Sunday brunch is the epitome of a happy, lazy weekend. Because I work full time and run pop up restaurants, it's often the case that I work 6+ days a week, so Sunday becomes my only day off. Therefore, what I do on and who I spend my Sunday with is even more important. So a late brunch (basically a late lunch) with my man, at one of my favourite chefs' restaurants is a pretty good way to celebrate Sunday. On the hottest day of the year so far we headed over to Roux at the Landau to sample their "Farmhouse Sunday Brunch" - a feast of epic proportions that is as delicious as it is generous. The whole restaurant is transformed, with huge buffets of colourful starters and puddings, and a guitarist playing and singing throughout the meal.
After being shown to our seats by the ever so attentive, and plentiful, staff, and being offered a choice of bubbles or Bloody Mary (both choosing the latter), we were invited to help ourselves to starters. These included beetroot "remoulade" with egg mimosa and watercress, Cornish oysters "mignonette", whisky cured salmon, pate en croute, charcuterie, Jersey Royal potato salad, green bean and smoked duck salad, black quinoa and caper salad, and octopus carpaccio. We picked our favourites from the selection and devoured plates stacked high with salads, meats and salmon. My personal favourite was the beetroot, and the French bean and smoked duck, though it was all excellent.
Ham Yard Hotel in Soho are hosting a brilliant Hot Gin Roof this January and February in collaboration with gin legends Sipsmith. I headed up to the hotel's rooftop last night to have a sneaky preview on what'll be on offer and if you're a fan of gin, hot cocktails and/or exclusive secret Soho rooftops then you definitely don't want to miss this!
From 20th January to 16th February you can head up to the private roof terrace at Ham Yard Hotel to try the cocktails yourself. There's a welcome hot gin and tonic on arrival and then a hot gin cocktail of your choice to follow included in the ticket price, plus an intro by one of the Sipsmith distillery team. Which is pretty good for £18 a ticket - though book fast as I know quite a few dates have already sold out. There are two sessions each evening - 6pm and 8pm (or just 6.30pm on Sundays). There's a huge range of original and re-imagined cocktails on offer. I tried a couple - the hot Negroni was perfect, made with Sipsmith London Dry Gin, Campari, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino and Red Berry tea, and served in a teacup.
Equally as good was my Reverse Martini - a mix of Sipsmith London Dry Gin, vermouth mix, vermouth bitter and topped with a deep fried olive. Warm, punchy and delicious.
I went to Hot Gin Roof twice last year and had a great evening both times, so if it sounds like your thing then get booking now, and maybe see you there!
Ham Yard Hotel is nestled away in the middle of Soho and is one of my favourite places to pop in to and escape the hustle and bustle of the busy tourist filled streets surrounding it. Up until the end of last year their beautiful roof terrace was only open to hotel guests, but that all changed with their winter Sipsmith rooftop pop up, and their current Vermouth on the Roof pop up that's taking place til Sunday 4th September.
I love it when a good new restaurant opens in West London. Although there are some great places already, we're not as saturated with good eateries as Soho, or further East. And when that new restaurant (though it's not that new anymore as I'm a bit slow with my write up) is from one of my favourite chefs, then it's even better. Theo Randall's newest venture is Theo's Simple Italian, a casual dining restaurant at boutique hotel, Hotel Indigo, which is a couple of minutes walk from Earl's Court tube station. The restaurant is relaxed, yet chic, and has a deli that sells all of the produce used in their kitchens, plus homemade pastries in the morning and cakes, charcuterie and cheeses in the afternoon, so you can go home and (try to) recreate the delicious dinner you've had there. Theo's new book 'My Simple Italian' might help too!
The food at Theo's Simple Italian focuses on using seasonal ingredients to create dishes that are vibrant and full of flavour. Everything is cooked "simply" - there are no twiddly bits or buffons of foam - just good, tasty plates of food that you'll want to go back for time and again. There's a lovely choice of Italian wines and lots of different craft beers to enjoy with as much or as little food as you fancy. The menu is divided up in to sections of plate size so you can pop in for a quick snack, or go all out and try a bit of everything, like we did! We started small (cicchetti) then worked our way through most of the rest of the menu. Cicchetti plates we tried included the totally addictive polenta chips with anchovy dressing; veal, beef and pork meatballs; calamari fritti; and the olive oil focaccia that's ridiculously good, and of course made on site.
