[June 10, 2011] Comedy with your carbonara? Fancy popping out for a Peruvian? ; Feast on Rebecca Seal's A-Z of all that's new in food. Plus celebrity foodies take... [Evening Standard (London, England)] Tweet (Evening Standard (London, England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Comedy with your carbonara? Fancy popping out for a Peruvian? ; Feast on Rebecca Seal's A-Z of all that's new in food. Plus celebrity foodies take Lucy Hunter Johnston out to lunch Ais for Arkady Novikov This summer Russia's answer to Richard Caring is venturing outside the motherland for the first time with the Novikov Restaurant and Bar on Berkeley Street, Mayfair. Arkady Novikov (below) opened his first restaurant, Sirena, in Moscow in 1992 after being turned down for a job at McDonald's. Today his group has a multimillion-dollar turnover at over 50 sites serving 18 different cuisines; he's catered at the Kremlin and counts Vladimir Putin as a pal. Why has he chosen to come here now? 'Because London's place in the global food market has stormed to the top of the table,' he says. Expect two super-chic restaurants - one Asian, one Italian - and start saving; his incredibly glamorous Russian openings rarely come cheap. Stefano Stecca, who has worked at his own Osteria Stecca, as well as Brunello and Zafferano, will head up the Italian kitchen, where he'll serve his signature dishes such as risotto with clams and wood-roasted T-bone steak (the Asian chef and menu has not yet been announced). The whole building has been treated to a luxurious redesign by Geometric Design Moscow, so expect clean, modern spaces, with driftwood sculptures and open kitchens. novikovrestaurant.co.uk Bis for Bermondsey Sure, you can eat an avant-garde supper in a candlelit warehouse in East London, but if you want to be right on the cutting edge, head to Bermondsey Street, SE1, (soon to be known as Bermz) and its adjacent roads. Zucca (Italian), Magdalene (French), The Garrison gastropub and sister restaurant Village East (British) have all been quietly keeping the locals well fed in recent years, but the area has just reached a tipping point with the arrival of Jose, a charming new tapas restaurant from Jose Pizarro (ex-founding chef of Gwyneth Paltrow's and Nick Clegg's favourite Brindisa, right). 'It's a vibrant area - full of fantastic restaurants and food havens,' says Pizarro. 'I've chosen Bermondsey Street because this is where London feels at its buzziest - I want to be part of that!' What's more, locals insist the food market at nearby Maltby Street is even better than Borough's (where some traders are angry about rising rents and pitch evictions). White Cube's newest gallery will add cultural clout when it opens on Bermondsey Street (it just got planning permission). As White Cube's director of exhibitions, Tim Marlow, puts it, 'It's an extraordinarily interesting, culturally growing part of London.' The inevitable downside is that, as with all hip districts, soon everything will be wildly expensive. Gordon Ramsay is opening the Union Street Cafe nearby next year, and the Shard will have three floors of huge super-swanky restaurants (on levels 31, 32 and 33, with a three-storey atrium linking them all) - as yet, the details of all these openings remain under wraps. josepizarro.com; maltbystreet.com Cis for Community Don't yawn at the back! Sustainability is bigger than a trend now, it's a lifestyle. More and more restaurants are signing up to the Sustainable Restaurant Association and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fish Fight campaign (which is encouraging consumption of more plentiful species than at-risk cod or haddock) has changed menus from chippies to Selfridges. At a grassroots level there are plenty of projects trying to make a difference, including Farm:shop Dalston, a tiny farm in a disused shop with a mini aquaponic fish farm, rooftop chicken coops, indoor allotments and a polytunnel, which is setting out to prove that you can grow-your- own in the city, and community gardens springing up on disused land as part of Capital Growth's 2012 scheme to create 2,012 patches of food-growing ground in the city (they are currently at 1,030). Paola Guzman, who helps run the project, says, 'Over the past two years we have seen hundreds of groups, including schools, social housing, even businesses, starting up food-growing spaces in their community with our support. With more people unable to find allotments, many are looking for alternative spaces to grow food, improving the local environment and getting to know their neighbours in the process.' capitalgrowth.org; farmlondon.weebly.com Dis for Deconstruction Deconstruction means two things to London's best bartenders: either the taking apart of a cocktail and then serving it in ice, jelly or edible dust form, or taking a closer look at each component part with a view to maximising its flavour. For the latter, visit the first cocktail lab in London at 69 Colebrooke Row, owned by Tony Conigliaro, where he's working out how to create perfect individual ingredients before mixing - try his Horseradish Vodka Martini (Pounds 8.50). If you want to try the former, look out for the Breakfast Martini (served at Pollen Street Social, below), comprising vodka, Grand Marnier, marmalade and toast, or drinks served with mango or pine 'caviar' made with sodium alginate and calcium chloride (Pounds 10) at Purl in Marylebone. The Whistling Shop, a new Victorian-inspired bar in Shoreditch, has a menu that looks straightforward - most drinks contain just three ingredients. 