Laith Al-Kaisy

Laith Al-Kaisy

Laith has worked as a hack on national papers and magazines. The Review Magazine is home to his restaurant reviews and travel writing.

Travel

Regnum Carya, Antalya, Turkey

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500 miles away, our country is at war. You wouldn’t imagine it here though, where despite warnings of terrorist attacks, the only immediate threat is running out of champagne. Antalya’s coastline is a tinny concentration of the photo albums you thumbed through as a child. There’s a sense of nostalgia and familiarity here, one that typifies the great British holiday: that hot-but-not-too-hot, different-but-not-too-different compromise to get on a plane and test our burdening Britishness against cultures that are generally friendlier, happier, less self-loathing, and not half as pretentious. But tourism has changed a lot recently, as has the world, and the simpering irony of sending a luxury-travel writer to this corner of…

This image shows the Shangri-La Suite
Travel

Shangri-La at the Shard 

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The first Shangri-La I stayed at was in China, where the hotel looms on the upper floors of Beijing’s World Trade Centre complex. Not exactly subtle. The one in Paris – my favourite – is set in a Napoleonic family mansion, where you can wake up to an eyeful of the Eiffel.

The villa on Isla Sa Ferradura
Travel

Isla Sa Ferradura – Ibiza’s only private island

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“Come and enjoy the island for a couple of days,” read the invitation from Isla Sa Ferradura, Ibiza’s only private rock in the ocean, a property so exclusive that it eschews advertising for word-of-mouth and deters any other undesirables with its bum-clenching £200,000-a-week price tag.

Food & Drink

The Globe & Rainbow, TN17

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Goudhurst. I couldn’t even pronounce it, let alone find it on the map. But this is where Gemma, the other half, decided to bring us for my birthday. We’ve been scouting villages around London, making a shortlist of places that are charming enough to call home—you know, buy a house, get nestled, and eventually fire out some little ones. So this was as much a reconnaissance as a celebration. One of the great, incontrovertible truths about England is that, deep down, we’d all rather be in the countryside. If you don’t feel it now, you will. The English weren’t built for the city and its Faustian promises. We’re too polite…

Travel

Big Trouble In Little China

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As we coast through a jigsaw of traffic, my guide points out the sights. “On the left, there’s a new office building. On the right, there’s a government office building. Up ahead, that’s one of the city’s first five-star hotels”. For a country so staunchly proud of its politics, China is overtly obsessed with the superficialities of capitalism. Only here could a bland office block be of any interest, yet there is something forgivably earnest about it. I ask the driver to put some music on, and in the spirit of no-nonsense socialism, he produces a CD simply called ‘Disco’. Welcome to China, where irony just shrivels up and dies….

Mauro Colagreco
Food & Drink, Interviews

Interview: Mauro Colagreco, the chef behind the world’s best restaurant 

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2019 was quite a year for Mauro Colagreco. After ten years climbing the World’s Best Restaurants list, Mirazur was ranked number one, and awarded three Michelin stars to boot. Here, he tells our editor, Laith Al-Kaisy, about his rise to stardom, how he defied expectation by opening a new restaurant in the midst of the global pandemic, and what the future holds for how we eat.  We always like to start these interviews by asking how it all started. You were born in Argentina. Here in the UK, we’re not that familiar with Argentinian cuisine. What does it mean to you, and how does it influence your food today? Octavio…

Travel

Fiji

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Bula. A word said so many times that it would lose all meaning by the end of the trip. You see, in Fiji, it’s more than just a word. It’s a sound, an exchange, a feeling that embodies positivity and means almost everything: hello, welcome, ‘sup, health, happiness, love, life, existence, sex, yes, thank you, and pretty much everything in between. Fijians like to philosophise about the subtle abstraction of the word, but there’s nothing subtle or abstract about Fiji or its people. They’re best amongst us: the pure of heart, the good Samaritans, the hopeless inertia of honesty and hard work, the transnational smile, the lazy breeze that cools…

Travel

Taveuni Palms, Fiji

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It’s raining. What’s Plan B, Barry? “There is no Plan B.” Other than ‘the bride’s done a runner’, these are the last words you want to hear on your wedding day. But here we are: Taveuni Palms, north east Fiji, hoary clouds sagging low in the sky, and a tangible unease as we quaff champagne and smoke cigarettes, praying for the sound of patter to dissipate. We’d arrived the day before, landing at Matei Airport, which more closely resembles a wooden shack, where one man sits, glances at your passport and waves you through with a resounding ‘bula’. Colleen, one half of the husband-and-wife team who manage Taveuni Palms, is…

