Spectator Life

The man at the posh London bar stood with our drinks but wouldn’t give them to us. He had a lecture to deliver first, for cocktail culture – or ‘mixology’ as the craft is now known – is nothing if not didactic. As I looked enviously out at the people with pints of beer across the way, I wearily reflected on how the message to the customer has hardened in the years since cocktail bars with American ambitions crossed the pond. It is: the £19 you’re paying for the drink isn’t enough. You need to be quiet and listen, for you’re not just a drinker: you’re a supplicant. Be that as it may, I felt my eyes violently glaze over as the man redescribed, in even more verbose detail, what we had already pored over on the menu.

The martini is experiencing something of a renaissance. This old standard is appearing front and centre on menus across London, reworked to showcase new flavours and techniques. Within the simple framework of clear spirit, vermouth, an optional dash of bitters and an olive or twist, bartenders are finding infinite room for creativity. Not only is this a refreshing antidote to the tiresome orthodoxy that has historically dogged the martini – ‘Just wave the gin in the direction of France!’ – it’s further proof that London is the global capital of the cocktail. The martini may not have been invented here, but our bartenders are certainly showing the world what this old classic can do.

In 2014, Nuno Mendes, a chef from Lisbon by way of Wolfgang Puck’s kitchens and his own Viajante in Bethnal Green, opened a restaurant at the Chiltern Firehouse hotel. This is a redbrick Edwardian castle in Marylebone, which used to be a fire station, but no longer is. This restaurant was skilful: both blessed and cursed. I thought it was Gatsby’s house, inhabited by people looking for something they would never find because it does not exist: self-acceptance through the incitement of jealousy, which is the emotional purpose of being rich. People went for the empty pleasure of being seen at the Chiltern Firehouse because the prime minister David Cameron, among others, came for Caesar salad with chicken skin, which was presumed to be interesting like he was.

It took Paddington Bear to solve the age-old mystery of what the Queen keeps in her handbag. When Her Majesty pulled out a marmalade sandwich during the pair’s sketch at the Platinum Jubilee concert this summer, it did more than just tickle the audience. It also served to remind us of our national love affair with marmalade. Long before Paddington developed a taste for it, the preserve had been a stalwart of British popular culture, from Jane Austen (where Lady Middleton applies marmalade as balm for her daughter’s scratch) to Evelyn Waugh (where, in Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder eats ‘scrambled eggs and bitter marmalade with the zest which in youth follows a restless night’) – not to mention Samuel Pepys, Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming.

Dipping my toes in the Irish Sea on a family holiday last week, I encountered something slimy, muddy-brown and decidedly squelchy. I managed to flick it off my foot with minimal squealing and thought no more of it. But, looking back, perhaps I missed a lucrative opportunity – or a tasty treat for the kids’ dinner. For my beach find was in fact Irish moss, also known as ‘sea moss’ or ‘carrageen moss’ – the latest cult ingredient among experimental foodies, health-conscious celebrities and social media aficionados.

I moved down to Sussex over 25 years ago from South London. My family viewed living by the sea as a dream goal. I still remember the day when we packed up and cavalcaded down to Worthing, a charming seaside town in West Sussex. After the amazing experience of winning MasterChef, we opened our first restaurant Pitch in 2019 serving beautiful British inspired food from both the sea and the land. There has been a significant boom of food and café culture all around Sussex, and many areas such as Brighton and Worthing have flourished into destinations for those in search of culinary delights. Our second restaurant Bayside Social has capitalised on this foodie reputation. It's a beachside restaurant focusing on fresh small plates mainly inspired by the coast.

Sometimes this column has a guest reviewer: a dining companion. It was Liz Truss in late summer 2011, for the now long closed Bistro du Vin in Dean Street: a Hotel du Vin without a hotel, and so bereft. It had a bookshelf on which all the books were painted neon, and they flew out in lumps when you tugged at them. I wonder if Liz wanted political PR advice from this column, but I doubt it, because I think you can’t fake integrity, and I get my political PR advice from watching The West Wing. Let Truss be Truss. But Truss is Truss. Or rather Truss is Trusses: she is both myriad, and none. It is possible that the book spines gave better political PR advice. They understand colour blocking. I knew her at college and alumni are confused.

We’re in the elegant 1820s parlour of a five-star, Grade II-listed hotel. There’s music playing softly, and opposite us, one particularly well-groomed guest is wearing a bowtie.  A three-tier cake stand is brought to the table. On the top tier sits a selection of homemade biscuits and a fluffy cupcake finished with a swirl of yellow icing. Beneath that is a thick wedge of cake with what looks like pink and white buttercream oozing from the middle. And on the bottom tier is a finely decorated China bowl, piled high with… mashed-up meat?

In the battle of ideas, it is sometimes necessary to make a tactical withdrawal. That is now the case over climate change. This should not be confused with a full retreat. But in the circumstances, those who insist on the need for lifestyle changes have a point, at least when it comes to wine. Some time ago, I propounded a dictum. Rosé should only be drunk south of Lyon. One could start quite early – 10.30 perhaps, opening the first bottle while brushing away the final crumbs of croissant. Apart from a very few serious wines, it would not matter if the stuff were cooled to ice-lolly temperature. But in this heat, there is no shame in quaffing rosé in England. Other wines can be problematic. Freedom and whisky gang thegither.