'However, they have had a lot of work go into them,' says co- founder Tristan Stephenson. 'For instance, we serve a Black Martini, a spin on a cream gin, in which we mix gin and cream, then distil out the gin so you get a clear liquid with a hint of cream. We also have a high-pressure still for making hydro-solves - water distilled with herbs and spices.' There's no doubt that this is all influenced by molecular gastronomist Ferran Adria and his new Barcelona cocktail and tapas bar, 41[masc ordinal], which opened in early 2011 and is already as over-subscribed as elBulli, serving drinks such as a Midori Japanese Slipper alongside a parmesan cream biscuit that takes a minimum of 24 labour-intensive hours to make. 69colebrookerow.com; pollenstreetsocial.com; purl-london.com; whistlingshop.com; 41grados.es Eis for Enomatics Calling all wine geeks, the arrival of London's first enomatic wine-saving machine, The Flute, which ingeniously keeps fizzy fresh for several weeks after opening, means that from mid-June the much sought-after 1995 Dom Perignon Champagne will be available by the glass (Pounds 50) at Galoupet in SW3. There will also be more affordable fizzes - other Champagnes start at Pounds 8.95 a glass, and Prosecco will be Pounds 5. The Flute is a very new invention, so we're rather lucky to have one. galoupet.co.uk Fis for Furry friends Not one for the squeamish, but rabbit, a neglected meat for the past few decades, is back on the menu, with Waitrose reporting sales increases of 350 per cent. Cheap, lean and tasty, you can now find it in most butchers and many supermarkets. Wherever you buy it, check it's ethically sourced - increased demand means several planning applications for battery-rabbit farms have been lodged this year, and it is often intensively farmed in mainland Europe. Rabbity restaurants range from the Lido Cafe in Brixton, to L'Autre Pied, Arbutus and The Gilbert Scott. Dan Edwards, owner of the Lido Cafe, says, 'Our rabbit pie was the second-best selling dish of the spring - now we're moving on to more summery rabbit rillettes.' thelidocafe.co.uk; lautrepied.co.uk; arbutusrestaurant.co.uk; thegilbertscott.co.uk Gis for Ginstitute Gin is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and legendary bartender Jake Burger is capitalising on this at his Portobello Star bar in Notting Hill. 'We're turning the top two floors of the bar into a gin museum called the Ginstitute, with the feel of a 19th-century gin palace, full of antique bottles and old recipe books,' says Burger. Come autumn, visitors can have a full gin-blending experience, with over 20 botanicals such as juniper (below), coriander and cinnamon available. Afterwards, you can stagger home with a personalised bottle. portobellostarbar.co.uk His for Haute home cuisine If you want restaurant-quality food but can't tear yourself away from The Killing box set, help is at hand. Several top restaurants are launching takeaway options. At the Mount Street Deli you can pick up fishcakes, or shepherd's pie from The Ivy, Le Caprice and Scott's, and Giorgio Locatelli's limited- edition Locadeli olive oils are now in Selfridges. For the truly lazy, there's Nobu at Home (bento box, from Pounds 45, right), the Ivy to You or L'Etranger at Home - the most high-end takeout imaginable. If that's not enough choice, Michelinstarred Mayfair Indian Benares will even send staff to your house to whip you up tandoori ratan (fennel lamb chops and chicken tikka) or aloo anardana chaat (purple potato and pomegranate salad). themountstreetdeli.co.uk; selfridges.com; noburestaurants.com/ londonprivatedining/nobu-at-home; caprice-holdings.co.uk; letrangerathome.co.uk; benaresrestaurant.com Iis for iPhone apps Many restaurant guidebooks have apps, but this summer sees the arrival of specifically designed restaurant- finding apps. The best so far are London on a Plate and Barchick, both using GPS to work out the nearest bar (Barchick), restaurant or cafe. London on a Plate also comes loaded with celebrity chef recipes and shopping recommendations. The only downside is that they both focus on Central London, meaning that apps such as Urbanspoon, older aggregators of reviews from other sites which have the same GPS functions but a wider reach, beat both if you're after a bite in Clapton or Queen's Park, even if they're nowhere near as pretty. Damian Lewis at J Sheekey I MET HAROLD PINTER FOR THE FIRST TIME AT J Sheekey. He was charming, undeniably rather gruff and imposing, but he adored Helen, so I was happy to let him flirt with her all night while I talked to his wife Antonia. It was in the very early days of our relationship, but I wasn't jealous; I was proud. I love being part of the legacy of Sheekey's. It's taken a while, though. I didn't start coming properly until