Food and Drink

"Never so say no to pleasure,” Thierry Tomasin, Owner and Director of 'Brasserie de Luxe' Angelus said as he welcomed us to his French corner of London. Mrs TLE rarely does, so no problem there. Angelus, named after the family bell which Tomasin’s mother used to signal mealtimes where he grew up in South West France, feels special from the moment you walk in. We started the evening with a glass of champagne in the lounge at the back of...

Mark Dredge The best pubs can pull you in like a warm hug, are comfortable like old sneakers and can captivate you like a good book. London is a city with some of the best boozers you can find, so here’s a mix of classic places to drink, some very old, some not, but each chosen because they have that intangibly wonderful feeling of being in a classic, quintessential pub. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese  Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is an...

Jack Peat meets Gavin Monery, Winemaker at urban winery London CRU Terroir is a hot topic in the wine world. Never has such an elusive concept caused such division amongst growers, experts and consumers of wine, but what’s the big deal? Well, in the parlance of Bill Shakespeare; nature or nurture, that is the question. Terroir comes from the French ‘terre’, or ‘land’, and is defined by the clever folk at Wikipedia as being a “set of special characteristics that the...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic  The food system is broken, NFESH President, Founder and CEO Enid Borden told me in a brief email exchange in response to my article on food waste. Highlighting the origins of food and the way in which our supermarket shelves are stocked I attempted to bring to light some of the big issues discussed in Omnivore’s Dilemma which is as harrowing a read as anything Stephen King or Dean Koontz could muster up but unfortunately housed in...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic London isn’t the birthplace of gin, but it’s the closest thing it has to a home. For London Dry is responsible for finding gin a bedfellow in the shape of tonic, a mix that has become internationally renowned and is, in part, responsible for the spirit’s global rise amongst peers such as whisky and vodka. But despite being a symbolic home, London Dry is rarely made in London these days. The East...

By Charlotte Hope, @charlottehope  If you managed to look at the cover picture on this article without salivating then you're probably one of only a few, but if a despondent glare started to creep across your face as you contemplate the time and effort that goes into making such a meal then you're certainly not alone. But as I was about to find out, cooking nice meats doesn't have to be a time and labour intensive endeavour. On a pleasant...

Chancery Lane, Friday 19th September 2014 Gaucho is renowned for being one of the capital's leading high-end Argentinian steak brands and it certainly lived up to its excellent reputation when TLE visited the Chancery Lane restaurant on Friday. In a convenient central location on the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street the smart, unfussy exterior gives way to the unmistakably ‘Gaucho’ interior of dark moody lighting, sumptuous décor and a five star hostess greeting. From the moment we arrived we knew...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic There was a time when food was a valued commodity and was treated as such. We would know the source of our food, understand seasonality and accept that everything has a shelf life, but the industrialisation of food means food waste is no longer the problem, food is. I hate to waste food, I've written many an article on frugal recipes and the method behind the madness, but I'm a product of...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor A recent survey of 2,042 UK residents by Red Tractor to mark the start of Red Tractor Week (15th Sept) has revealed some funny food knowledge blunders, including 23 per cent of Londoners who don't know how broccoli is grown and that the people of the capital are the least knowledgeable area about the provenance/origin of food. Not good news for the foodies of Britain's largest city. Below are the top ten findings from the...