Ameer Kotecha

In P.G. Wodehouse’s Cocktail Time (1958) the characters are frequently ‘lapping up martinis like a vacuum cleaner’. Wodehouse was living in the US at this point, and this was the era of the three-martini lunch. In the ensuing decades, the classic cocktail took a bit of a back seat. But the martini has made a mighty comeback.   Not put off by Sir Raymond ‘Beefy’ Bastable denunciation of the modern youth endlessly sitting around drinking cocktails, I went therefore to find London’s best.  They are not always where you imagine. Archive & Myth is, ominously, underneath Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino.

Our homegrown wine was, until fairly recently, regarded internationally as a bit of a joke. Peter Ustinov could quip that he imagined hell to be ‘Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine’. Likewise, Lord Jay, serving as a diplomat in Paris, recalled the British ambassador rubbing up against resistance from the home side – let alone foreigners – as he sought to be an early advocate. The ambassador was hosting Edward Heath, President Giscard d’Estaing and the governor of the Bank of France for lunch: ‘I remember [ambassador] Ewen Fergusson saying, ‘Sir Edward, wonderful that you’re here. I am tempted to serve you a delicious English white wine”. “I hope, ambassador, that you’ll resist that temptation,” was his reply.

The Lake District isn’t really meant to be about eating. It’s about walking and climbing and gawping. The guide one carries is not that by Michelin but Alfred Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells turns 70 this year. Food is mainly to be consumed from a Thermos rather than a bowl, and eaten atop a precariously balanced upturned log rather than a restaurant table. The culinary highlight should be Kendal mint cake, gratefully retrieved from the pocket of your cagoule. And so I was as surprised as anyone to find real gastronomic delights on a recent trip. Not from Little Chef, though that was where Wainwright religiously went for his favourite meal: fish and chips, a gooseberry pancake and cup of tea.

As someone who flies a lot for work, many of my moments of high blood pressure or ‘Is this really what I want in life?’ introspection take place in airports or on aeroplanes. I cannot – to put it gently – relate to the moronic practitioners of the ‘airport theory’, which involves turning up deliberately late for flights to get an adrenaline rush, and/or to make a sorry living off social media views. No, I’m there in good time, so it shouldn’t be a particularly stressful experience. And yet I’ve come to rather despise flying. It wasn’t always this way. Admittedly my relationship with flying got off to a slightly tricky start.

Lindt has opened a ‘first of its kind’ flagship store at Piccadilly Circus. Roger Federer was wheeled out to cut the ribbon. It features the UK’s largest Lindt truffle pick ’n’ mix counter (a snip at £6.50/100g), a ‘barista-style’ hot chocolate bar and an ice cream station. There’s even jars of chocolate spread for those who consider Nutella lowbrow. Lindt’s CEO for UK and Ireland, in that PR corporatese that sounds like guff to everyone except his marketing department, said: ‘With 2025 marking Lindt & Sprungli’s 180th anniversary, what better way to celebrate this journey and enduring passion for captivating chocolate lovers worldwide.’ It’s enough to make me crave Quality Street. It’s fairly obvious what’s inspired them.

One can see a city so differently over time. Visiting Oxford recently I noticed fine whisky shops and fashion stores which have always been there but which I barely registered as a student 15 years ago. There are new arrivals: some good, such as the handsome Jericho Cheese Company; others less so, such as the proliferating bubble tea shops catering to the now numerous Chinese, both students and tourists. Covered Market is still there, where we used to indulge at the original Ben’s Cookies. Though I do not remember back then the Thames Valley Police signs now warning of ‘bag dippers’ operating in the area. Oxford is both swisher and scruffier than I remember it. Swish embodied in the new Ivy, in a palatial neo-Gothic pile on the High Street that used to be a NatWest.

In a social media age, certain ingredients – long esteemed by those in the know – suddenly burst on to the scene. One morning we woke up to all the supermarkets stocking Mutti tinned tomatoes. Ortiz sardines and Perello Gordal olives are now in the limelight. I wonder – given the current zeitgeist for all things umami – whether Patum Peperium (Latin: ‘peppered paste’) could be next. Then again, the ‘Gentleman’s Relish’ – an anchovy paste made with butter and spices – isn’t for everyone. Much like Marmite, it has embraced this contentious reputation: ‘Dividing opinions since 1828’ it declares in its branding. After almost 200 years on the scene, it has started popping up in trendy spots, like a debonair rake sauntering into a party fashionably late.