I was in my thirties. Trying to book a table when I was 25 would have felt pretentious; you need to earn your stripes. The Parisian/New York brasserie feel of the place is completely to my taste. They are so warm and welcoming here that they just gather up regulars, and always look after you and find you a last-minute table. Helen and I partied very, very hard before we met and then we collided at the Almeida in 2004 [in Five Gold Rings] and together we partied even harder. We used to lose entire evenings listening to jazz at Ronnie Scott's. We love to dance, and when we weren't out we'd put on music really loudly and dance around the house, just the two of us. I proposed to Helen in Paris. I tried to do it on the Pont Neuf - I was sweating bullets and wrestling in my overcoat pocket for the ring, which had got stuck in a little Cellophane bag, but when I finally got it out, a gaggle of Japanese tourists surrounded us like a flock of seagulls, taking pictures, and the moment was totally destroyed. I now take Helen back to Paris for three days without our two kids [Manon, four, and Gulliver, three] every February for our anniversary. We walk about the city, and sit in bars drinking rose. I only really started cooking when I became a dad. Helen was flat out breastfeeding and sleeping, exhausted all the time. I realised that if I didn't cook, we wouldn't eat. Now I love to cook Gary Rhodes' fishcakes with a lemon butter sauce and green beans. I'm no food connoisseur, though; foodies have palates that can speak hundreds of different languages - mine can only manage about one. Damian wears velvet jacket, Pounds 725, D&G at mywardrobe.com. Shirt, Pounds 160, Dries Van Noten at Liberty (020 7734 1234). Helen wears dress, Pounds 1,335, Richard Nicoll at Matches (matchesfashion.com). Hair and make-up by Mark Cook. Shot on location at J Sheekey, 28-34 St Martin's Court, WC2 (j- sheekey.co.uk) Helen McCrory THE FIRST TIME I CAME TO SHEEKEY'S WAS WHEN I WAS working at the Donmar in 2002 [in Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night] with Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet and I fell in love with the fish pie. It's since become one of those places that I have visited so many times that it feels like my local pub. I have so many memories of evenings spent here. I look in one corner and think of the first time Brian Selznick came over: we all had dinner here with Scorsese. We're here all the time; last week we saw Sienna [Miller] in Flare Path and all had dinner here afterwards; the week before we were here with Benedict [Cumberbatch] after seeing him in Frankenstein. The other day I bumped into Dom West in the street and we sat at the bar and had Welsh rarebit and a Guinness. When Sienna and I were in As You Like It we used to come every lunchtime and every evening. I would order razor clams with broad beans and chorizo, then fish pie with mushy peas, and finish with Scandinavian iced berries. When I'm working on stage I rush around a lot, so I can eat more, but when we're filming it's completely different. Basically everyone arrives on the first day at their normal weight and leaves double the size, spines crushed a foot shorter with fat. That's the problem with eating on the Harry Potter set [she plays Narcissa Malfoy]. It's even worse when you're doing a US production - they may have sushi and salad bars in addition to the burgers, but I have seen living proof that you can get fat on salad. That said, Damian and I love eating out twice a week, we always have. Even when the children were really little we'd take them in cots. We were big party animals, but now instead of keeping going until the early hours, we'll be done by midnight and think, 'Wow, what a fantastic evening.' It's an age thing; quite frankly, we don't have the staying power we used to. Jis for James JRamsden & friends There's been a lot of discussion about the relevance of food bloggers and underground supper clubs recently, but many of the best in both fields ignored the debate and quietly got on with getting book deals. James Ramsden, an affable young blogger and supper-club host (both are called the Secret Larder), has just published the excellent Small Adventures in Cooking, all about simple but delicious homecooked food. Comfort and Spice by Niamh Shields (blogging as Eat Like A Girl) is out in September, packed with flavoursome frugal recipes, and award- winning South London bloggers Salad Club will publish theirs next spring (unsurprisingly they do a lot of salads, but there will also be other goodies, such as one-pot chorizo and barley stew or chocolate beetroot cake). The London Review of Breakfasts is developing the Breakfast Bible, which will be available next summer. Kerstin Rodgers (blogger Ms Marmite Lover) was an early supper clubber and has just published a how-to guide called Supper Club: Recipes and Notes from the Underground Restaurant. She says supper clubs and food bloggers are here to stay and runs the website supperclubfan group.ning.com, to encourage them. 