Thanks to the recently departed Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, we’re all pretty familiar with the idea of the dark and dirty side of a professional kitchen, the rampant sex, drug taking and alcohol abuse. Stories of Marco Pierre White making Gordon Ramsey cry and of Tom Aikens branding the hand of a trainee employee are…
Category: Secrets from Behind the Scenes
The Stories Behind London’s Lost Art Deco Icons
Since its world-premiere at the International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Decorative Arts in France in 1925, Art Deco has permeated countless creative spheres: from fashion, jewellery, art, and especially architecture. During the late twenties to the early thirties, London quickly became a hotspot for Art Deco architecture. From the impressive news buildings on Fleet…
Dukes' White Truffle Martini
Let the choirs of archangels, angels, seraphim and cherubim (and all the others) cry forth “Hallelujah!”, for it is once again white truffle season, that time of year when we spend vast fortunes on an underground fungus that looks like a mummified testicle but, when thinly shaved, releases a transcendent and heavenly smell that takes…
The Trials and Tribulation of a Food Judge: Judging Gelato
TV makes food-judging look sexy, glamorous, and deadly serious – is it in reality? My arse it is! In this case the reality was an entertaining fiasco. After starting thirty minutes late – admittedly on time by Italian standards – the twelve judges, among them a blogger, an Italian food importer, a BBC food reporter,…
We Speak to Virgilio Martinez
Arriving at 31 Rathbone Place, the home of Lima in Fitzrovia, I’m told, after some confusion as to who I was and why I was there, to make my way downstairs, where I should find Virgilio Martinez . Descending from the long white, naturally lit restaurant to the dark blue basement area with its own…
Homeslice: Q&A with the Masterminds behind the Creations
Originally Posted September 2017 For a long time I have raved about Homeslice, the pizza restaurant that started as a street stall before setting up as bricks and mortar on Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden. Now it has expanded to open a second restaurant on Wells Street, Fitzrovia, a third in Shoreditch, and it’s fourth…