Food

What to do with a squirrel (without getting prosecuted)

Gardeners are up against it. There are thousands of garden pests, exciting new ones discovered every day, and few remedies left with which to fight them. The wonderful cure-all chemicals we once depended on have long been banned — they ‘cured’ a little more than was intended. And how do you repel that king of garden pests, the alien grey squirrel? Squirrels destroy baby birds, bulbs, fruit, young trees just as they begin to look like real trees, and bird feeders too. Not (yet) the human variety of bird feeders, but the peanut and seed containing varieties. At this time of year they are frantic for food and liable to

Is the Dorchester the designated grand hotel for fat people? The portions at its new grill say so

The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, is a cake floating in space. All grand hotels create a parallel universe in which their guests are returned to some great gilded and unnatural womb with mini-bar and floristry, but the Dorchester feels particularly remote; has it overplayed its myth? Or is it a combination of the traffic (Park Lane has eight traffic lanes, three roundabouts, one set of unicorn-themed gates and a monument to the dead animals of war), the net curtains (the decorative equivalent of blindness) and the strange completeness of the building? What does the Dorchester, with its curved beige frontage and yellow awnings, actually look like? Bournemouth. Or any retirement

Rowleys is Did Mummy Love Me Really? food – and it’s perfect

I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street (the Tesco end). It was made in homage to the Wall’s sausage and ice-cream fortune, although it opened in 1976, after the Wall’s sausage and ice-cream company (I call it that because it sounds magical) was sold to Unilever (less magical). So it is quite a late homage. The Wall’s sausage and ice-cream fortune, how I love to type the words; did you know that Mr Wall moved into ice-cream so as not to sack staff in the summer months, when no one — except me and George IV —

Rivea: a London annexe to the world’s maddest expensive restaurant

Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper Class lounge. It sits opposite One Hyde Park (stupid name), an apartment block which looks like a vast Virgin Upper Class lounge and which I am fairly certain appeared two weeks ago in a very silly television show called Silent Witness, in which a plutocrat was murdered with scented gas after being chased by the FSB. Was he Litvinenko, or Berezovsky, who I think was murdered for suggesting that Vladimir Putin is really Dobby the masochistic elf from Harry Potter? Who knows, but it is always gratifying when the BBC

I want to do for field rations what Jamie Oliver did for school dinners

Hell’s Kitchen My ambition to open a fish and chip shop in Mogadishu has not happened yet, though I remain optimistic. Food, I’ve decided, is the thing to go for on my next entrepreneurial adventure. For a while I dreamed of going into the chicken trade, importing refrigerated containers full of wings and drumsticks from Brazil for sale up the furthest reaches of the Congo. Fortunes have been made in brokering African chicken deals. But so far my forays into the food business have not gone very well. I tried, for example, to sell pots of honey with my friend Tom at various local fêtes. We branded our product rather

Here’s how politicians can convince British Jews that they have a future in the UK

A recent study has suggested that over half of Britain’s Jews feel they have no future in the UK. At first glance this might seem outrageous, indeed incredible. Arguably (one might say) we Jews are the most successfully integrated of all the UK’s ethnic minorities.  A miniscule set of communities – comprising in total 0.5 per cent of the UK’s total population –  British Jewry punches well above its weight in all walks of life: the learned professions; the arts; the entertainment industries; academia; big and not so big business; even politics. Of course (you might retort) Jews have a future in the UK! A more pertinent question might be to

The real reason there’s a queue outside the Cereal Killer Café

The Cereal Killer Café is a temple to cereal on Brick Lane, east London. It serves only cereal — and also Pop-Tarts, which taste like pavements smeared with chocolate — and flavoured milk. It has been open for one month and is already famous for its monomania, its whimsy — look, cereal! — and its co-owner’s on-air fight with a Channel 4 News journalist about the morality of selling £3.50 bowls of cereal in a ‘poor area’. (The Channel 4 reporter did not notice the bespoke chocolatier next door or the boxer-short boutique nearby, in which golden boxer shorts hang on hangers. He did not notice that the East End is

The most preposterous restaurant to have opened in London this year

Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was a car park, but that particular hell is over. Instead there is Skate at Somerset House with Fortnum & Mason, which is a purple-lit skating rink next to a ‘pop-up’ shop or ‘Christmas arcade’. This, because all PR copywriters think they write for Jennifer’s Diary in 1952, is apparently ‘the most chic and complete Christmas experience in London this season’. I doubt it. There is, for instance, no sign of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Father Christmas, or rogue elves, although there is a ‘twinkling 40ft Christmas tree hand-picked from the

James Delingpole

How to win MasterChef – and why salmon is the fish of the devil

If ever my near-neighbour William Sitwell is killed in a bizarre shooting accident and I end up taking his place as one of the guest critics on MasterChef: the Professionals (not likely, I admit, but you never know), here are some tips for competitors who wish to avoid a stinking review. 1. Don’t serve me salmon. Salmon is the fish of the devil, which is why Satan coloured it that particularly vile shade of pink. It is evil because it is almost certainly farmed and therefore pumped full of antibiotics to destroy all the parasites with which it would otherwise be pullulating. If it’s not farmed, well, it still tastes

The hotels trying to turn Cornwall into Kensington

Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, beyond the railway line, which stops at Penzance, in an improbable shed; I love that what begins at Paddington, the most grandiose and insane of London stations, ends in a shed. The Spanish invaded Mousehole in 1595 but Drake’s fleet came from Plymouth and chased them away; nothing so interesting has happened since; just fishing, tourism and decline. Now there are galleries and restaurants and what the Cornish call ‘incomers’ buying cottages, in which they place ornamental fishing nets after painting everything white. (For something more ‘authentic’, you can visit

Want to stay warm this winter? Then get naked, wear mittens and tuck into a curry

Brrr, getting chilly out there, isn’t it? Here are some proven – and perhaps surprising – ways to keep warm and cosy in cold weather: Sip a hot drink There’s actually not much evidence to back this up, but, let’s face it, cupping your hands round a steaming mug of cocoa and feeling the hot liquid go down is a very comforting thing. Cuddle up naked One way of warming someone with hypothermia is to remove clothes and lie naked against the unclothed victim. It will work just as well on a cold night in bed with your partner. Eat well Food is a crucial source of energy, which will warm

Does George Osborne really lock his office fridge at night?

