first Itsu. On the podcast, he tells Liv and Lara about the influence of
In a letter to Katie Morley, consumer champion for the Telegraph, CK from London explained that her £4,000 Smeg hob doesn’t work with her Le Creuset pans. She said she was ‘furious’ because she had renovated her kitchen and had a marble worktop cut to fit it. ‘Given the price tag, I expected it to
Farmers are threatening a national strike over the inheritance tax increases, the first in history. Given how quickly the Labour government yielded to public sector unions, it is little wonder that the farmers have sensed that strikes are the best way to achieve their goals. By 1851, the proportion of Britain’s male workforce employed on
You could say the British were to blame. The dramatic rise and subsequent fall of Beaujolais has its roots in the early 1970s, when Sunday Times wine correspondent Allan Hall laid down a challenge for his readers. The first to go to Beaujolais, in eastern France, and bring him back a bottle of that year’s just-pressed
Ikea has opened its first high-street restaurant in the UK. There’s not a flat-pack in sight – but a hotdog is 85p and a children’s pasta dish with tomato sauce (plus soft drink and piece of fruit) is 95p. A nine-piece full English will set you back £3.75, while a serving of their famous meatballs
‘Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!’ If that phrase means anything to you, you’re likely of a vintage that remembers pre-Clarkson Top Gear. Growing up in the 1980s, you couldn’t miss adverts for the Beaujolais Run – an annual race to be the first to bring the new wine back to England. People would rush over
Home Kitchen is in Primrose Hill, another piece of fantasy London, home to the late Martin Amis and Paddington Bear. It is a measure of the times that Elizabeth II had no literary chronicler – no Amis, no Proust for her – but was, almost against her will, given Paddington Bear instead. When I saw
Sometimes, when it comes to culinary history, Britain is its own worst enemy. For a long time, British food has been seen as a joke among other nations, but also nearer to home. Even when the dishes are near indistinguishable, we’re still happy to poke fun at our own fare: we love panna cotta but
I remember being given a Le Creuset casserole dish for my 40th birthday. I’m 62 and it’s still going strong, though I dropped it on the stone floor in the kitchen and the handle broke in two. It’s also gone a little black inside, and no longer scrubs up as nicely as it did. Twenty-two
Marco Pierre White may have earned a reputation as the tousle-haired kitchen bad boy who once made Gordon Ramsay cry, but these days he spends his mornings rather more quietly, enjoying his kippers. Yet in his retirement, he can still cause controversy. He recently told a podcast how he cooks his kippers. ‘On a plate,
The first time I tried the well-known Hungarian wine Tokaj, which I bought from an eastern European delicatessen in London, I was so taken with it that it quickly became a verb – and the expression ‘I was a bit Tokaj’d last night’ stuck. But I soon realised that there are so many wonderful versions
We can thank Herbert ‘Herb’ Cobb McDonald for the modern-day all-you-can-eat buffet. Herb first introduced Las Vegas – and later the world – to this gastronomical abomination in 1946. The Buckaroo Buffet cost one dollar and promised ‘every possible variety of hot and cold entrees to appease the howling coyote in your innards’. The coyote
The whirligig of time brings in his… astonishments. Who would have thought it? Even a couple of decades ago, the notion that the Tory party could be led by a black woman would have seemed incredible. I remember 1975, and the doubts that were expressed about Margaret Thatcher: much louder than any adverse comment about
‘Recipes are like magic potions. They promise transformations,’ says Bee Wilson in her introduction to Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake (Faber, £12.99), a collection of classic authors’ recipes. You have to pray that tinned tomato soup will indeed be transformed into something nice-tasting, or that Noel Streatfeild’s filets de boeuf aux bananas will not be
18 min listen
Terry Wiggins is a chef who led the catering team at Westminster’s Portcullis House. During his time, he served 13 prime ministers and received an MBE for services to Parliament. He has recently retired. On the podcast, Terry reminisces about 50 years of service in Parliament, reveals some of the weirdest requests he has received
I remember, vividly, when working at Raymond Blanc’s Michelin-starred Le Manoir, the moment the truffles were delivered. A frisson went round the kitchen staff as the napkin covering the precious morsels was dramatically whipped off. Physically inspecting the gnarled, knobbly nuggets was a right reserved for head chef alone. As a lowly pot-washer, I was
One of the joys of getting older is the appreciation of the solitary pint. But what to do as you sip your hard-earned beer? Usually after a suitable period of contemplation I’ll start fiddling with my phone. Not Adrian Tierney-Jones; he writes books, and his latest, A Pub for All Seasons (Headline, £20), is a
Bonfire night is more about burning Catholics than haute cuisine and it shows. I’ve always felt for Catholic friends at this time of year, but I am a Jew, and I am told I am oversensitive. It’s also three decades since I made £150 doing ‘Penny for the Guy’ on Hampstead High Street. The last
The Ambassadors Clubhouse is on Heddon Street, close to Savile Row and the fictional HQ of Kingsman, which was a kind of privatised MI6. I wonder if the Kingsmen eat here, being clubmen. Heddon Street needs fiction because its reality is one-dimensional. It is an alleyway behind Regent Street, and it used to be interesting.
I often think of the first time I ate brown bread ice cream. I know how that sounds: it’s the exact sort of pretentious nonsense a food writer would say if they were about to press a recipe for brown bread ice cream on you. But it was long before I became a food bore,
As Sober October comes to an end and we turn our attention to two months of forced festivities, it might be time to ask ourselves if these month-long periods of sobriety actually do anything. In short, I’ve found the answer is that they do. This year, I attempted Dry January. Why? For one simple reason:
The medics would have one believe that alcohol is a depressant. That may be their conclusion drawn from test tubes in laboratories. Fortunately, however, it bears little relation to real life, which is just as well. The world has rarely been in greater need of antidepressants, in every form. One tries to tease American friends
It’s a bright autumn morning and I’m first through the doors. There are only two shops that can inspire such a disregard for my finances, and the other is Swedish. Today I find myself in Nisbets, and the first rule of Nisbets is not to bring a shopping list. If you’ve not heard of it,
27 min listen
Tim Spector is a leading professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and a renowned expert in nutrition, gut health, and the microbiome. He is the founder of the Zoe Project, which focuses on personalised nutrition and how individual responses to food impact health. His new book, The Food for Life Cookbook, is out now.
Old or young, fat or thin, body-positive or body-embarrassed, man or woman, everyone with money seems to be on a weight-loss drug: Wegovy, Mounjaro or Ozempic (which although a diabetes drug, is so often used off label for weight loss that there have been supply shortages). In the past couple of weeks alone, two freewheeling
Across vineyards in England and Wales, secateurs are being sharpened and buckets are at the ready as owners prepare for harvest. October is usually the month commercial vines give up their fruit before being whisked away to the winemaker–cum–alchemist who turns the juice into wine. As a former vineyard owner (I sold up in January)
These days, it’s fashionable to get deliveries of vegetable boxes. Some do it through devotion to the dour idol of seasonality; the true worshipper knows they are buying a challenge. Many great recipes are created to deal with gluts and shortages. Digby Anderson, in his wonderful Spectator food column, pointed out that every good kitchen
Sally Lunn’s is a teashop in Bath. It sits in a lane by the abbey, and the Roman baths. Paganism and Christianity jostle here: Minerva battles Christ, who wins, for now. Sally Lunn’s calls itself ‘the oldest house in Bath’ (c. 1482). It is rough-hewn, with a vast teal window and pumpkins on display. The pumpkins
