It is a Monday lunchtime and a tedious morning has my brain looking for a food-based displacement activity. There is nothing calling to me within a mile of my office and I am not in the mood for polite conversation.
Category Archives: ★★★★☆
September
21
The Clove Club. Who said romance was dead?
posted by Nicky Richmond
“Happy loving couples make it look so easy.” Joe Jackson, 1989. I’d last been to The Clove Club on Valentine’s Day, that passion-killer which ranks up there with New Year’s Eve as top of my nights to stay at home under all circumstances. I was so overjoyed to be able to find that a table […]
August
30
Petersham Nurseries Café. A garden at the centre.
posted by Nicky Richmond
Petersham Nurseries. Remember that? Of course you do. You’ll probably be recalling its heyday, under Skye Gyngell, when it had a Michelin star and everyone went on about how expensive it was. I never really fancied it then, I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the airy-fairiness of it, or the worry that I was going […]
August
25
André Garrett at Cliveden House.
posted by Nicky Richmond
Shall we go to Cliveden, I say to C, who is sitting on the chair in the kitchen, playing with his phone. I am sitting at the kitchen table, preparing a schedule of mortgage requirements for a new client. Unsurprisingly, the tedium is leading me to thoughts of escape. There are only so many times […]
July
31
Chez Bruce. Safety first.
posted by Nicky Richmond
There is, I am told an unspoken rivalry between locals as to which is best, Trinity, Clapham or Chez Bruce, Wandsworth. My companion J, is very definitely Team Trinity and I sense that he is not entirely comfortable on enemy ground.
July
03
Amaya. Rich pickings.
posted by Nicky Richmond
I feel like I’m five, says C, waving his arms high in the air and simulating an exaggerated knife and fork movement. The chairs in the raised section of the restaurant are too low or the tables are too high, it doesn’t matter which. Obviously, I point this out and the maître d’ suggests I might […]
June
13
Portland and yes it is (mostly) Great.
posted by Nicky Richmond
#Firstworldproblems no 1: being irritated by the OpenTable booking message telling me I can only have the table for a two hour slot. #Firstworldproblems no.2 : being called by the restaurant two days before the booking, to remind me about the two-hour slot, in case I hadn’t seen it on the screen during booking, not […]
June
03
La Trompette. Top chow in Chiswick
posted by Nicky Richmond
Why are we sitting in this traffic says C, not understanding why we can’t eat somewhere local. It’ll only be about half an hour in the car, I say. Trust me. And anyway, I say, I just need to get out of central London and I want to go somewhere grown up. As we are sitting […]
May
20
The Wild Rabbit. Not wild and no rabbit.
posted by Nicky Richmond
“Can I have some of the vegetable curry”, said the man next to me at the Farmers’ Market. The voice sounded familiar. “Oh and some of the rice too, please”. I looked sideways. It was David Cameron. I suppose I was asking for it, hovering round the Farmers’ Market on a Saturday morning in Chipping Norton. […]
April
21
Trinity. Cream of Clapham.
posted by Nicky Richmond
It’s the unfairness of it that rankles. And it’s not like I haven’t dragged myself across the river to Clapham twice already in the last six months, both times to visit the epicentre of current culinary derring-do that is The Dairy. It doesn’t seem entirely fair that the good burghers of Clapham have not one, but three restaurants I’d be happy to eat at any […]
The Food Judge 