Food and Drink

Launched last year, Vintage Velvet is a new vodka created by Gabriella Thorpe, having previously gained significant knowledge of the drinks industry working for a high demographic wine journal. Inspired by a love of English spirits and the boom in popularity of English wine in recent years, Vintage Velvet is crafted with locally sourced Chardonnay grape juice to produce a unique double distilled spirit. As a result of the distilling process, this is the first vodka of this kind in...

For all the wonderful simplicity single menu demi-chains offer they are the anathema of fresh, seasonal and diverse cooking. In most instances you sense a replica version of the menu is likely stapled to the freezer to itemise the frozen boxes of readymade meals that line the shelves, and so it is that I have come to both be thankful for the straightforwardness but simultaneously cautious of the quality of any restaurant that champions such a system. Little Smoke is...

The problem with the term ‘Pan-Asian’ is the somewhat stereotypical model of a restaurant that often takes various dishes and techniques from the likes of Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and crams them all into the same shallow pigeonhole, often ending up with a result that’s less than authentic. Opened on the ground-floor at the back of Oxford Street’s huge Debenhams store, with an entrance directly opposite MEATliquor, Chi Kitchen is a ‘Pan-Asian’ restaurant with a menu that’s overseen...

The vast cultural difference between the UK and Italy has been laid bare in a special Christmas research project looking at family dining habits. Despite 59 per cent of Brits believing that family time is the most important thing about Christmas, the research found that 30 per cent admit to not sharing their Christmas dinner with their family, compared to just one in ten Italians. A further 15 per cent of Brits said they didn’t get family together for any major holiday...

With two successful restaurants already open on the west-side of the city the Gladwin Bros have already proven that people will travel (albeit only a short tube journey or bus ride from everywhere else in London) for good food. Yet with their latest opening - Nutbourne – it seems as though the team behind Rabbit and The Shed have set themselves their biggest challenge to date, in an attempt to entice customers to visit their new neighbourhood restaurant. Battersea is...

I have spent two decades being a private chef for High New Worth (HNW) and Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) clients all over Europe and on super yachts. What I have become experienced at is keeping secrets. Here is what I remember about cooking for the Italian Genius and his Unbalance Canadian wife. To protect the innocent, the guilty and myself, nothing I tell you will be quite true. I'd been sent to an interview by my agency to meet the...

Launched at the beginning of 2013, Weird Beard Brew Co. operates from a site near Ealing and produces a number of hop-driven beers alongside classic styles. With the aim to “satisfy, enthuse and be enjoyed by whoever the drinker,” Weird Beard offer a number of core beers as well as some occasional, specials and one-off brews that push creative boundaries. Brewed with Sorachi Ace hops from Japan and malted barley with the addition of cranberry juice, ‘Black Christmas’ is Weird...

December is here, and with Christmas just around the corner we’ve compiled a gift guide of all of the best food and drink gifts to buy for your favourite foodies and drinks connoisseurs this Christmas. What's more, everything listed is available to buy online. Mac & Wild's Ready-to-Drink Scottish Cocktail Range Chosen from our favourite Scottish restaurant in London, Mac & Wild’s pre-mixed range of cocktails are an ideal stocking filler. Hand crafted in small batches by the restaurant’s own mixologist Luke...

It would be fair to insist that Westminster’s Cinnamon Club, first opened in 2001, is still one of the most breath taking spaces for a high-end Indian restaurant in London. That’s without even considering the food from Michelin-starred Executive Chef Vivek Singh. The chef’s food has become so popular, in fact, that two offshoots (Cinnamon Kitchen and Cinnamon Soho) have also been rolled out across the city in the past fifteen years. Just a stone’s throw from Liverpool Street station,...