Category: Food & Drink

Booth

No doubt you make a Pavlovian association between Booth and gin. Well the link has been broken since production ceased in 2017.

Boots

“It was a lonely land then, the vast frontier held by the last scattered remnants of the once great armies that fought the Civil War. To such as these, all but forgotten, doing a dirty, thankless job, without reward or glory, the army was a way of life, the only one they knew or wanted.”

William Pickering

I have been given a bottle of port by a generous friend who found himself unable to walk past Berry Bros & Rudd without making a purchase. It is a twenty-year-old tawny labelled William Pickering – not a port house with which I am familiar.

York Scratchings

During WWII the domestic staff employed by the Dorrien-Smiths on Tresco were diverted into war work. The family have leased the island from the Duchy of Cornwall since 1834. The Mrs D-S of the day was asked if this wasn’t rather inconvenient. Not at all she said, I dress up in the maid’s uniform and… Continue reading York Scratchings

Holland Park

Lord Holland joins us today because of my invitation to lunch on Tuesday. Don’t be silly, he din’t ask me, he died in 1840. But here’s a clue; before lunch we walked around Holland Park.

River Views

If you google “expensive fish restaurant Barnes” up comes Rick Stein.  By its own admission, Rick Stein, Barnes,  has limited tables with views of the river but maybe you are lucky enough to secure one.

Chacun à Son Goût

Usually readers here are, more or less, on the same wave length as me. At lunch yesterday a friend said that she doesn’t read if my daily dose is about money and another said that she gets incredibly annoyed if it’s about politics.  That’s absolutely OK but what about this?

Breaking the Rules

Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow at The Old Vic were stupendous. Mamet’s plays and films are sensational.  So it was a no-brainier to go to Glengarry Glen Ross in the West End.

Out of this World

La Bohème at Christmas should be a sure-fire winner, impossible to muck up. Sublime music, lots of snow and children, achingly beautiful arias and a heart-rending finale.

Mr Kong – Gone

When I was forty, with apologies to AA Milne, I had a birthday party at Mr Kong in Lisle Street. It was a good evening and two things I will always remember.