The Art of Slow: cocktails find their perfect food pairings at the Typing Room’s new supper club February 24, 2016 There are right and wrong times to drink certain cocktails. A negroni with breakfast, an espresso martini before dinner and a mojito after supper might suggest you’ve got a drinking problem. A bloody mary in the morning, a martini before dinner and an old fashioned after dessert on the other hand? Well that’s just common [...]
Little Social review: Pollen Street’s classy and cosy Parisian-themed bistro February 24, 2016 WHAT? The pocket-sized little sister of Jason Atherton’s flagship Pollen Street restaurant, Little Social is a Parisian-themed bistro bedecked in dark wood and red leather banquettes, with homely wallpaper that’s barely visible behind a collection of Gallic tchotchkes and period French tourism posters. It’s all faux and make believe of course: the place opened in [...]
Galley on Upper Street in Islington is nice: but we should aim higher February 23, 2016 We can afford to be discerning about things, us Londoners, what with all the lovely London stuff we have, Londoning the place up. “Isn’t everything here great compared to the things in places that aren’t London?” we say to each other, smiling and knowing it to be true. Take restaurants: we have heaps of them, [...]
The Toyota Mirai is the car you can buy – today – that only emits water February 23, 2016 At a modernist house in North London – designed, built and rented out by one of the partners at Norman Foster’s firm – Toyota showed me the future of the car. It’s a long, funny-looking four-door contraption called the Mirai, with exaggerated rear wheel arches and a fittingly modernist front end. Other car companies talk [...]
Focus On Shadwell: Good transport and pubs mean promising times ahead in East London February 23, 2016 St Chad – after whom east London’s Chadwelle, now known as Shadwell, is named – is jokingly referred to as the patron saint of botched elections. This modern nickname was applied after the 2000 US election, when irregular “chads” (punched holes) may have defaced enough ballots cost Al Gore the 2000 US election. Chad is [...]
Channel your inner Attenborough with a trip Australia’s Great Barrier Reef February 22, 2016 “Look, over there – a bull shark.” My guide, Mark, points out the sleek, contoured shape with its distinctive dorsal fin and bluntly-shaped head – one of the most dangerous of its kind in the world – lazing idly in a sun-dappled patch of translucent, turquoise water. My heartbeat accelerates slightly, but thankfully there’s no [...]
Delacroix at the National Gallery does this magnificent painter a disservice February 19, 2016 The National Gallery | ★★☆☆☆ Measuring the influence of one artist on another is no easy task, and the National Gallery fails to pull it off convincingly in this muddled and problematic exhibition. Curators attempt to trace the influence of Delacroix – best known as the romantic painter of the iconic Liberty Leading the People – [...]
Uncle Vanya at the Almeida is brilliantly acted, cleverly staged and gratifyingly reinterpreted February 19, 2016 Almeida | ★★★★★ Anton Chekhov is a cornerstone of modern theatre, one of the fathers of realism; he eschews action in favour of mood and character, and while his Uncle Vanya is an undoubted masterpiece, the prospect of three and a half hours of Russian misery isn’t necessarily the most enticing prospect. Rejoice then that [...]
Performing for the Camera at Tate Modern works as a history lesson but says little about the here and now February 19, 2016 Tate Modern | ★★★☆☆ Performing for the Camera asks – and generally answers – a series of questions about the role of photography in the artistic process. Does it capture or create? (The latter). Is the result different from the performance? (Yes). Does being observed, as in particle physics, somehow alter the performance itself? (Yes). These [...]
How To Be Single review – plus the rest of this week’s biggest new film releases February 18, 2016 Bone Tomahawk (18) | ★★★★☆ Dir: S. Craig Zahler The western has been given more than a few new coats of paint lately, but none will be as surprising as Bone Tomahawk, which mixes traditional Old West with horror. Kurt Russell keeps his Hateful Eight beard as a sheriff who rides out to confront a [...]