Food and Drink

Chancery Lane, Friday 19th September 2014 Gaucho is renowned for being one of the capital's leading high-end Argentinian steak brands and it certainly lived up to its excellent reputation when TLE visited the Chancery Lane restaurant on Friday. In a convenient central location on the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street the smart, unfussy exterior gives way to the unmistakably ‘Gaucho’ interior of dark moody lighting, sumptuous décor and a five star hostess greeting. From the moment we arrived we knew...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic There was a time when food was a valued commodity and was treated as such. We would know the source of our food, understand seasonality and accept that everything has a shelf life, but the industrialisation of food means food waste is no longer the problem, food is. I hate to waste food, I've written many an article on frugal recipes and the method behind the madness, but I'm a product of...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor A recent survey of 2,042 UK residents by Red Tractor to mark the start of Red Tractor Week (15th Sept) has revealed some funny food knowledge blunders, including 23 per cent of Londoners who don't know how broccoli is grown and that the people of the capital are the least knowledgeable area about the provenance/origin of food. Not good news for the foodies of Britain's largest city. Below are the top ten findings from the...

By Carly Bryant We had already left it too late to eat, blood sugar levels were low and tensions were running high. Ill-advisedly we took the decision to walk the twenty minutes down the famous ‘Rye’ pub a site which just a few years ago would have been sneered at by London’s well-heeled, which is now one-in one-out on a Sunday lunch among the East Dulwich/Nunhead/Peckham set. With its large garden - complete with miniature (that’s the operative word) boule’s...

By Jonathan Hatchman Perhaps most renowned for his rapid take upon classic meals, prepared and presented with extreme simplicity, constricted to a budget of time and money: Jamie Oliver has become a household name over the past fifteen years, as well as one of the globe's most celebrated celebrity chefs. However, with his more recent penchant for managing to compress the preparation of four sustainable meals into the space of just sixty minutes, the food on offer at Oliver's home...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic  To an outsider it may seem rather perverse that a wine region that has undergone such change in the past century and a half still champions a classification of its chateaux that dates back to 1855, but for Bordeaux, it's actually quite typical. Change is both friend and foe in Bordeaux. Today, thanks to advances in technology, there are few, if any, of the bad vintages that once plagued wineries. Robert Parker’s...

Is it time to give the guys some slack?

By Jack Peat  Mexican food has been somewhat absent, or at least under represented, in the UK for some time. Whereas people in the US enjoy burritos and tacos as a staple high street diet us Brits have been left to seek out our refried beans and pulled meats. But not for much longer. A new wave of fast food – or perhaps I should use ‘over the counter’ to avoid the negative connotations - Mexican restaurants have finally found...

Soho is awash with a new generation of what I'd call 'accessible gastronomic' bars, cafes and restaurants. If you're a traditionalist who prefers food to be served on a plate and Prosecco served from the bottle it's probably not a place for you - although your conservatism has probably kept you away from the area for some time - but if a bit of non-conformity tickles your taste buds, you're in for a treat. Homeslice is typical of Soho's new...