Food & Drink

Suntory Toki

Libations Spring

At The Review, we’re partial to a libation or six. We’re very clear on that. Drink responsibly, of course, but on your own terms. In this segment, new for 2021, we’ll be tasting some of the team’s most favoured spirits from around the world.

Biondi Santi

Evolution, not Revolution

Founded in the mid-1800s by Clemente Santi, a pharmaceutical graduate from Pisa University, the Biondi Santi family lineage of wine production and curation dates back to the middle ages.

Ashling Park Gin

Ashling Park Gin

Notes of candied lemon, delicate undertones of soft apples and pears and softer notes of honey and floral chamomile.

Secret Speyside

Longmorn, Caperdonich, Glen Keith, Braes of Glenlivet, four artisan producers from some of Speyside’s revered distilleries. Perhaps if the family had been sporting a measure from the Secret Speyside collection, I might have come into the fold a little sooner.

Ashling Park

Ashling Park’s 2014 Rosé is a confident number amongst its peers. Made from 80% Pinot Noir grapes and 20% Pinot Meunier on the family’s 50-acre estate in the hamlet of West Ashling in the South Downs.

The Benjamin Ichinose Collection

“It was perfection,” wrote the late Michael Broadbent MW. The legendary wine critic and author, not to mention the man who launched Christie’s wine auctions more than 50 years ago, was describing the equally-legendary private cellar of Dr. Benjamin Ichinose at his home in Hillsborough, California. The cellar was, he insisted, “Absolutely perfect in every sort of way.”

The Hollow Bottom

The Morgan raced on down the lane as the late October rain pelted the demure metal figure of British engineering. The storm had been battering my small enclave of the British Isles for some time. So much water had risen, I was beginning to forget a time before the flood.

Sexy Fish Mayfair Restaurant

Sexy Fish

Considering how prime its position on the square is, the exterior is rather understated. Though the interior decor is about as dramatic as anything I have ever seen. The floors are made of rare esmeralda onyx marble imported from Iran. There’s a large shoal of Frank Gehry fish lamps above the red stone bar that are guarded by some rather buxom bronze mermaids from Damien Hirst. Interior designer Martin Brudnizki has curated the interiors with Art Deco light fixtures, coral-coloured leather banquettes and a sizeable ceiling mural that covers the 190-seat restaurant.

Kaspars at The Savoy – WC2

For the longest time, The Savoy has eluded me. I’ve passed its decorated facade on many occasions, but for some reason, its heavily recessed entrance has never drawn me in.

The Globe & Rainbow, TN17

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…