Food and Drink

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Home to the Prime Meridian, a bustling market that’s been trading since the 14th Century, Christopher Wren’s Architectural masterpieces Royal Observatory and the Royal Naval College, as well as The O2 Arena: Greenwich is a global tourist hotspot, yet there’s still a criminal lack of good quality restaurants. The Market itself contains a wondrous selection of street food stalls, but if you’re local and plan on eating out anytime during the week or after about...

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor  London is one of only a few truly global markets for wine. Négociants from Old World territories have been sailing wine by the case for several centuries and New World varieties have found fertile ground amongst the city’s liberal taste and worldly cuisines. Which is why it is no surprise that the city is home to an array of brilliant and varied wine bars. From new-age bars in Chelsea to dated, traditional vaults in Greenwich,...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor If I’m honest I have never seen an episode of Sex and City, but the idea of the glamour and glitz of dining and drinking in Manhattan does appeal, but I guess it does for almost everyone. Well, The Avenue restaurant on St James’s Street, just off of Piccadilly offers just that. The building looks the part, to be fair it already did, as it was originally designed by American architect Rick Mather in 1996....

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  In London, drinking wine from the bottle may be frowned upon, but at times it is downright necessary. Indeed, it is one of 20 wine commonly-committed wine faux pas revealed in a study of 2,000 Brits which found almost a third of Brits (30 per cent) admit to ‘necking’ their wine, rather than savouring the taste and flavour. Ten per cent of them have tried to open a screwcap with a corkscrew at least once, while...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food With the recent boom in popularity of fresh, local food, it’s still proving very difficult for Londonders to be able to find a range of wonderful groceries, unfortunately due to Supermarket supply chains (still making up for 95% of our grocery shopping) being unable to cope with their fragility. However, it seems that Farmdrop may have found a resolution to such a problem. Set up as an online market place that’s committed to delivering...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food As Aristotle wrote, Truffles were “a fruit sacred to Aphrodite”. The luxurious Fungi may have become the Foodie equivalent to Bread and Butter in recent years, but Truffles have a deep Historic lineage and have always been a highly prized ingredient. Many fine restaurant kitchens will use the odd shaving here and there, yet Tartufi & Friends have always been dedicated to celebrating the Truffle, used munificently in almost every one of their dishes....

By Jack Peat, TLE Editor  A metaphor linking a renowned opera and an outcast grape variety almost undoubtedly falls under the ‘stretched’ bracket, but I won’t shy away from this ambitious literary feat nonetheless. Carmen, an opéra comique based on the life of Don José, tells of a man who abandons his Basque family heritage in pursuit of the independent and rebellious Carmen. Deserting his bourgeois heritage he is forced to make his way as part of the proletariat, doing...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Renowned as one of London’s finest mixologists, Oskar Kinberg opened Dabbous with his friend and former colleague Ollive Dabbous at the start of 2012, in which he oversees the restaurant’s stylish bar area – Oskar’s Bar – which features a cocktail menu with uses all homemade syrups and infusions. On the menu, there’s an innovative selection of drinks, featuring a range of classics and signature creations from the man himself, including the likes of...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  The final stages of the French Open, the Champions League final, the Canadian Grand Prix and sweltering weather forecast throughout the weekend. Yep, summer is finally here. And as is the custom in Britain, the start of the summer usually involves pulling out the rusted tin can on wheels that is the barbecue. Unused and dishevelled you contemplate whether a disposable BBQ would be less hassle than sprucing up your long-serving garden companion. But to save...