Food and Drink

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Although now better known as a graveyard for abandoned shopping trolleys, and for its water the colour of stout-soaked military uniforms – the River Thames was, once upon a time, the beating heart of our fair city. In the 18th century, for instance (before England had become an international laughing-stock) the river was the main source of London’s trade, with West India Docks acting as one of the globe’s busiest ports. And while the...

Blue Wine is set to hit European markets and expected to be on shelves within the next two months in the UK. GIK has been created in collaboration with the University of the Basque Country and Azti Tecnalia and is expected to be a big hit in the UK, where drinkers prefer sweeter styles of wine. The wine is created using a blend of red and white grapes predominantly sourced from vineyards in La Rioja, Zaragoza, Leon and Castilla-La Mancha, and is hued...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food  Opened last year, The Richmond is a neighbourhood restaurant in East London, perched upon the intersection of Dalston, Haggerston and London Fields. Set up by Australian chef and restaurateur Brett Redman and fashion consultant Margaret Crow, the restaurant’s menu is heavily built around oysters, comfort food, and produce from the sea – with East London’s first raw bar. As for the drinks, a strong list of natural wines is joined by a selection of...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food One of Russia’s most celebrated Chefs, Alexei Zimin is generally credited with having changed the way that Russians eat. As well as editing Russia’s most prominent food magazine – Eda, the chef opened the wildly successful Ragout restaurant in 2010, before opening a cooking school of the same name, having trained at London’s Le Cordon Bleu, and within the kitchens of restaurants from chefs that include Raymond Blanc and Michel Guérard. In addition, Zimin...

Photo: Bella West By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food It’s a humid Friday afternoon and I’m scanning through the menu of Dumplings’ Legend while awaiting the arrival of Jay Rayner, author, columnist, jazz pianist and, of course, one of the UK’s most celebrated restaurant critics. Located upon Gerrard Street, the epicentre of London’s ‘Chinatown’, this is a peculiar choice of restaurant to meet for lunch. Not only is the menu framed and proudly displayed on a board outside, various restaurant...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Set up in 2007, Bavarian craft bier brand And Union is the produce of a father, a son and his business partner, with a focus on rationality and simplicity - the basic principles of modernism – at the helm. Working with brew-masters from four small, family-run Bavarian regional breweries, all of And Union’s craft beers are brewed in a traditional manner, using just barley, yeast, hops, and water. And as a result, the brewing...

By Jimmy Pierson, spokesperson for The Vegan Society Only 37 per cent of all vegans are male. This comes as little surprise, but why so few? How many men are not going plant-based because of perceived pressure to live up to society’s exaggerated version of masculinity, and at what cost? The perception that ‘real men’ eat meat, that it’s macho and manly, has lingered for a long time. But sadly, this is not just an outdated notion, it’s one that...

  By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food While there are few vaster pleasures than great pizza, there are even fewer things worse than really, offensively terrible pizza: and with a plague of bad ‘pizzerias’ constantly opening across the city, the former is becoming increasingly difficult to unearth, persistently subjecting us to the latter on far too many occasions. Soggy, shop-bought dough bases wetter than a mid-June weekend, heavily-sweetened tomato sauce, and cheese that resembles the plastic used to manufacture paddling...

An impressive dish from chef Michael Reid.