It seems the most exciting thing to come out of today’s Commons press gallery lunch with Danny Alexander was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s claim that George Osborne locks his fridge in the department. Mr Steerpike has never been afflicted by an attack of the munchies while lurking in that part of Whitehall but he had a quick word with a Treasury source, who informed him that the fridge in question is Danny’s fridge too, sitting right opposite his office and that it’s only locked at night (which makes Mr Steerpike wonder what Alexander was doing going through the Treasury larder at night when officials are so happy to

A buffet in an Egyptian tomb

Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa Melonoras Resort Spa and Casino — or, as I will henceforth call it, TLCMRSAC — looks like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu without the art, the metaphor or the tragedy. It has towers, chandeliers, vistas, pools, terraces, tennis courts, a swim-up bar, a miniature golf course and palm trees. It is a synthetic paradise for Europeans who want sun in November in their own time zone; it is more unnatural than Las Vegas. Atlantico has roughly one thousand covers, if you include an annexe room styled like an Egyptian tomb with a

Barry Humphries’s diary: The bookshop ruined by Harry Potter

Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just like an ordinary piece of fish — a bit small, as is usual in pretentious restaurants — on a plate sprinkled and drizzled as though the chef had perhaps coughed over it rather violently or vigorously scratched his head before giving it to the waiter. In Australia, I was once offered a shoulder of some other fish, so I suppose one might even be able to enjoy a rump of whitebait or even a saddle of flounder. But generally speaking I don’t mind loin when applied to the loinless, and

Want to shake hands with your dinner? Beast is your kind of restaurant

Beast is next to Debenhams on Oxford Street and it is not conventionally beast-like; rather it is monetised and bespoke beastliness, which is not really beastliness at all. It is something worse. The outside is Dead Animal Inc: glassy, corporate, bland. The reception has a 10ft bronze bear covered with swirls which look like paisley or some photogenic skin disease. A woman presses the button inside the lift for you, should you be too stupid or lazy to do it yourself. And downstairs, as the lift opens and you peer into the dark, you see a fridge full of hanging beef with labels flickering in a cold synthetic wind. They

Are bowls of pasta Blairite?

If Thatcher was Britain’s Bonaparte, then Blair was most certainly our Louis-Philippe. It was during the reign of the latter that the bourgeoisie came to dominate the status quo in France, and they needed somewhere to gather. Not for them the salons of the aristocracy – instead, they invented the destination restaurant, imitations of which sprung up all over Paris to cater for the wannabes. Blair was undoubtedly our most haut-bourgeois leader. But what of his gastronomic legacy? Does it survive, or does it, like some ruined Empire man in a Balzac novel, limp around dressed in the tattered remains of its pomp? What, more to the point, is a

The limits of ‘superfood’ – debunking broccoli

Over in my day job, I recently wrote a piece about ‘superfoods’ and the myths that a particular kind of food can protect you from illnesses. The only food advice for which there is consistent evidence is that you should eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables; all this stuff about how you should eat pomegranate to make your liver healthy, or whatever, is complete nonsense. One of the items that keeps cropping up was broccoli. It contains a chemical called sulforaphane, which supposedly helps with diabetes, lung disease and breast cancer. Naturally, the evidence for all this is lacking: the tests were all carried out with

Prue Leith’s diary: I want to be green, but I’ve got some flights to take first…

‘Please God, make me good, but not yet.’ I know the feeling. As I get older and more deeply retired, I globe-trot more and my carbon footprint is horrendous. And guilt does not result in abstinence. The brain is persuaded but the flesh is weak. Years ago I chaired Jonathon Porritt’s sustainability organisation, Forum for the Future, and I remember holding a fund-raising dinner for rich Cotswolders and hoping no one would notice my gas-guzzling old car, toasty warm house, and melon with more air-miles than flavour. I’ve tried harder since then, but it’s not easy. A couple of years ago I converted my ancient barn into an eco-friendly house

Tanya Gold

Gymkhana is morally disgusting – and fortunately the food’s disgusting too

Gymkhana is a fashionable Indian restaurant in Albemarle Street. It was, according to its natty website, ‘inspired by Colonial Indian gymkhana clubs, set up by the British Raj, where members of high society came to socialise, dine, drink and play sport’. This is revolting, in the same way that eating in homage to apartheid South Africa or to commemorate the genocide of native Americans is revolting. Not that this is exceptional, of course; these days no crime is so calamitous it cannot be seconded into an entertainment experience or themed meal. There is, after all, a cafeteria at Auschwitz which received the following review online: ‘They have a range of

Today’s Disney princesses look like Russian mafia wives. This is their café

The Disney Café is a gaudy hell on the fourth floor of Harrods, Knightsbridge. It is adjacent to the Harrods Disney Store, and also the Harrods Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, in which females between the ages of three and 12 can, for fees ranging from £100 to £1,000, be transformed into the tiny, glittering monsters called Disney princesses. They look like the late Queen Mother, but miniaturised. They glide — or are carried, if very small — from boutique to café in hooped plastic gowns in poisonous pink; combustible cloud-dresses, made for arson. Their hair is tight with curls and hairspray, and topped with the essential tiara. They look obliviously class-obsessed