I've been very lucky recently and have spent two evenings eating very delicious food cooked by one of the loveliest chefs I've met. A couple of Tuesdays ago was my Theo Randall experience part 1 at The Intercontinental in Mayfair where I was invited for drinks, a cooking demo by Theo and a sit down four course dinner. This was followed by a very different evening the next Tuesday at his new restaurant, Theo's Simple Italian in Earl's Court, which I'll write about in a separate post.
So back to Theo part 1. A group of lots of lovely bloggers and I were invited to the newly refurbished Theo Randall at the Intercontinental. We started with drinks in the stunning bar area which has undergone a significant redesign to incorporate a sommelier’s table, where all the garnishes, bitters and mixers for the cocktails are kept. There's a revised bar menu which offers authentic and innovative Italian cocktails, including my absolute favourite, the Negroni. And the InterContinental's Negroni is one of the best I've tried. The perfect balance of bitter, citrus and punchy, I could drink far too many of these! If you want to go for drinks at the bar there's also a few small dishes and antipasti so you can go just for drinks and nibbles. But that would be silly with all the delicious main food on offer!
We headed through to the smaller of two private rooms where Theo demonstrated how to cook the perfect risotto - don't use butter to start with (it'll burn), you don't need wine if you have good stock, be generous with the stock and use the freshest of vegetables that have been pre cooked so they don't bring the cooking temperature down in the pan. Whilst he was showing us this we nibbled on deep fried polenta with chilli and anchovy, which may well be my new favourite snack, and battered courgette slices.
There's something about eating in a hotel restaurant that I love. It feels grand and luxurious (when done right), especially when said restaurant is on Pall Mall in the grade II listed Sofitel London St James. I picked Lucy up from a Jensen's masterclass in Bermondsey where we jumped in an uber and headed to central to check out the new menu at The Balcon. In charge of the kitchen is Matt Greenwood, who's worked at some of my favourites including Smokehouse, Caravan and Providores before he joined The Balcon in December 2015 where he's created a menu with a real fusion of global influences. The room itself is beautiful, with double height ceilings, grand columns and lots of marble, which we admired from our table on the raised area overlooking the rest of the diners in the brasserie style restaurant.
We kicked things off with a glass of bubbles and starters to share - seared mackerel with falafel, sumac yoghurt and confit tomatoes; and grilled scallops, boudin noir and apple croquette and carrot pickle. Both were lovely - the fish in both was perfectly cooked, I liked the moisture balance in the mackerel dish with the oiliness of the fish working well with the falafel, though the sumac was barely discernible. The apple went excellently with the scallops - clean plates all round.
I'm not a fan of dry January. Firstly, January's a pretty miserable month anyway without having to knock booze on the head for 31 days, and secondly, I personally believe it's just as good for you to not drink for a few days in a row every week (the liver is a fast healer), rather than quitting completely for a month, then having a glass of wine most nights for the rest of the year. So a new pop up I'm really looking forward to this month (that's also on in February if you are doing dry January) is Swan on a Hot Gin Roof with London's finest gin distillers, Sipsmith, at Ham Yard Hotel. Every night (except Mondays) from Tuesday 26th January til Sunday 14th February you can book a session (starting at 6pm or 8pm on weekdays, and 4pm or 6pm on weekends) for some gin-laced winter warmers on the hotel’s hidden roof terrace. I had a sneaky peak of what's on offer and you're in for a treat. The rooftop is stunning. One of the best I've seen in London in fact - it's all fairy lights, fire pits and leafy plants, with tons of cosy sofas and woollen blankets for snuggling up, and stunning views of London. It's like a secret little hideaway in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Soho. Then there's the cocktails, which have been created by Sipsmith's master distiller Jared Brown and Ham Yard Hotel bar manager Eoin Kenny, who've taken inspiration from London's rich cocktail history and created one off hot drinks such as The Smoking Bishop, The Original (made with gin and gingerbread) and the Soho Gin Broth, which uses Barthelmas beef taken from a 1664 recipe. They'll also be serving more recognisable concoctions such as hot G&Ts and Steaming Juleps.