'There are over 100 supper clubs in London now. During the Olympics they will provide a fantastic opportunity for tourists to eat in London homes. We're the world centre for supper clubs.' Sadie Frost at Lemonia KATE MOSS AND I USED TO COME TO LEMONIA together when we were both pregnant - the food is great for cravings, especially the haloumi and hummus. I even popped in when my friend Zoe Grace went into labour at my house, which is just around the corner. I rushed over and grabbed some tahini and pittas to feed her between contractions. It's been one of the few constants in my life - whatever else has been going on, I've always felt welcome and I've had quite a few parties here. My favourite was my birthday lunch last year when I came with my mum, all four of my sisters and my friends Jemima French and Zoe. Kate turned up as a surprise, which was so lovely. It was a really intimate occasion, so often it's the smaller parties that you appreciate the most. I love entertaining and opening up my home to friends. My dining table is always packed. I am happiest when there are loads of people buzzing around. Last year I had a huge party for my 45th birthday with burlesque performances on the balcony. I don't believe in separating adults and kids, so we never have dinner separately. I think that's why my children are so chatty and open. They've grown up around older people and love discussing adult things. I do go out with just adults sometimes but I have so much more fun when the kids are around. I don't always have to have a crazy night - I haven't drunk for three years and I'm really health-conscious. I don't mind my friends drinking, but I want to get up the next morning. Having a clear head is important. It hasn't changed my social life - I have exactly the same friends, I just go to bed earlier. I won't drink at Kate's wedding, not even a glass of champagne. My role is to go along and be a supportive friend, I know some of the plans and it's really exciting, but they're secret. Recently I've started getting sent big bunches of flowers anonymously. The last came with a note that said: 'Dinner on Friday? From your secret admirer.' It's a bit creepy actually. I have no idea who they're from. Finlay Munro Kemp I'VE BEEN A VEGETARIAN ALL MY LIFE BECAUSE MY MUM Sadie is, but recently I was out with my friends and they all said, 'Go on, try some KFC.' I was quite drunk at the time so I did. My dad [actor and Spandau Ballet musician Gary Kemp] once dared me to eat tuna for Pounds 100. It was a real psychological struggle. My girlfriend Charlotte became vegetarian last year, too, but she got really ill with anaemia and had to spend five weeks in bed. I felt really bad when they had to prescribe her an iron drink. With a family like mine you don't really escape children. The kids are usually here a week at a time and then a week with their dad Jude [Law]. There's Raff, who's 14, and we get on really well, Iris is ten and she's very mature but quite bossy, and then Rudy, eight, just plays FIFA. My mum likes us to eat together as a family so we have big dinners on the weekend where we eat a lot of tacos and fajitas. Mum cooks a lot more now than she used to, especially giant bowls of couscous and roasted cloves of garlic. On my dad's side I've got a six-year-old and a two-year-old brother. I'm not sure if I want a big family, but it's at least 20 years away. Right now I'm just busy with my band, Lux, and studying international relations at Queen Mary's. Kis for Kids in the kitchen Alexis Gauthier, chef patron of Michelin-starred Gauthier Soho, is launching mini-gastronome workshops for children aged six to 12. He says, 'Acquiring social skills and testing the palate at an early age prepares the children for dining across all situations in their adult life.' They'll sit separately from parents while they eat and critique a special seven- course menu. If, as a parent, you don't know your Burgundy from your Bordeaux, you might find the next bit scary: each course is accompanied by wines for the kids to sniff and match with their food. Over in Hammersmith Makiko Matthews will make sushi masters out of your little monsters and takes on kids as young as five for classes at her Japanese restaurant, Suzu. Meanwhile, Sumosan in Mayfair is launching similar sushi fun for kids over eight. Pizza East in Shoreditch has also started opening its kitchens to local school kids keen to master the fine art of rolling, throwing and cooking dough. gauthiersoho.co.uk; suzuonline.co.uk; sumosan.com; pizzaeast.com Lis for Less meat We all know the drill: less meat and more vegetables are best both for us and the planet - and if you need reminding why then read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals - but it's only recently that London's restaurants have really caught on. Danish foraging fanatic Rene Redzepi, and his number one-rated restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, reminded chefs that meatless meals can be fabulous, while Scandinavian recipe books by glamorous authors (such as chic London-based Norwegian Signe Johansen, author of Scandilicious: Secrets of Scandinavian Cooking) teach us new ways to enjoy under-appreciated produce such as kale, mushrooms and berries. Consequently, more restaurants are treating vegetables as the main event, encouraged by Yotam Ottolenghi's NOPI in Soho and the Danish-inflected North Road in Clerkenwell. Look out for Roganic, Simon Rogan's first London restaurant (he of the Michelin-starred L'Enclume in Cumbria), which opens this summer in Marylebone under 25-year-old head chef Ben Spalding and will serve vegetable-based tasting menus of some of Rogan's inventive dishes, such as ALAMY broad beans and hyssop, fresh curds and beetroot, or vintage potatoes in onion ashes. Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the Leon chain of cafes, explains the appeal: 'We now get a lot of emails from people asking about vegetarian options, but we find that they're not actually vegetarians - they're vegetarian part-time or people who now eat meat only occasionally, as a treat.' Leon is bringing in new vegetarian dishes such as a Keralan curry later in the year. nopi-restaurant.com; northroadrestaurant.co.uk; lenclume.co.uk; leonrestaurants.co.uk Roland Mouret at Momo IF YOU EAT BY YOURSELF IT IS DINNER, BUT IF YOU eat with someone you like then it becomes an experience to remember. It is the same with clothes. You'll never forget the dress you wore the night you had an amazing shag or met the love of your life. That is why clothes and food exist in people's lives, to create a language without words. Sometimes food inspires my work. The neckline of the Galaxy dress, for example, is called the 'dining neckline' because it's the same shape as a dining table. I love to 'THE NECKLINE OF IS THE SAME SHAPE watch a woman eat, it's quite sensual. I was talking to Dita Von Teese backstage recently and she told me that she has to keep a certain amount of cellulite on her body so it will vibrate and move in a certain way. The movement triggers something in a man or woman's head, and starts this intense erotic moment for them. If her body was all muscle it wouldn't work, it has to move. I love the fact that I'm ageing because my view of beauty and hedonism and aestheticism has changed so much. I met [Momo and Sketch owner] Mourad Mazouz when he opened his first bistro, Au Bascou, in Paris in 1988. He had black hair then, but in three months it went white. When he opened Momo it felt like a little Parisian part of me had returned to London. When you come here you must eat as if it's your mother's kitchen, try everything. This place is too good to be trendy - it's not the restaurant to be 'noticed' in. Similarly, it THE GALAXY DRESS AS A DINING TABLE' should be my dresses that get the attention, not me. My friends and I usually arrive on the terrace at four in the afternoon and will still be here at 10pm drinking mojitos and eating mezze. Things can get very wild, with people dancing on the tables, especially downstairs. Momo is like Las Vegas: what happens here stays here. But yes, I have been bad. Some nights I have been really bad. rolandmouret.com Mis for More meat (better quality) There's an equally strong meaty trend at the moment and it's all about high quality and high standards of animal welfare. The past year has a seen a rash of American-style meat temples opening in London (such as Barbecoa, Jamie Oliver's barbecue joint) and there are more to come. On Monday the Deep South-style Red Dog Saloon opens in Hoxton. 'London lacks a proper barbecue restaurant,' says Russell Norman, whose Spuntino diner (left) serves New Yorkinspired sliders (mini burgers). 'I thought Barbecoa might fill it, but it's too fancy. A barbecue needs to be rough and ready. With its mesquite grill, Red Dog should be the real deal.' Industry commentator and Metro restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin agrees: 'The American barbecue trend is going to hit the big time along with barbecue street food wagons Annie Mae's and Pitt Cue. [Follow them on Facebook or Twitter to find out where they will be on any given day.] Also sliders will appear on every menu until we're sick of the sight of them.' Other meaty launches this year include celebrity American chef Wolfgang Puck's CUT at 45 Park Lane serving American classics (steak, lobster and wonderful US-style breakfasts), a third Hawksmoor in Guildhall, plus a London outpost of the The Standard Grill. Meanwhile, Charlie McVeigh, owner of Draft House pubs, is on a mission to bring proper American frankfurters to London. 'You cannot get a good one here. They need to have a proper natural casing so they snap in the right way - so they're almost crunchy.' barbecoa.com; reddogsaloon.co.uk; thehawksmoor.co.uk; spuntino.co.uk; @PittCueCo; @Anna_Maes; themeatwagon.co.uk Nis for new New World wines At the recent London International Wine Fair, several countries made their debut, notably Russia and Lebanon, while India attended for only the second time. Wine expert Tim Atkin explains: 'Up-and-coming countries Turkey and Croatia (above right) could be popular because they're different and people are always looking for new and exciting things. Croatia, Russia and Turkey all have grape varieties that other countries don't have, and Lebanon has a couple, too, which means there are new flavours and new names to look out for.' Chateau Musar is the best-known Lebanese wine, but Chateau Ksara and Massaya are also very good, both available from hailshamcellars.com. Even Waitrose has started to stock Mediterano Plavac Mali 2008 Hvar (Pounds 7.82) from Croatia, as well as the Lebanese Musar (from Pounds 9.49). The demise of Oddbins and Threshers has also increased the flow of esoteric wine into London, says Atkins. 