Travel

Likuliku Lagoon Resort, Fiji

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The sound of choral singing skips like sunlight across the sea as we approach Likuliku. The staff are out to greet us, stood on the edge of the long wooden pier, dressed in traditional garb of sulus and bark-made warrior skirts, with guitars strumming to the echo of the ocean. I can taste the water spraying in my face as our boat speeds toward the resort. As their carol gets louder, the joy is palpable; a welcome as warm as the climate. We didn’t know it yet, but this type of reception is typical in Fiji: serenaded on arrival, gifted with a traditional seashell garland, and showered with cocktails. Typical,…

Food & Drink, Interviews, Uncategorized

Interview: Michel Roux, Jr.

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Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Junior, 51, is owner Le Gavroche in Mayfair. He also runs two of London’s other leading restaurants: Roux at Parliament Square and Roux at Langham Hotel. He is the son of Albert Roux and the nephew of Michel Roux – two of the world’s most celebrated chefs. Between service, he also finds time to present BBC’s Masterchef: The Professionals. We sat down with Michel to discuss the evolution of food, his culinary pet hates, and his favourite London restaurant. You’re one of the world’s leading chefs – was it always meant to be? I always wanted to be a chef and I couldn’t imagine being anything…

Food & Drink

Celeste, SW1

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I haven’t been eating out much lately. I’ve been hiding, avoiding terrorism on public transport, and preparing for global economic meltdown and the third world war. You think I’m pulling your bratwurst, but I’ve never penned a more unsmiling opening paragraph to a food review. Except that one about the maître d’, the chambermaid, and the hair in my soup. Actually, that’s not the reason I haven’t been eating out – but it’s more believable than the truth. You see, I took my brother to Pollen Street Social for his birthday, and it fundamentally changed me. It’s frayed the fabric of my being. It’s left me ashamed, victimised, confused, unsure…

Food & Drink, Interviews

Interview: Pierre Koffmann

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Pierre Koffmann was born in Tarbes, France, in 1948. After working the kitchens in Strasbourg and Toulon, he relocated to London in 1970, working with Michel Roux and Albert Roux at Le Gavroche. He soon took the role of head chef at the Roux’s Waterside Inn in Bray, in 1972, before finally opening his own restaurant, La Tante Claire, in 1977. Koffmann won much acclaim and many accolades during this time, not least three Michelin stars. After a brief hiatus, Koffmann returned to cooking in 2010, opening the eponymous Koffmann’s at The Berkeley – a far more informal affair, focusing less on Michelin stars and more on the chef’s culinary…

Culture, Interviews

Interview: Dolf de Borst, The Datsuns

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“All hail The Datsuns, heroes of the New Rock Revolution,” read the front cover of NME in October, 2002. “The Datsuns are what the world needs,” proclaimed Dave Grohl. And so they descended, an antidote to a stagnating UK music scene, introducing a new generation of kids to no-nonsense rock and roll, alongside bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, and The Libertines. After a ferocious battle between record labels, The Datsuns finally signed an exclusive licensing deal with Richard Branson’s V2 for an unprecedented six-figure sum, going on to collect numerous best-thing-since-sliced-bread awards, and promoted heavily by such deejays as John Peel and Zane Lowe. But it wasn’t the…

Food & Drink

Top Dishes of the Year

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I’ve never given anything ten out of ten. Not food, not sex, not a book, not a film, not an album, and certainly not a restaurant. Imagine the existential impasse, the cultural cul-de-sac of grading things immaculately.  What would be left, except to die the perfect death? To me, nine out of ten is the highest possible accolade. If you get a nine, that’s an idiot’s ten. But don’t be fooled – it’s still not perfect. Perfection can only be judged once you’ve tried everything else. When I’m on my deathbed, only then will I go back and revise all the eights and nines, because only then will I have…

Food & Drink

Gillrays Steakhouse, London, SE1

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It’s a paradox that, during a recession, high-end restaurants thrive and less expensive restaurants fail. And, in moments of hardship, there’s one plate of food that out-eats any other. Steak is a sign of the times – very us, very double-dip. It’s the most a man can get for his money without feeling shafted by the system. Hard times should theoretically be punctuated by frugality and abstinence – soup, vegetables, grain and off-cuts. Yet, in practice, there’s nothing better than chowing down on the perfectly-pink pomposity of a steak. It’s adversity with bone marrow and mustard. Gillray’s, the new offering at London’s Marriot County Hall, epitomises everything about recessional appetite…