Gustav Temple takes a saunter down memory lane to the nineties with Matthew De Abaitua. One can imagine Leadenall Market during the time of Charles Dickens, bustling with butchers, costermongers, blacksmiths and the odd lonely lawyer’s scrivener looking for love among the packing crates. Leadenhall’s Victorian cobbles stood in for Diagon Alley in the first… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman sample the carnivorous delights of an elegantly art deco eaterie in London. What kind of a name is ‘Air’ for a street? one might ask, while meandering on the frontier between St James’s and Soho in search of a restaurant. Surely all streets contain air – although in this smog-filled… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple lunches at a reopened City dining institution and descends into the ancient network of tunnels and cellars at its core. According to folklore, whatever the weather on St Swithin’s day (15th July) will determine the same weather for the next 40 days. While we did not visit the Don, a reopened restaurant in… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple samples the flaming fare at Brighton’s hottest new restaurant. It was opening night at Embers, a discreet bistro tucked away in one of the Venice-like passageways of the Brighton Lanes that are so easy to get lost in. I believe, though may be mistaken, that the previous incumbent was one of those out-of-date… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman take an early Christmas lunch at the Lanesborough Grill on Hyde Park Corner. Larman is usually a punctual chap, but on this occasion he was late for our appointment with victuals at Hyde Park Corner. He had relayed some vaguely literary excuse, something about watching and writing about a documentary… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple reviews a new steakhouse in the heart of London’s Theatreland. One of my favourite pubs in London is the Harp on William IVth Street in the heart of Theatreland. It is not, as one would expect, full of chorus girls and understudies awaiting their moment in the footlights, at least not on a… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman set foot in a changed world since lockdown for a splendid Indian repast. Where does one choose to go for one’s first meal in a restaurant since last December? Is the pressure too great to find the perfect establishment, with the ideal food, wine and ambience? Is the sense of… … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman grab a final Tier 2 repast before the nation’s second lockdown M’colleague is nothing if not optimistic. When Larman suggested dining in the heart of Mayfair just as London limbers up for Tier 2 of pandemic measures, I thought he had lost his Elgin marbles. Infected by his gung-ho enthusiasm… … Keep Reading
Monday 16th March 2020 was an auspicious day for a long lunch with Chris Sullivan. Coronavirus fever was about to hit London, and full lockdown was imminent, with deserted streets and nearly empty Underground carriages. This could be the last chance we met for some time, and possibly the last chance anyone had of enjoying… … Keep Reading
For many of us in Britain, our experience of Turkish cuisine has usually been taken while standing on a pavement, perhaps slightly swaying in the recollection of a drop taken, bathed in the neon glow from a sign succinctly reading ‘Kebab’. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have lived in the borough of… … Keep Reading
Knightsbridge is the only London Underground station with six consecutive consonants in its name, but this is not the only remarkable aspect of that borough. Once ejected from the tube station into the glittering lee of Harrods, one can be forgiven for thinking one has been accidentally teleported into a Hollywood film with a Christmas… … Keep Reading
When m’learned colleague invited me to join him for a Chinese meal, my first thought was – isn’t at least one of us a little old to be gorging on cut-price fodder ordered in a dank Soho basement by pointing at lurid pictures on a laminated menu, to an oriental chap who makes a virtue… … Keep Reading