'Shops such as The Sampler, Lea & Sandeman and Theatre of Wine are doing well, selling comparatively small amounts of really interesting wines.' thesampler.co.uk; leaandsandeman.co.uk; theatreofwine.com; waitrosewine.com Ois for Oh my God, they've invented pasta minus carbs! Gnudi (Italian for naked) are little bundles of deliciousness, effectively tortelloni stuffing without the pasta wrapping. The filling sits in a thin coat of semolina, far lower in carbohydrate than pasta and much healthier (as long as you ignore the fact that they're still basically balls of buttery cheese). Hailing from Tuscany, gnudi have been a huge hit at the trendy Spotted Pig gastropub in New York, but are newcomers to London. 'Federico Sali at Tinello was the first person in London doing gnudi - and now a whole host of other chefs have put them on their menus,' says Giorgio Locatelli, who helped Sali and his brother Max to set up the restaurant. Stevie Parle at The Dock Kitchen is also a fan: 'Gnudi are delicious and unusual. They're tricky to make, light as a feather and very popular.' tinello.co.uk; dockkitchen.co.uk Pis for Peruvian This year, Peruvian food - already going loco in places such as San Francisco, Copenhagen and Miami - will be massive. Martin Morales, the half-Peruvian former businessman who helped to found iTunes and once managed Joss Stone, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, will open Ceviche in London in November, doing for Peruvian cuisine what Thomasina Miers has done for Mexican with Wahaca. 'After 26 years in the UK I was frustrated that there is still no great Peruvian restaurant where I can eat a good ceviche. So in July last year I gave up on my career. It's now my mission to deliver the very best Peruvian cuisine,' he says. Morales has some high-profile supporters; Rene Redzepi, currently the best chef in the world, is anxious for Morales to open: 'For me, ceviche is one of the best foods in the world. Fresh, spicy, textural and healthy - what's not to like about it?' If you can't wait until November, visit Limanation in Farringdon - Morales's pop-up version of the restaurant, running from 16 to 18 June. cevicheuk.com; limanation.eventbrite.com Qis for Queuing The capital's best food vans nowadays get name- checked like celebrity chefs, and devotees schlep across town just to get their fix of super-sized chilli dogs (at The Dogfather, often found in North Cross Market, East Dulwich), diver-caught scallops (at Healthy Yummies), kimchi sliders (at Street Foodie), Indian snacks (at Gujarati Rasoi), and incredible burgers (at The Meatwagon) - all of which are part of the Eat.St collective of street hawkers. Follow them on Twitter or check their websites to find out when they'll be near you. The vans will be making appearances this summer at Zoo Lates on Friday nights throughout June and July at London Zoo, and the new Red Market off Old Street, London's night market with 20 different food stalls, which will run every Saturday through the summer from 12pm until 3am. Over on the South Bank the Eat.St traders are taking part in the Festival of Britain commemorations, along with pop-ups such as Dishoom Chowpatty Beach, a spin-off of the Covent Garden Bombay- style cafe. And Luardos (below) will be dishing up brilliant burritos at Whitecross Street Market, EC1. 'Street food is opening up whole regions of London,' says Tim Hayward, editor of food magazine Fire & Knives. 'Eat.St put on a great festival last month in the Rye Pub's car park in Peckham. It's all come about because there are a lot of middle-class life-changers around at the moment, and feeding people this way has low financial barriers to entry.' 'Street food breeds trust in this CCTV world and grounds people in a way that they're not even aware of,' adds Petra Barran, co-founder of Eat.St and owner of the Choc Star van. eat.st; zsl.org/ zoolatestickets; redmarketlondon.com; southbanklondon.com; chocstar.co.uk; luardos.co.uk Ris for Revivalism This movement is so significant that the trend forecaster Future Lab has coined a special name for it: Beyond Nostalgia. Its biggest proponent is Marcus Wareing at The Gilbert Scott in the new St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, who blends Mrs Beeton recipes from the 1800s with his own modern and sous-vide cooking techniques. A reverence for things past has also taken over the Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell where you can sip vintage-style drinks such as a Nettle Gimlet (Beefeater gin with homemade nettle cordial, Pounds 8.50) or the Flintlock (featuring gunpowder tea and dandelion and burdock bitters, Pounds 8.50) surrounded by Georgian sumptuousness. The opening of the second Wolseley branch on Aldwych later this year means old-school chopped liver all round. Traditional punch is also having a renaissance. Fluid Movement (the guys behind Purl and the Victorianstyle Whistling Shop) has just opened a 17th-century Punch House, VOC, in Varnishers Yard King's Cross, and the Booking Office bar (also at St Pancras) is serving a traditional afternoon punch - made with rum and porter (a dark beer from the 18th century). PHOTOLIBRARY. ALAMY thegilbertscott.co.uk; thezettertownhouse.co.uk; whistlingshop. com; thewolseley.com; voc- london.com; stpancrasrenaissance.co.uk Sis for Sherry The classic tipple of tipsy grandmothers and dusty professors, sherry is suddenly fashionable again. After Pepito opened last year in King's Cross, sherry has been enjoying a 'rebirth', explains Kate McGinlay, editor of the London Cocktail Guide. 