Mix it up: How I made the best margarita ever on my first attempt July 30, 2013 @philip_salter AMONG popular economists (if such a thing isn’t oxymoronic) there is a debate about how long it takes to learn a new skill. Nobody can agree. Malcolm Gladwell of Outliers fame suggests it will take you 10,000 hours to truly master something, while Josh Kaufman, author of The First 20 Hours, thinks you can [...]
La Casa Negra Shoreditch restaurant review: achingly hip Mexican food with added attitude July 17, 2013 Street food. That’s a thing. Street food! Isn’t it great? It reminds me of that time I was travelling in Guatemala, and some indigenous people were just, you know, making food in the street, and it was all, like, totally authentic. Except that never happened. I’ve forced down slimy noodles in Tokyo; binned inedible grey [...]
Review: Apero at the Ampersand February 26, 2013 Apero has fish is to die for, if you don’t mind the charmingly chaotic atmosphere, says Steve Dinneen APERO @ AMPERSAND; 10 Harrington Road, SW7 3ER; tel: 020 7589 5895 FOOD **** SERVICE *** Value **** Cost per person with wine: £50 A few years ago I was wandering through Kreuzberg, before it was completely [...]
How a former hedgie manager is challenging the Bordeaux status quo February 26, 2013 THE BOTTLE OPENER I’m delighted to say I spent last Monday evening drinking fine Claret with a revolutionary. Not that Arnaud Christiaens, a polished Belgian former hedge fund manager, is your usual rebel. But with his new venture Le Secret des Grands Chefs, he is setting out to turn the accepted order of things in [...]
The future looks cloudy for this Sauvignon Blanc February 12, 2013 [email protected] Once the wine of choice, Cloudy Bay now has some real competition Whatever HAPPENED to Cloudy Bay? A few years ago the release of the new Cloudy Bay Sauvignon vintage was greeted with excitement amongst wine lovers. After all, this was a wine to celebrate – a taut yet ripe Sauvignon Blanc with real [...]
A cynic’s solution to not loving Valentine’s day February 12, 2013 Morning Wire’s cocktail expert Call ME a cynic, but there is only one thing worse than being single on Valentine’s Day and that is being forced to sit with your significant other in a bar or restaurant, spending hand over fist in a vain attempt to quantify your affections. And every year the expectations for [...]
Nuno Mendes: how to throw the ultimate dinner party January 28, 2013 When Krug decided to host an event based around the concept of happiness, they called on Nuno Mendes, the experimental Michelin-starred chef behind Bethnal Green’s Viajante restaurant. The ambitious project aimed to create the ultimate dining experience – helped along, of course, by some of Krug’s finest fizz. We caught up with Mendes to ask [...]
It is high time the steamed pudding made a come-back January 28, 2013 Head chef, Paternoster Chop House Can you remember the last time you ate Spotted Dick? I’m betting that for many of you it was several decades ago at school, covered in lumpy custard. Aside from that eternal favourite sticky toffee pudding, we don’t tend to eat a lot of steamed puddings these days. This is [...]
Catch game birds before they fly January 21, 2013 Head chef, Paternoster Chop House Blame IT on TV schedules stuffed with period dramas like Agatha Christie and Downton Abbey, but every winter, I always end up feeling nostalgic about everything that is quintessentially British. Watching the upper crust engaged in their traditional pastime of shooting game birds reminds me that there’s only a few [...]
What’s up, duck September 4, 2008 Duck season is here, so make the most of the bird, says Timothy Barber Can there be any dish more redolent of the bad old days of restaurant food than duck a l’orange? It may be a classic, but let’s be honest, duck in a sweet orange sauce is more likely to be the sorry [...]