With its enviable location and patronage that dates back to 1908, Dukes London, the home of GBR, is a bonafide institution. With chef Nigel Mendham at the helm for the last decade, winning critical acclaim, I was eager to escape the din of the city and be seated in this stalwart of St. James.
As you wander through the sun-kissed vineyards of Provence, it is easy to be captivated by the region’s rich history. The art of winemaking has been passed down from vigneron to vigneron for generations.
Join us as we visit resorts across Europe and the US and get serious about this season’s must-have styles. We also sit down with Air Zermatt CEO Gerald Biner.
In the Lake household, the Christmas Stocking is a sacred artefact. Everyone sleeping on the night of Santa’s rooftop landing meets the morning with a stocking; children, adults and guests alike. They are a festive staple and personally, my favourite part of the morning.
Escapism. Goodness knows we all need some after the last couple of years. Crossing the Masai Mara at sunrise by hot air balloon to watch the migration or boarding the Glacier Express across the alps is arguably bucket list-worthy. However, for me, the instant gratification of short-haul travel is equally satisfying, waking up to the mundane breakfast at home, yet taking lunch somewhere completely out of the ordinary. With French Alpine resorts open, this can only mean taking that midday intermission mountainside.
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.
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.
Notes of candied lemon, delicate undertones of soft apples and pears and softer notes of honey and floral chamomile.
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’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.
“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 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.
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.
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.
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…
From the outset, it commands attention; a behemoth of a complex in a street of otherwise uninspiring architecture.
It was last November when I first received word that a new Japanese-Italian restaurant was opening in Dalston, East London.
When I dwelled in the soot-covered streets of central London, I didn’t really have much need to pay dues to a members’ club. London is hectic, in a way that makes even the most confident and athletic appear grey and lifeless over time. But that wasn’t me, babe. I was living out of a certain hotel on Brook Street circa 2007 and all was gin-soaked and well with the world. Except, quietly, it wasn’t, was it. BNP Paribas was quietly blocking withdrawals from two of its hedge funds. The Dow Jones peaked at 14,164.53 and then started to decline faster than Gordon Gekko’s prison sentence. Shortly after the US bailed its players out to the tune of $800 billion (that we know of), the European ripple was in…
As I continue to rack up the years like tree rings laced with gin and bittersweet symphonies, I am constantly reminded of the ever-increasing gap between the young and the no-so-young. This widening fissure between generations presents itself more often in the usage of phrases that my grandparents taught me when I was growing up. After all, the language we use in our formative years becomes our cultural lexicon. So, when I say to you that Jonathan Turner is ‘salt of the earth’, I expect those of you without the knowledge of the term to research it, whether you are scholarly or not. Established in 1919, in Leeds, by a…
Occasionally, whilst reviewing a restaurant, you come across a story that adds a real insight into the passion behind a business. Then, once in a while, you find one which really touches your soul. Having dined at La Patata, a classical family restaurant in Lenzerheide, we were introduced to Giancomo. The restaurant was his brother’s love and life’s work. Unfortunately, five years earlier, he was killed in the valley, in an avalanche. Giancomo took the view that, because the restaurant was, as he says, ‘his brother’s life’, the building should go to the employees. It now stands as a fitting tribute, and his brother’s dream lives on. Being towards the…