'Jose is opening on Bermondsey Street with a big sherry list and you can't beat a sherry cobbler on a steamy summer evening.' For those keen to indulge, Capote y Toros, a new Spanish bar just opened in SW5, has 100 sherries on its list. camino.uk.com/pepito; josepizarro.com; cambiodetercio.co.uk Tis for Theatrics A new generation of caterers are mixing food with high art. Blanch & Shock are designers and artists who use food as their medium; previous works include Eat Your Heart Out which involved the audience consuming 'blood' (beetroot gravy) and 'guts' (offal bourguignon) from inside a life-like corpse. They are now designing the Experimental Food Society's next Spectacular - last year they did a 'duck hunt', held at the Brickhouse on Brick Lane, serving a trio of ducks with edible shot and sides of duck tongues and hearts. This year's offering and location is still a secret. A dinner with cultural accompaniments at the London Sketch Club, a beautiful century-old private club in Chelsea originally started for artists, is another tasty offering. Diners get a chance to enter the eccentric building, have dinner and then listen to a selection of operatic excerpts. Currently on the menu is Trifle, Custard and Coward season; Pudding with Piaf will follow later. If you like comedy with your canapes, try the multi-awardwinning Marvellous Dorians (above) comedy supper club in the autumn after they return from the Edinburgh Festival, in which the two slightly surreal, absurd and rather good-looking comedians mix 'feyne deyning' with cabaret, magic tricks, crazed comedy and audience interaction. blanchandshock.com; experimentalfood society.com; londonsketchclub.com; themarvellousdorians.com Dinos Chapman at Locanda Locatelli I THINK LOCANDA LOCATELLI IS THE ONLY PLACE in London I haven't been thrown out of, but I've come close. The first time I came here I was crashing one of those art circuit parties. There's a window between the kitchen and the restaurant and friends are allowed to sign it in indelible marker. They stupidly let me loose with the pen, and by the end of the evening every woman had 'I love Dinos' written on them. I think I was a little bit scared of Giorgio [Locatelli] at the time, but now we're great friends. One of my favourite things is to try to kiss him, but I've only succeeded when someone holds him down. My wife Tiphaine (right) and I come here for special occasions because it is so intimate and every dish is delicious. The roof is made of rubber so you can throw things at the ceiling and they bounce. When Giorgio told me that we both started throwing chocolate truffles up there. I threw some jelly at Fergie once just to see if it stuck, and it did for a little bit. I behave very childishly, but Tiphaine and the kids just sit there oblivious to it all. Giorgio and Plaxy run Locanda like a family, and now our eldest daughter Seraphine is working here she has been adopted by them, too. Uis for Unexpected ingredients GUM Rumour has it that at Silvena Rowe's new Eastern Mediterranean restaurant Quince, at The May Fair Hotel, you can sample chewing gum ice cream - it's not on the menu and is available only to the select few. EEL Eel has become unusual due to its scarcity but should be available by the end of 2012, say the Sustainable Eel Group. Feng Sushi is helping by working with the Severn and Wye Smokery's restocking campaign. TAPIOCA Bubble Tea, a hit in China, has found its way to Soho, where people queue around the block for the Bubbleology Cafe's brightly coloured sweet tea filled with tapioca balls. Harvey Nichols is launching the tea in June. CUTTLEFISH ROE Also in Soho, look out for cuttlefish eggs at Polpetto where head chef Florence Knight is planning to serve them. 'They have a delicate flavour,' she says, 'and texturally they're like softly scrambled egg.' Vis for posh Vietnamese Hackney's 'Little Hanoi' is spreading west with the opening of Cay Tre on Dean Street, an elegant offshoot of the Shoreditch Vietnamese joints Cay Tre and Viet Grill. 