I was on my way to the 'powder room' when I suddenly realised I was in the 'Bon Vivant' swing of things (in French the phrase roughly translates to someone who knows how to live life well). I'd had a couple of deceivingly heady Dirty Pink cocktails - a mix of gin, Chambord raspberry liquor, lemon juice, sugar syrup and egg white - and I was just about to settle in for dinner. The lights had dropped, with the glow of candle light setting the tone, and the restaurant was abuzz with chatter and funky music. I had to admit, when I Google Street Map imaged the address of Bon Vivant I was s...
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I remember living on Chapel Market in Angel ten years ago. It was well before the likes of Waitrose and vegan bakeries had landed. Instead of swank, the road contained a cocktail of pound shops and bizarre hardware outlets. There was also a menagerie of proper ‘boozers’, many of which I never made it into due to feeling a little intimidated by the blacked-out windows and glow of fruit machines illuminating out from the door. The Agricultural, located at the end of Chapel Market, was one of the pubs I failed to frequent. So when I heard that it had been transformed into a trendy bar and eat...
Read more →It felt like the first real cold day in London, where a slight chill permeated my spine. What better way to mark it, I thought, than a good old Sunday roast. I ventured to Oslo Hackney to check out their meaty offerings. Located in a former railway station just by Hackney Central Overground, this is a unique space, boasting exposed brickwork, high ceilings and a laid-back vibe. Immediately on walking in I was struck by a quiet calm; warm lighting, the gentle natter of diners and jazz rifts filling the air. Oslo's Sunday lunch menu features a rump of beef, roast half chicken or b...
Read more →I offered to take my friend Toby out for dinner. At first he took up the invitation with enthusiasm but this excitement soon waned after he Googled the restaurant to discover it was vegetarian. No meat on the premises. 'Guess I'd better get my bacon fix beforehand,' he jibed before our outing. Knowing Toby was a big fan of all things meat - turkey, bacon, steak and I even recall him talking about eating chicken feet on one occasion - I had purposely left out the minor fact that we were venturing to a herbivore's paradise. The Gate restaurant - which started in Hammersmith, London, and...
Read more →I'm guilty of using an emoji - or five - when I message people. So the thought of an emoji-themed dining experience got me kind of intrigued. I'd heard that Notting Hill's favourite underground cocktail bar / eatery / party flat, The Little Yellow Door, had launched one of the first 'emoji menus', so I hopped on a tube from east to west to check it out. Firstly, if you haven't been to this tucked away spot, conveniently located right next to the tube, it's a must. It's been one of my go-to little hideaways for years. The eclectic party flat, which was once almost threatened with closu...
Read more →Sipping on a negroni with an olive to hand and the soft sun on my skin, I felt like I could have been in Venice where I'd been just the week before. It was only when I spotted a red London bus peeping over the top of the manicured garden hedgerow that my Italian mind trip suddenly veered off track. I'd stopped by at the 5-star Baglioni hotel's recently renovated restaurant, renamed Osteria 60. Nestled in the heart of Kensington, it's just a hop, skip and a jump away from Hyde Park and the Royal Palace - or for the shoppers, Harrods and Harvey Nichols are also within close proximity. A...
Read more →Most of the time its the voiced pauses that mean more than the sentence itself; its the 'oo's' and the 'ahhs' that give us a visceral and instinctual feelings about the subject matter in hand. One venue that has been making us 'ooo' and 'ahh' and definitely 'mm' is The Balcon in Pall Mall.
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