Food and Drink

Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day) has become an extraordinarily big deal in recent years. So it’s hardly surprising that so many restaurants are getting involved, creating appropriate specials to add to their menus for the evening. Other restaurants, however, have been serving incredibly good crêpes for years and have, coincidentally, become pancake day destination restaurants. If you don’t fancy whisking furiously or tossing sheets of fried batter at home on Tuesday (28th February 2017), we’ve compiled a selection of the...

Brewed: Walthamstow, London Strength: 4.5% ABV Founded on the back of a hobby that turned into an obsession, Wild Card Brewery functions from its own site in Walthamstow, having opened at the beginning of 2014. Since launching, Wild Card has become renowned for producing no-nonsense, uncompromising beers with a four-strong core range inspired by playing cards. These include ‘Queen of Diamonds’ hoppy IPA, ‘King of Hearts’ blonde beer, ‘Ace of Spades’ London Porter, and ‘Jack of Clubs’ ruby ale. Brewed with British...

It’s something I’ve written about before, but even so, I adore Japanese food. Over the past ten years, the UK has become far more accustomed to the land of the rising sun’s national cuisine. And with so many specialist restaurants constantly opening across London, I couldn’t be happier. There’s just something so heart warming about giant bowls of ramen noodles in silky bone broth, demanding to be slurped; slivers of fresh raw fish; dominoes of sticky rice laced with sugar...

Britain's first vegan visitor centre has been launched in Norfolk to showcase a vision of a Britain where we all live more sustainable lives. The Green Britain Centre in Swaffham has opened following the appointment of a new head chef and the launch of a new menu. The Centre features a 100m windmill, which was the first in the world open to the public to climb, a solar panel which tracks the sun, an organic garden, a variety of hands-on...

It’s generally accepted that the best Turkish food in London can be found north of the river. Over the past two years, three “authentic Turkish restaurants” have opened contiguously in Greenwich, just around the corner from my house. As well as promising to be authentically Turkish, another thing these venues hold in common is the inane ability to cook astoundingly bad food yet manage to entice herds of customers. When I think of great Turkish food in London, I think...

Before we all start scrambling to the supermarkets to panic buy ingredients for pancake day (28th February), it’s worth noting that with so much focus on healthy living at present, it’s now easy to make healthier pancakes without compromising on flavour. Arla B.O.B, for instance, is the only skimmed milk on the market which tastes just like semi-skimmed milk, enriched with naturally occurring milk protein. Using mashed banana, eggs, wholemeal flour and fat-free Arla B.O.B milk – this week’s recipe makes...

A new addition to West Hampstead’s drinking scene, Bobby Fitzpatrick’s eponymous bar is a firm nod to the ‘70s – one of the most culturally vivacious decades of 20th Century history. With a strong focus on pizza and cocktails, the themed bar is unapologetically retro and has a strong focus on rum. Inspired by ‘Bobby’s Rum Diaries’ of his travels in the Caribbean, the cocktail menu draws from chapters of the owner’s personal history. The ‘Alison Mahoney’, for instance, is...

Though more than 250 years have passed since the last one, it’s impossible to miss the fact that the world is experiencing a 21st Century gin craze. In fact, the spirit formerly synonymous with ruin and debauchery has become more popular than ever. Towards the end of last year, UK gin sales were reported to have surpassed £1 billion, over a twelve-month period, for the first time ever. And according to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), gin exports have...

Just two portions of oily fish a week can reverse the damage caused by a junk food diet, suggests new research. The study shows eating fish such as mackerel, salmon and pilchards twice a week can clear up serious problems caused to the body's immune system by obesity. And supplemented milk could soon reverse changes caused to the immune system by overeating even more dramatically It has long been known that obesity can wreck havoc on the immune system, leading...