An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Isn’t it awful that the older you get, the more you know yourself? It’s supposed to be a good thing, attributed to wisdom, experience and a deeper understanding of our place in the world around us. But good lord, self-awareness can be a cruel mistress. I have realised that my greatest culinary goal is simply
We were discussing civilisation, as one does, and its relationship with cuisine. Pasta in Italy, paella in Spain, the roast beef of Old England; wurst in Germany, burgers in the States –though with those latter examples we are moving away from the concept. What about Japan, a complex society which is full of paradoxes? For
You could be forgiven for thinking you’d walked into Oz: in the past couple of years, the whole world has gone green. Pale green, to be precise. Suddenly, pistachio is everywhere: it’s in our pastries, our chocolate, our coffees, our puddings, and even showing up in perfumes, paint charts, scented candles and on our fashion
Entering the New Inn in Llanddewi Brefi in Ceredigion is like stepping back in time. The only pub in the village (since the Foelallt Arms closed down four years ago), The New Inn seems to hail from the 1970s. Its till is a pull-out wooden drawer full of coins and notes. There’s a coal fire in
Many of us will remember, misty-eyed, how things changed around the turn of the century. How Britain ceased to be a nation brutalised by rationing and rissoles and instead blossomed into a utopia of celebrity chefs, endless food TV and a population seemingly willing and able to eat out most nights of the week. We
The Harrods bookshop, which I browse for masochistic reasons, is mesmerising: an homage to the lure of ownership. The first book I find is called, simply, 150 Houses. Is that enough? Then I find Luxury Trains, the Porsche Book, the Lamborghini Book and the Jaguar Book. Then I find a book designed for a lifelong
19 min listen
Jeremy Chan is the head chef and owner of Ikoyi, and the author of a cookbook of the same name. On the podcast, he tells Liv and Lara about growing up with a number of different food influences – from Hong Kong to Canada – and why his two-Michelin-starred restaurant should never be pigeonholed. Photo credit:
I’ve been in hospital, bed-bound, for six weeks; because I can write it’s not so bad, but between deadlines time passes slowly, so landmarks in the day come to mean a lot. Most of all, I look forward to my husband visiting at 3 p.m.; secondly, the meds trolley trundling towards me like a dear
I love Italian food, and I love food writing and TV programmes, so you might think I’d love Stanley Tucci. And yet I find him creepy and his recipes are rubbish. I can’t be the only one. The actor, who I first saw in the brilliant film Big Night, about a Jersey Shore Italian-American restaurant,
Recently in Spectator Life Rob Crossan laid bare ‘the unpalatable truth about British food’ – namely that it is, er, in some establishments he’s been to, done badly. Leaving aside the fact he’s looking for his fish and chips in the wrong place (outside the M25 it wouldn’t be such a struggle), encountering a few
Just when it seemed as though January in Britain couldn’t get any bleaker, along came ‘Veganuary’. Cue loads of puny, blue-haired wokerati spending this month preaching about how we should give up on two of man’s greatest pleasures – meat and cheese. If you’ve been finding it irritating, you’re not alone. In surveys of public
Let us indulge in a slight paraphrase. What rough beast slouches towards the White House to be reborn? The inauguration ceremonies remind us that many Americans still hanker after monarchical splendour. Even as contentious a figure as Donald Trump is accorded the dignities appropriate to a head of state. The same of course is true
Pub food in Britain has had a mixed reputation over the years. For a long time, the most a pub would have to offer as food would be some pork scratchings or a pickled egg. There certainly wasn’t a brigade of chefs in white coats in a shiny chrome kitchen. This is midweek-teatime cooking, it’s
I’m sure my mum would forgive me for saying this, but cooking is not one of her many strengths. Raising three children, and with a husband who worked shifts in a steel mill, she was feeding people round the clock, so cooking became a necessity rather than a pleasure – as it will have been
John F. Kennedy opted to serve New England lobster, Ronald Reagan a California-inspired garden salad – and James Buchanan 400 gallons of oysters. Held at Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, the inaugural luncheon for a new president is as much part of inauguration day as the swearing-in ceremony and the inaugural address. Nixon enjoyed
