Ava Pickett’s latest play starring Michelle Dockery Although Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy is billed as a conflict between two female friends, there is much more to rising playwright Ava Pickett’s dynamic follow up to her award-winning 1536. With feisty dialogue in a domestic Essex sitting room, it’s like a modern Abigail’s Party except there’s […]
One day in Berlin: Tempelhof, the DDR Museum and TV Tower
Exploring Berlin by U-Bahn, Boat and Tram with a teenager Berlin in August was a revelation. Not pristine, not empty, but somehow calmer than London in peak tourist season. It felt tidy and organised, with well designed infrastructure. With many Germans on holiday, Berlin felt spacious, with lower levels of traffic and more green space […]
Towering Thames Views at Coppa Club
A London Bridge lunch at Coppa Club looking over the river I’ll admit that in my enthusiasm to review Coppa Club, I anticipated sitting in the pods by the Tower of London. In fact, Coppa Club boasts two branches overlooking Tower Bridge, and it was my pleasure to review their London Bridge branch, a few […]
Mr Fogg’s Market Tavern
Nostalgic Pub Food in Covent Garden Covent Garden Market has as many bars and restaurants as shops these days, and lurking at one end of the lower courtyard is Mr Fogg’s Market Tavern. It’s dark and intimate inside with hidey-hole booth seating; one might almost be inside the galleon of a pirate ship. It was […]
The Ivy Chelsea Garden
Golden Summer Dining at The Ivy on King’s Road What could be nicer than a long lazy lunch on a summertime terrace dappled with sunshine, catching up with an old friend? Time slips past before you realise you’ve spent three hours dining at The Ivy Chelsea Garden. Much like Titanic (the film), the first half […]
ALFI at Spitalfields Market
Modern Italian Menu with Neapolitan Pizza On arriving at ALFI, I had a sense of déjà vu: it’s in a unit that once housed a spacious Leon popular with my mum-and-baby friends. Returning 19 years later, my son and I were sampling ALFI’s authentic Neapolitan pizza rather than boxes of meatballs. I read that ALFI’s […]
Duchy, Shoreditch
A Savoy Inspired Menu To Savour Duchy, in Shoreditch, takes its name from the Duchy of Savoy, a historic territory straddling French departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie and parts of Piedmont and Switzerland. The menu draws on flavours from these Alpine and northern Italian regions. In common with its aristocratic namesake, the 40 seater restaurant […]
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare’s Globe
Flirting and Flamenco in a Bailar of the Sexes Why isn’t Love’s Labour’s Lost a better loved Shakespeare play? It borrows familiar components audiences know from other pieces – the disguises of Twelfth Night, the “play within a play” antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and plenty of romantic chicanery and silliness. Less frequently staged […]
Dreams of Olympus Menu at Brasserie of Light
Sparkling Dining at Selfridges, Oxford Street I used to be a West End girl, shopping in Selfridges and hopping on a Routemaster home – heck, I even had a Sears card when that was a thing, although I mainly used it in the Miss Selfridge concession. Twenty years later and I’m an East End girl, […]
Tagine and Grill at The Sun & 13 Cantons
New Moroccan Residency Menu For Soho Pub Favourite Before the heatwave hit this week, I paid a virtual visit to Morocco via The Sun & 13 Cantons’ new permanent residency (is that a tautology?), Tagine and Grill. The Sun & 13 Cantons must surely be lodged firmly in every Londoner’s pub lexicon; it lies just […]