Food and Drink

With plenty of exciting restaurant openings constantly taking place across the Capital, we pick the best new restaurants and bars arriving in London over the coming month. Calcutta Street – Brixton Following the huge success of her first restaurant, opened in Fitzrovia last Summer, Shrimoyee Chakraborty has launched a second branch of her Calcutta Street, taking over a space in the heart of Brixton. Bringing Calcutta Street south of the river, the new restaurant is promised to have a completely different atmosphere...

Brewed: Greenwich, London Strength: 4.5% ABV Founded at the turn of the millennium in a small flat in Greenwich by Brew Master Alastair Hook and some like minded friends, Meantime has since become one of the leading breweries in the British Craft Beer revolution. Having set up their state-of-the-art brewery in 2010, just a stones throw from the Prime Meridian, as well as opening The Tasting Rooms – a venue that offers the chance to tour, drink and shop in the company’s main brewery...

Within his 1952 opus, The Old Man and the Sea - the final novel to be published during his lifetime – Ernest Hemingway wrote: “But thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more able and more noble.” Of all the pearls of wisdom imparted throughout the writer’s collective novels, short stories and journalism, this still stands tall as one of the most valuable in terms of food. Because, let’s be honest, the...

At the beginning of the year, I wholeheartedly believed that genuinely brilliant high-end Italian restaurants in London did not exist. Before visiting Margot for dinner, in January, each of my previous experiences had ranged from the morbidly mediocre to the astoundingly atrocious. Peculiarly though, the city is still home to so many upmarket 'Italian' temples of bad taste. Restaurants that charge dizzying prices for food that's barely worthy of being served at Zizzi. Even more bizarre is the rapturous popularity...

A fisherman has opened a dedicated seaweed shop -- thought to be the first of its kind in the UK. Iain McKellar, 52, has been harvesting seaweed for over 10 years and selling it online to companies and restaurants from all over the globe. He realised that the abundance of seaweed on the Isle of Bute wasn't being taken advantage of, and saw an opportunity to sell local produce with a difference. However, after growing tired of working out of...

Earlier this week, iconic British actor Roger Moore died, aged 89, in Switzerland, following a brief battle with Cancer. Undoubtedly best known for his portrayal of secret agent James Bond throughout seven feature films – a classic Martini (shaken, not stirred) would, perhaps, be a particularly fitting tribute. No less, with Summer (Campari season) finally here – let’s remember Bond’s relationship with the classic Italian Americano cocktail – typically consisting of Campari, red vermouth and soda water. The first drink...

When Rainer Becker opened Roka – a high-end ‘Modern Japanese’ restaurant – in Fitzrovia during 2004, the space soon became renowned for attracting punters that would have made today’s Novikov, Nobu and Sexy Fish crowds seem desirable. On a humid Wednesday some 13 years later, still, I’m sat in the downstairs bar at a table beside an obnoxious, overfed Texan - boasting of how he allegedly knows Prince Charles. Wearing a white body-con Ralph Lauren shirt (possibly from the children’s...

The world's first solar-powered barbecue has been invented which cooks food using MIRRORS. The SolSource Sport stove heats up using energy from the sun to grill or boil food. The cutting edge design cooks a meal in just ten minutes and heats up fives times faster than a charcoal grill. But it doesn't need to be sunny to use the barbecue as it gathers its energy from UV rays - making it the perfect for rainy British summers. Dr Catlin...

New research has revealed the top 50 signs of culinary expertise. Having the ability to rustle up anything from scratch topped the list followed by been willing to experiment and try all foods and ingredients when cooking at home and being happy to prepare food in front of guests. In an age when food waste is becoming such a prominent issue, it will come as some relief that people judge the best home cooks to be the ones who can...