Food and Drink

Outside Nine Lives, the newest project from Sweet&Chilli, the bar’s only real tell-tale sign of existence is a tallied number nine logo. Adorned across a vintage leather jacket, on the bar's website, the logo looks as though plucked from a Dead Kennedys or Black Flag album cover. It's so punk, in fact, it’s surprising that BrewDog haven’t yet bullied the group into submission. On a backstreet close to London Bridge station, Nine Lives has a sense of Prohibition mystery, tucked underground...

Islington pie and mash shop M Manze is set to close later this year, after 106 years of trading. On announcing the closure last week, owner Tim Nicholls blamed increasing business rates as the reason for the iconic Chapel Market pie shop’s closure – something that has bereft the city of so many beloved pie shops over the past 20 years. M Manze is set to continue trading until Christmas, before the space is inevitably taken over by another coffee...

An Indian restaurant in London has created the World's hottest cocktail - but who will be brave enough to try it? Made using a secret recipe that includes the Naga Chilli 500,000 Scoville Vodka, The Naga Chilli Cocktail is guaranteed to blow the head off of any brave drinker. Those who have tasted the fiery concoction report burning gums, hallucinating sensations, extreme sweating, stinging eyes and fainting. One drinker describes their experience: “It bites deep into my mouth, gums, tongue...

Have you ever been to a Welsh restaurant, in London? Under the fatal chasm of British food, Welsh cuisine is so often overlooked: a shame given the excellent readily available produce. In the new One Tower Bridge development, Pembrokeshire-born Tom Simmons’ eponymous restaurant isn’t so much a Welsh restaurant (there are absolutely no gimmicks here), but has a prominent focus on produce sourced from Wales. The first restaurant to open in the new One Tower Bridge development, the family-run space...

With plenty of exciting restaurant openings constantly taking place across the Capital, we pick London’s best new restaurant openings taking place over the coming month.   Joe Allen – Covent Garden Joe Allen, the iconic restaurant in the heart of London’s West End will move to a new home this Summer, just 25 metres down the road, on Burleigh Street. First opened in 1977, Joe Allen, with its exposed brickwork, wood paneling and long wood-clad bar, is an almost exact replica of...

When The Frog E1 opened last summer, I was quick to declare it one of the year’s best openings. One of the absolute best restaurants in east London, in fact. Sadly, so many brilliant restaurants fail to live up to the initial ‘hype’ and ultimately slump into a routine of serving terrible food with slow service, even though booking a table remains harder than Trigonometry. 365 days later, many of these places eventually fail, closing their doors to make space...

This month, award-winning mixologist Ryan Chetiyawardana has collaborated with Waitrose to create a selection of gin-based cocktail recipes. Best known as Mr Lyan, Ryan Chetiyawardana has garnered quite a reputation with his bars White Lyan and Dandelyan. Opened in 2013, in Hoxton, White Lyan was the first bar in the world to use no perishables (without fruit garnishes, or ice), serving a collection of mesmerising pre-batched cocktails. Most of those cocktails are available to buy outside of Mr Lyan’s bars,...

Unlike so many other South East Asian cuisines, I’d be surprised if I weren’t the only Londoner unfamiliar with Burmese food until recently. According to Dan Anton, co-owner of Lahpet in London Fields, this is likely due to the relative lack of Burmese nationals anywhere outside of Burma (or Myanmar). Leaving complex political situations aside, if (like me) you are uninitiated, you’ve been missing out. Located in the railway arches of London Fields, at the edge of the park itself,...

Sat amongst the renowned wine regions of France such as Bordeaux, Béarn and Bergerac little gets said of petit Saint Mont, but it really should. With siliceous earth, clay and sand soils the region bears all the trademarks of its larger and more recognised counterparts, producing Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc red grapes as well as Petit Manseng, Courbu and Clairette Blanche white. The town of Saint Mont has a population of just 350 people, and yet its surrounding lands have provided the perfect climate and...