Food and Drink
Restaurant Review: Din Tai Fung, Covent Garden
Since the news broke that Din Tai Fung would open in London, the first European restaurant from the world-renowned chain has become one of the most hyped launches of 2018. Established in 1958 by Chinese-born Bingyi Yang and his wife Lai Penmei, Din Tai Fung began life as a cooking oil retailer in Taiwan. As a way of diversifying the business, however, the site in Taipei began to offer xiao long bao (Shanghainese soup dumplings), eventually converting the whole shop...
Restaurant Review: Camillo Benso
Oxford Street has become somewhat of a multi-layered destination for locals and tourists of late. Sat atop of its pulsating retail road are several rows of streets that offer some of the best drinking spots central London has to offer. The streets below have become a culinary epicentre for restaurants looking to fuse its busy footfall with the shazam of Mayfair. So it should come as no surprise that the fertile lower belt has seen a number of new openings...
Coffee could hold the key to curing Parkinson’s disease and common form of dementia
Brew rich in two chemicals that when combined destroy rogue proteins in the brain.
The Cheese Lover’s Guide to London
From cheese bars and restaurants, to cheese mongers and market stalls, London is full of fun-filled from age experiences. With hundreds of varieties of cheeses from both domestic and foreign producers in the capital, serving up combinations for all palates and occasions, here are the places cheese lovers need to visit in London. Grab a map and make some space in your dairy—sorry, diary. Where to buy If you’re looking for shops which offer a more boutique approach, London’s boasts...
Doting boyfriend crafts homemade advent calendar with a Fray Bentos pie for every day
Romantic Nigel admits that Nikki "doesn't even like pies that much" - but he loves them and is looking forward to tucking into one every day.
Restaurant Review: LIMA, Fitzrovia
“The restaurant economy is changing and we need to make sure we’re constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers”, Gabriel Gonzalez commented on LIMA’s new menu concept introduced during the spring. Opened by Gonzalez and co-founder Virgilio Martínez (whose original restaurant, Central, in Lima is currently ranked at number six by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants) in Fitzrovia during 2012. At the forefront of the current boom in popularity surrounding Peruvian food in London, LIMA soon became...
Europe’s first farmers could have been wiped out by the Black Death
The oldest strain of plague that's ever been discovered was found in a 20-year-old Stone Age woman who died 4,900 years ago in southern Sweden
Bar of the Week: Beaufort Bar at The Savoy Hotel
In the bowels of the Savoy Hotel, the Beaufort Bar has become renowned for its glorious, regularly changing drinks menus. Celebrating the hotel bar’s theatrical history, a new menu – ‘Music, Magic & Drama’ – has recently launched. Seeking to distinguish the Beaufort Bar from the world-famous American Bar, the new menu hopes to elevate the hotel bar experience through a refined signature offering, filled with expertly prepared mixed drinks. Conceived by Assistant Bars Manager, Joe Harper, and the newly...
Wine of the Week: Le Faite Blanc Saint Mont 2013
The first thing that strikes you about Le Faîte is its intriguing label. A wooden tag hangs from a wax seal in a nod to the winegrowers of the past who kept their wines under the clay soil and would mark the bottles in order to identify them as such. The clay conservation allowed to maintain the wines with a constant temperature and humidity, and it is a mark of quality that is preserved today. Although modern methods of storage...