Food & Drink

Mauro Colagreco

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…

Champagne Heroes – Piper Heidsick

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When the telephone call came from Simon Stockton, ambassador for Piper Heidsieck, to say one of champagne’s greatest cellar masters was heading my way to showcase his new vintage, it was an invitation I couldn’t resist. I was incredibly flattered that a bottle was being brought into the UK for me in complete secrecy. When I found out later that it was to taste their vintage prestige cuvée Rare (pronounced ‘Rarr’), I became more intrigued. Rare itself is something of a phenomenon; very much an educated quaff. It quietly stepped onto the champagne scene in 1985, delivering the 1976 vintage, and is produced in relatively small quantities. So, to drink…

The Calima

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As the Saharan winds whip up a dehydrating frenzy, the Calima blocks out the sunrise across the ocean to the east. That’s right, I’m in Tenerife doing my best Attenborough. British holidaymaker staple since the 1940s, banana plantation extraordinaire and proud to boast of 362 days of sunshine a year. Don’t be fooled by the fruit machines in the airport or the football-shirt-wearing Luddites on the promenade though, there is something changing in the night sky. I landed on the island on a humid Thursday afternoon in July. For some ungodly reason, I had chosen to travel out in the first week of the school holidays, so the airport was a seething…

Passavant & Lee

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Jon Passavant and Benj Lee are hardly strangers to the layer cake of the fashion industry. This duo have fronted campaigns for Dunhill, Armani, Ralph Lauren and Levi’s to name a mere handful. Whilst on set in New York the two models met having spotted each other at the usual castings and calls and after three years of product development launched accessories brand, Passavant & Lee. Some years ago, we remember being huddled in the office around a No 25. Attache. It was arguable one of the most beautiful briefcases we had ever seen. The outer shell is crafted from aircraft grade aluminium and covered in a full-grain Horween leather finish, while…

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…

Corvara – Dolomites

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As the temperature plummets and the frost sits longer, I often stare out my window in the morning, coffee in hand, and think about all the times I’ve woken up surrounded by freshly fallen snow in Alpine escapes. Winter is a calling for some of us; a return to the pistes of Europe and beyond; a time to get back to nature, to reconnect with the mountains in a way only those who chase the snow will understand. I still have many things to tick off on my alpine bucket list – the Cresta Run, Japanese powder, and the unbound wilds of Canada – but one trip remains at the…

Suntory Whisky

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For The Review, an audience with Mike Miyamoto, Ambassador for Suntory whisky, is to gain a portal to over thirty-nine years’ experience in the industry. Having undertaken everything from running a cooperage business to blending, and eventually running Japan’s most important whisky distilleries, Mike can be seen as an sensei of grain-based spirits in his own right. During the eighteenth century, the Japanese began to discover a taste for whisky, with small-scale production beginning in Japan around 1870. But Mike is keen to point out that the first commercial production was in 1924, with the opening of the country’s first distillery, Yamazaki, near Kyoto. Food and whisky are inextricably linked…

Tokimeite, W1S

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The chance to dine with a globally-celebrated chef who holds seven Michelin stars was certainly not one that The Review could turn down. On learning the evening would be partnered by Suntory whiskey, we were even more intrigued. A whole meal accompanied by spirits? Could it be achieved, and how so? Having previously eaten fugu, the famed poisoned blowfish, there is always trepidation when approaching a Japanese cuisine. The best chefs can prepare the delicacy with just enough poison retained to numb or tingle the lips. I needn’t have worried, as my destination lay in Mayfair – and besides, Fugu isn’t allowed to be served in the EU. It was…

Casa Munich, Ibiza

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There are few places in the world that I have resisted going to, even with my insatiable travel appetite. One of those places, I’m embarrassed to admit, is Ibiza. Yes, I know the Ibiza groupies will be shaking in their itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny beachwear. But the all-night rave culture, combined with its rebellious Peter Pan spirit has not drawn me into the annual pilgrimage of beautiful people, who religiously pay homage to the White Isle’s shrine of eternal youth. I can party with the best of them, and who doesn’t love a bit of sparkle, glitz and glamour, but its reputation as the frenetic clubbing capital of the world and the most…