Food and Drink

As the last day of Veganuary, the month-long plant-based diet challenge, comes into view The Vegan Society is pleased to announce the launch of a tool that can help participants continue their transition. The charity has released a handy nutrition app designed to help vegans hit their nutritional targets every day by providing an easy-to-use checklist and personalised tips. VNutrition is aimed at new vegans, those trying out veganism or those who want to assess the quality of a well-established...

Mrs Le’s Banh Mi and Grill has opened in Battersea bringing an authentic Vietnamese restaurant experience to south London. Derived from the Le family’s matriarch Mrs Le's has built a dynasty of restaurants across the capital and continues to expand. The key to her success has been to stick to what she knows best, and despite overseeing a growing empire Mrs My Le continues to make early morning trips to Billingsgate market after peeling garlic by hand into the early hours. Her...

One of just three restaurants with three Michelin stars in London, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester is currently offering a menu with prominent focus on black truffle (Tuber melanosporum) – one of the globe’s most prized natural ingredients, native to Southern Europe. Established in 2007, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester is the flagship UK restaurant from one of the world’s most decorated chefs, with 26 restaurants operating worldwide. Best known for offering high-end, contemporary French cuisine, the kitchen of Alain...

The image of veganism is undergoing the most radical change in its history, with people now closely associating it with health, fitness and wellbeing. It’s no longer an extreme lifestyle, it’s easy and accessible - you can walk into any supermarket and pick up a vegan alternative to anything you can think of. It was disheartening to hear this morning that a small number of vegans have decided to make death threats to a farmer. It’s important to note that...

Britain could be hit by a hummus crisis due to a global chickpea shortage. Poor crop yields in some areas over the past year has driven down supply, but demand for the primary hummus ingredient remains high. The price of supermarket hummus has leapt by 29 per cent since January 2017, according to analysis by the trade magazine The Grocer. Tasneem Backhouse, managing director of chickpea supplier EHL Ingredients, said: "Demand is strong from every market and currently there isn’t enough...

“Fine dining is just a load of bollocks; don’t you think? When I eat out, I want to be filled-up with something hearty,” yapped an unfamiliar barber - oxymoronically complaining about Angela Hartnett’s recent suggestion that Brits aren’t a nation of foodies. Like a cat agitated by next door’s belligerent Pit bull, I instinctively arched my back and gritted my teeth, primed to curmudgeonly defend haute cuisine. But suddenly conscious of the razor being dragged across my gullet, I recoiled...

By Sophie Parkin  Chinese food is something that has become largely commoditised over the last 20 years or so. You’ll struggle to find even the smallest villages without a Chinese restaurant or takeaway, and much of the food is more or less comparable (obviously with a few exceptions). It would be fair to say there was an air of skepticism when making the trip up to the top end of the northern line. Situated on the main road, we were...

Created by award-winning Australian drinks entrepreneur and Think Spirits owner, Patrick Borg, Esprit de Figues was made readily available in the UK last year. Hand-crafted in the rolling hills of Burgundy, Esprit de Figues is a modern French fig liqueur, distilled with the intention of capturing the refreshing, succulent sweetness of fresh Mediterranean figs. Esprit de Figues’ origins lie within the fig tree cutting transported from Malta, when Borg’s family migrated to Australia during the 1960s. To this day, the...

Brits suffer from food envy once a week – with cheesy garlic bread, pizza and cheesecake most likely to bring on the green-eyed monster, a study has found. Almost half of Brits have fallen victim to ‘food envy’ - feelings of regret about a food choice and wishing they were eating what’s on someone else’s plate instead. But the cold days, dark nights and discipline required to stick to New Year’s resolutions may be contributing to feelings of jealousy. A...