I love discovering places that I didn't know existed. And thanks to Zomato's recent #zomatomeetup I was able to do just that a couple of weeks ago, when they took us on a tour of the restaurants at St James' Court, to show us the new 80 Tastes offer - where you get to try food at all 4 of the restaurants that are part of St James Court and the hotel.
On a hot, muggy evening in London I arrived at St James's Court - spacious and leafy, it's a little oasis in the middle of the city and all the tourists (it's right between Victoria and Buckingham Palace). We started our evening with a Laurent Perrier Champagne Flight (which you can do on its own too for £20 a head, rather than as part of the 80 tastes food tour if bubbles are more your thing, though I'd advise you do the whole tour, as it's so good). We were given 3 glasses of bubbles, each with a canapé to compliment the drink. We started with the Laurent Perrier Brut which was served with Scottish scallop and avocado tartate - a lovely, fresh tasting bite that was excellent with the champagne. Next was the Laurent Perrier Vintage 2004, served with a summer vegetable ratatouille crostini. The final champagne was the Laurent Perrier Cuvée Rosé, with salmon, crème fraiche and caviar - I really liked this champagne and food pairing, with the rosé bubbles cut through the oily fish and delicious caviar. The Champagne Flight is available every day at The Cellar Room.
A few weeks ago I received an invite to a sleepover in Brentford, West London for a night at a new hotel called Urban Villa. The invite promised cocktails from Soulshakers, dinner from The Beefy Boys, (recent winners of 'Best Burger' at the World Food Awards) live music and DJing. I was sold.... nearly. I had the small matter of a pop up the next night at my house for 19 people so after looking through my menu and cooking schedule I decided that I would be able to sneak away from the house for the Friday night to spend it at Urban Villa, but I would have to be on my best behaviour and be out and back home by 8am the next morning - one of which I achieved.... One thing that helped this plan was the fact that Urban Villa is less than a mile from our house. I was all booked in, and looking forward to a night away from home with the boy (partners were also invited, luckily, as it would've been a bit weird filling hotel rooms with solo guests!)
Friday night suddenly arrived and I whizzed home after work to do a little bit of cooking and prep for the pop up, pack a bag and head down to Urban Villa. The minute we left the house I felt like I'd left a small child at home on its own (my pop up) but when we arrived at the hotel and a glass of bubbly was put in my hand, all thoughts of my impending pop up seemed to get further and further away....!
Urban Villa is a unique concept - it is a hotel cross with a BnB. Each room is in fact a mini apartment - ours had a spacious entrance hallway, double bedroom, large living area with a fully functional kitchen (which includes the all important Nespresso machine), bathroom with 2 different shower heads and a large bath, and a wraparound enclosed balcony that covered the full perimeter of the flat, with the ability to open the sides to the elements - not much of a view looking straight onto the M4 but nice to get some 'fresh' air all the same. Rather than having the costs of running a concierge, spa and restaurant onsite, Urban Villa offer more of a self service option. You can cook what you like in the kitchen in the rooms, you can book a spa therapist for in-room treatments and if you want to venture out for food, Urban Villa have a long list of local, rated, recommended restaurants and bars (Ealing Park Tavern is a 5 minute walk away).
If you follow me on Instagram, you might've seen that I went on the holiday of a lifetime a couple of weeks ago. The boy's mum very kindly took me, the boy, his brother and his brother's lady off to Mauritius for a break. It was the furthest I've ever travelled and my first time in the Southern hemisphere, so I wanted to share some of my photos, experiences and food discoveries with you here.
We took a night flight direct from Heathrow to Mauritius and arrived to be hit by a wall of heat and humidity, all slightly dazed from a sleep-lacking flight! We were picked up by our driver and driven from the airport, on the south-east of the island, to the hotel, on the north-west. Mauritius is in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, and is about 70km in length, so it only took an hour to reach the hotel. We were staying at the gorgeous Maritim, Balaclava, and were greeted with the most stunning view through the reception foyer, out over the infinity pool to the crystal blue sea. The views were unlike anything I've seen before, as was the heat!