What makes a kebab a kebab and why do we like eating things on sticks? That is the important question I have been mulling as we hit the steamy barbecue season. The debate was inspired not by kebabs, in fact, but by yakitori, the typically refined Japanese version of kebabs that essentially involve cooking every body part of a chicken on small skewers, and which also seems to be London’s most recent Japanese love affair following sushi, ramen, udon, and so on.  Yakitori though is really the extreme of food on stick eating. Take the menu of Junsei in Marylebone (excellent, by the way), which breaks the chicken down into ten elements ranging from gizzard to wings and cooks them to dripping succulence on half size kebab sticks.

You may have noticed it’s been a bit warm this week. There are few things the poorly insulated and generally un-airconditioned nation of Britain is less prepared for than the mercury screaming past the 30-degree mark. So really, the only sensible thing to do is park yourself in the shade with a big jug of water, some good company, and a cold cocktail. The following drinks are specially designed to beat the heat without being too much hassle to put together. They’re easy-going, refreshing, and none of them require a cocktail shaker – because, honestly, who can be bothered with that sort of thing just now? Cheers. Elderflower Rebujito In its native Andalusia, the Rebujito is the answer to the Spritz or the Mojito.

When the Tory party set itself on fire last week a restaurateur told me: ‘Don’t worry, Tanya, we’ll still be here when it’s over.’ She was wrapping a scotch egg as she said it, and it’s very true. There is a soothing continuity to restaurants: no matter what fresh hell, people need to eat. I will know civilisation has ended when I can’t get a sausage at the Savoy hotel. People always say that the Savoy has the only slip-road in Britain on which people drive on the right. That is the least interesting thing about it. It is, for instance, the only London hotel built as a dosshouse for people who like light opera (now musical theatre).

As temperatures soar and the will-to-live wanes, there is something that promises to get us through this unbearable heat. No, it’s not a pair of Chanel espadrilles, or a Balenciaga beach ball. It’s something versatile, accessible and varied. When it’s this oppressively stuffy outside and in, the only real pleasure is to quench the unavoidable thirst. I’m talking about drinking — and I don’t just mean alcohol. Here are five cooling liquids which do that better than the rest:  Mango Lassi Lassis originated in India 1000 BC.  The drink is widely believed to have Ayurvedic healing properties and can calm both stomach and mind.

Nothing beats a spot of decluttering - throwing things out of your wardrobe that you don’t use or need to see what you have and make space for things you do need. I am useless at it when it comes to clothes and other clutter, but cookbooks are another matter. I review cookbooks; I probably had about 150 of them, some of which have been used for just one recipe. When it came to the point when they were falling off the shelves – and they’re hefty, being mostly hardback – I had to let some go. So, which ones justified the shelf space? Most of my cookbooks don’t get used in their entirety. I make for two or three familiar and reliable recipes, and use them again and again.

Call it nominative determinism, but a lemon drizzle cake is perfect for disappointing, drizzly weather. It’s cheering: brightly flavoured, and packed with zest, but still comforting, filling your home with a warm citrus scent as it bakes. It’s also a more enjoyable food-based activity than picnics or barbecues when winds are high. A lemon drizzle cake is really just a pound cake – equal quantities of butter, sugar, eggs and flour – that’s then spritzed up with zest and juice. But it’s a pretty glorious one, managing to be both zingy and sweet, light and sticky.

The George, Fitzrovia, was Saki’s local, and a pub for men talking about cars when Great Portland Street was called Motor Row. I imagine them sucking down gin and weeping for early Jaguars; a ghostly Max de Winter rising to leave for Manderley; Mr Rolls and Mr Royce squabbling over ale. Felix Mendelssohn and Dylan Thomas came here too. Nowadays they would be called local creatives by marketing literature, so I suspect they are pleased to be dead. Many pubs have failed, which is an incremental tragedy, though it’s pleasing for women seeking men who are not always drunk. It’s true that if you want to see a fantastical neo-Tudor ceiling on the Kilburn High Road, you will only find it in a pub, specifically the Black Lion.

Sauces are the unsung hero of any barbecue for me. We tend to focus on the big hitting items like the burgers, sausages, and steaks – and don’t get me wrong, these are an extremely important part of the barbecue experience – but what really brings a barbecue to the next level is what goes with it. The beauty of sauces is that they can be prepared in advance. With so much to think about during the preparation, anything that can be made ahead of time for a barbecue is a winner in my eyes. The key to impressing your guests is choosing sauces that are going to complement what you’re cooking. If you’re having fish, for example, you need a sauce that is light and citrusy – or something with Asian flavours.

There’s a story that foodie types like to wheel out about what a culinary backwater the British Isles used to be. ‘In the 1970s,’ they’ll begin. ‘The only way you could buy olive oil in Britain was as medicine for your blocked ears!’ While we might argue that Italian delis were importing olive oil to our cities since at least the 19thcentury, it’s certainly true that olive oil is better known here than it used to be. Indeed, the oil shelves at our markets are coming to look like those at a wine shop, with bottles arranged by style and origin. We’ve even seen the arrival of trendy olive oils that follow the paths trodden by coffee and natural wine to satisfy the curious and nerdy.