Tucked away in the heart of Hackney on the corner of a street, through an unsuspecting door and down an unsuspecting staircase, is a cracker of a cocktail bar that promises to make you warm and fuzzy inside. Behind This Wall inhabits the basement of 411 Mare Street - a skip and a hop from Hackney Central Overground. Complete with a DJ deck, candles and fresh flowers brightening up the bar, there's an air of cool sophistication without trying too hard. One thing they do care about is good drinks. After ordering the £9 Vieux Over Manhattan, I watched mesmerised as the bartender gradu...
Read more →Sadie Whitelocks 9
I've never been to Turin but last night I got a taste of the northern Italian city after discovering Savure. The new canteen-style eatery, just a stone's throw from Liverpool Street, offers a simple menu where diners are invited to have a stab at creating their own DIY pasta dishes. First they can choose a base pasta, before selecting a sauce. It's a steal, with generously-portioned plates starting at just £8. So far the restaurant has proved a hit at lunchtime, with hundreds of office workers eager to get their fill. I picked a 'filled pasta' from the dinner menu, stuffed with Ita...
Read more →I offered to take my friend Toby out for dinner. At first he took up the invitation with enthusiasm but this excitement soon waned after he Googled the restaurant to discover it was vegetarian. No meat on the premises. 'Guess I'd better get my bacon fix beforehand,' he jibed before our outing. Knowing Toby was a big fan of all things meat - turkey, bacon, steak and I even recall him talking about eating chicken feet on one occasion - I had purposely left out the minor fact that we were venturing to a herbivore's paradise. The Gate restaurant - which started in Hammersmith, London, and...
Read more →We catch up with bipolar bar maestro Ian Peck, 38, aboard One Ocean's expedition ship, the Akademik Ioffe, in the Arctic to find out what it's like sailing the high seas to some of the most remote places on earth while rustling up beverages for thirsty passengers... How did you get the job as a bipolar bartender with One Ocean Expeditions? It was a chance meeting with the company CEO at a restaurant I was working at in Vancouver. He offered me a job tending the bar in Antarctica for a season and I asked if he could give me 24 hours to think about it. I called him back shortly after and s...
Read more →I'm guilty of using an emoji - or five - when I message people. So the thought of an emoji-themed dining experience got me kind of intrigued. I'd heard that Notting Hill's favourite underground cocktail bar / eatery / party flat, The Little Yellow Door, had launched one of the first 'emoji menus', so I hopped on a tube from east to west to check it out. Firstly, if you haven't been to this tucked away spot, conveniently located right next to the tube, it's a must. It's been one of my go-to little hideaways for years. The eclectic party flat, which was once almost threatened with closu...
Read more →I'd been in Hawaii for ten days and to my disappointment, still not witnessed any hula. Fair enough, I'd been camping in some pretty remote spots on the Big Island, but once I'd flown over to Oahu and landed in the capital of Honolulu I made it my aim to check out some tropical dance. A local friend who was in the know, recommended a show that had recently launched in the heart of the city. So on the eve of the 4th July Independence Day celebrations, I ventured to the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani where the show was being staged. The hour-long Tales Of The Pacific extravaganza kicked ...
Read more →It was only when I was hurtling down an extreme water slide screaming into the Kent country air that it suddenly hit me; this was getting increasingly surreal. The same morning I'd made a tie dye t-shirt, learned how to butcher a deer and whittled a branch into a crossbow. There was also the moment I spotted a naked woman emerge from the undergrowth as a still life drawing session unfolded on the fringes of a field. No, I hadn't fallen down a rabbit hole but ventured to the Wildfire Adventure Camp. Pegged as a 'half music festival half adventure camp for adults' this get-together started...
Read more →Sipping on a negroni with an olive to hand and the soft sun on my skin, I felt like I could have been in Venice where I'd been just the week before. It was only when I spotted a red London bus peeping over the top of the manicured garden hedgerow that my Italian mind trip suddenly veered off track. I'd stopped by at the 5-star Baglioni hotel's recently renovated restaurant, renamed Osteria 60. Nestled in the heart of Kensington, it's just a hop, skip and a jump away from Hyde Park and the Royal Palace - or for the shoppers, Harrods and Harvey Nichols are also within close proximity. A...
Read more →Just opened two weeks ago, this spot is already pulling in scores of diners. The space, complete with raw concrete ceilings and funky strip lighting, is bright, airy and relaxed. We took a seat around the large central marble-topped bar, where we could watch the chefs rustling up mouth-watering morsels in the open-plan kitchen behind us.
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