Donald Trump has form with the smelt. In his 2016 presidential run, he complained that California’s authorities were prioritising the endangered fish (which are native to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta) over farmers’ irrigation needs. ‘Is there a drought?’ he asked a private audience of farmers ahead of a rally. ‘No, we have plenty of
The Savoy Hotel is a theatre playing Mean Girls with a hotel attached to it, so you can expect it to both dream and fail. That is a polite way of saying that its new restaurant, Gallery, is not a success, but the Savoy will survive it. Though it didn’t survive the Peasants’ Revolt. It
31 min listen
Julian Baggini is a philosopher, journalist and author. He has served as the academic director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and is a member of the Food Ethics Council. His new book, How the World Eats: A Global Food Philosophy, is out now. On the podcast, Julian tells Liv about why he used to insist
Last year a friend who lives in Lyon came to visit me in London. It was only her second trip to the UK and she was determined to venture deep into our indigenous food culture. ‘So, where can I get good fish and chips?’ she asked me. Now, if I was a citizen of Vienna
On a recent trip with my daughter to Trieste, the north Italian seaside city on the border with Slovenia, I thought it would be nice to take her to Café Sacher for some sachertorte, which has been in culinary fashion since its creation in 1832. Trieste, once a thriving Austro-Hungarian port, is as reminiscent of
It is extraordinary to remember. When I was a small boy in Scotland, Christmas Day was not a holiday. My father almost closed his office, but someone was on duty. The main festivity was Hogmanay: not a holiday in England. Now the whole country closes down for a fortnight. A friend who is a serious industrialist
January kitchens are my favourite. This isn’t anything against Christmas – I love the spice, the frenzy, the ritual of festive cooking, but I also love the aftermath. There’s something calming about the kitchen once it’s all over – nothing is made through obligation, or with a deadline. I embrace the cosiness of autumn and
A few months ago in Primrose Hill, I overheard a woman from the Camden New Journal, the local paper, asking in a café about rumours of a Gail’s opening in the famously anti-chain neighbourhood. Just a few weeks previously, there had been uproar in Walthamstow about a new branch – an unpleasant alliance of the
I see this column as an essay on cultural polarisation: artisanal butter can only take you so far into wisdom. I cower in Covent Garden, mourning Tory romanticism, and stare, cold-eyed in St James’s, at oligarchic mezze. Sometimes I eat by mistake. I couldn’t get into the fashionable noodle place in Soho, whose Instagram-made queue
32 min listen
Laura King is affectionately known as the ‘Caviar Queen’ and is widely regarded as the UK’s foremost caviar expert. In this special episode of the podcast Laura takes Liv and Lara through a caviar tasting: from Beluga to Oscietra. Join the Spectator’s caviar masterclass and tasting – hosted by drinks editor Jonathan Ray – in collaboration
Whether we’ve got Mad Men or lockdown-inspired home boozing to thank, one thing is clear: the drinks trolley, or bar cart, is back. Interior design websites and social media are awash with them. And that means suddenly the bottle is becoming as important as the drink. Design agency Stranger and Stranger (motto: ‘Don’t fit in.
On 2 October 1814, a grand feast was held at the Hofburg imperial palace during the Congress of Vienna. Famed French chef Marie-Antoine Carême was charged with cooking and didn’t disappoint. But when it came to the cheese course, a lively argument broke out among the assembled statesmen, each advocating for the superiority of their
The 1990s comedy series the Royle Family includes a perfect scene in which Barbara says she won’t bother getting a turkey the following year, as nobody actually likes it. Everyone looks horrified. But she’s right. Advocaat, mince pies, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake (especially the marzipan) cranberry sauce, and balls of sausage meat made into stuffing
It is now not unusual to find ‘bone broth’ in the refrigerated sections of supermarkets or delis, on sale for more than £7. Who can afford this stuff? If you have the time to make your own stock then all credit to you. But if not, the concentrated stock in little cubes or tubs is
