Food and Drink

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...

1800 Silver Tequila is a mid-range super premium Blanco tequila that won’t completely ruin your evening.   Like most things (especially when drinking is concerned), quality is everything when it comes to tequila. While tequila has become a big business in recent years (George Clooney recently sold his tequila company to Diaego for up to $1 Billion), so many of us still detest the spirit. The problem here is that so many abhorrers base their convictions of having only tried...

Strength: 4.8% ABV Brewed: Fuquay Varina, North Carolina Launched at the end of 2008, Aviator Brewing Company began life in an airplane hangar. Using a hangar at Triple W airport in North Carolina as a base, a range of beers were initially brewed in a DIY fashion, using two used dairy tanks. Against all odds, said beer became hugely popular and demand increased enough for the brewery to open a larger premise, just a short distance from the original. Now, a...

Battersea’s new neighbourhood Mexican, Cartel, specialises in hand-pressed tacos, tequila and mezcal. Reassessing all of the moments in life I’d rather forget, tequila has played an integral role in nearly all of them. Teenage recollections of bottom-shelf bottles adorned with synthetic Sombreros, lime wedges and salt almost inspire me to give up the booze, for good. Over the past six years, in fact, tequila has been incremental in the ruination of so many perfectly good shirts, shoes, livers and friendships....

A lifelong vegetarian was given the shock of her life when she bit into a McDonald's veggie burger - and discovered it was CHICKEN. Rebecca Beasley, 31, says she was physically sick moments after she took a bite of what she thought was a vegetarian deluxe burger. Blundering staff at McDonald's had accidentally put a McChicken burger in the wrong box before handing it to the mum-of-two. The error happened as Rebecca and her partner Jamie Lineker tucked into a...

A new hand-crafted cider made wholly from fruit collected in London, will be launched on 24 July by The Orchard Project. The charity, which is the only national organisation dedicated solely to the creation, restoration and celebration of community orchards, has worked with local volunteers to produce a hand-made, limited edition craft cider and apple juice product, which will only be available in the capital.  The Orchard Project harvested two tonnes of dessert and culinary apples from community orchards, gardens and...

Of the few restaurants I actively choose to visit again and again, few are as charming as The Hinds Head in Bray. With less bells and whistles than The Fat Duck (or Dinner in Knightsbridge) but ritzier than The Crown, each within spitting distance of one another, The Hinds Head is the embodiment of the quintessentially British ‘gastro-pub’, before Gordon Ramsay helped to make the ‘gastro’ prefix seem as desirable as queuing around the block for dinner, in torrential rain....