'I'm pleased, because there are no Vietnamese places in this part of town,' says chef Mark Hix, whose restaurant is on nearby Brewer Street. Supper clubbers should visit Fernandez & Leluu's blog to find out when they are next serving a Vietnamese menu. For a lunchtime hit try banh mi, a Viet sandwich, at Ca Phe VN, new in Islington, Keu on Old Street and Broadway Market's BanhMi11 street stall. vietnamesekitchen.co.uk; fernandezandleluu. co.uk; caphevn.co.uk; banhmi11.com Wis for Whizz bang pop! If you catch boozy wafts of lime and elderflower floating out of your next-door neighbour's windows this summer, chances are they've commissioned Alchemist Dreams' chemistry graduate Ruth Hall to blend a handmade liqueur to order, using a choice of anything from rose to Szechuan pepper. At Saf in Shoreditch, they offer a crazy porcini mushroom cordial and infusions of beetroot vodka and gin, while at Redhook in Clerkenwell, not only do they make their own infusions, they even serve a punch with homemade sherbet. alchemistdreams.co.uk; safrestaurant.com; redhooklondon.com Daniel Roche at Rainforest Cafe ON THE OUTNUMBERED SET WE HAVE AN amazing cook called Pam. I always ask her to make me banoffee pie, but without the cream because I don't like it. She brings it out on huge plates and people come running from all over; everything stops when there's banoffee pie. I'm not a very good cook myself, but I can just about manage beans on toast if I'm really hungry. I've tossed a few pancakes, too, but they normally end up on the floor. My mum does most of the cooking at home; she does a delicious shepherd's pie, which is my favourite, and always makes me tuna and cucumber sandwiches to have in my packed lunch at school. When I first did Outnumbered, a girl in my class had a go at my teacher for telling me off. She said, 'You can't get cross with him, he's famous!' I'm a real prankster; I love to play tricks on people, like pulling out their chairs. At school I once hid in the cupboard for five minutes, and then I knocked three times on the door before jumping out on my teacher. She screamed really loudly, but everyone else laughed. Maybe Ben is a part of me, I do act a bit like him. I'm constantly joking, I never stop talking and I'm a bit hyper. I recently realised that being funny isn't just the improvisation, it's the timing. That comes naturally to me, it's like there's a voice in my head which goes, 'Say it now,' and I do, and people laugh. The first time we came to the Rainforest Cafe was by accident; we'd just been to see Carrie's War and we were really hungry and stumbled upon this place. It's such a special treat to come here because I think it must be the most themed restaurant in England: grass, trees, animatronics, and everything. I especially love the thunder and the noise that comes every half hour in the storm simulation. I always order the ribs with BBQ sauce and chips with a slushie on the side. I thoroughly recommend it. X is for Xfactor Richard Caring is the undisputed king of the London restaurant scene and he'll stop at nothing to keep it that way. Stephen Robinson meets a very ambitious restaurateur OUR MEETING HAD BEEN SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE AT The Ivy but just as I was setting off, one of Richard's 'people' rang to say he had pulled a muscle in his neck, so instead I was to head to his office off the Euston Road. It's always annoying to be turned away from The Ivy, but at least I got to see the Caring art collection, or the modest portion of it that he keeps in his ballroom-sized office. There are a couple of Degas charcoals of dancers, a stunning Matisse, and a vast Henry Moore Mother and Child, which had to be lifted into the office by crane after the floor was reinforced. But first of all, Richard Caring wants to talk about golf, for if there is one thing that gets him more animated than Le Caprice, Harry's Bar, The Ivy, Scott's, the global Soho House expansion and the new London outpost of Balthazar, it is Wentworth Golf Club, which he also happens to own. The neck injury, it turns out, was caused by overexuberant running around the Wentworth course the previous weekend during the PGA tournament. 'It was an epic day,' says Caring. 'There was the world number one up against world number two, never to be repeated. It was amazing - I had to remind myself that I own it, that I own Wentworth.' Despite dominating it, Caring remains in some ways an outsider in the London restaurant and club world. But he has always fitted in with golf on his own terms, for he was once a county- level scratch player. His game has suffered in recent years through lack of practice, though as he says, 'when you own a golf club you tend to set your own handicap.' Towards the end of 2004, a friend, knowing his passion for the game, called to tell him Wentworth was for sale, so Caring pounced with a bid reported to be Pounds 130 million, well over its then value. Caring was unrepentant, explaining that it is to golf what Wimbledon is to tennis, and that Wentworth was 'priceless'. It was a typical Caring manoeuvre, instinctive and incisive. Caring is unusual-looking for a man of 63. He's whippet-thin, toned, tanned and immaculately groomed in his black Armani suit. He has extraordinarily white and impeccably spaced teeth, which he reveals when he laughs - which is quite often. He has lustrous hair, which may be tinted, and is swept back in a light, centre-parted bouffant. His accent is mid-Atlantic rather than North London, where he lives in what has been called the Versailles of Hampstead, a vast mansion with a small lake, and the rest of his art collection (mostly 20th-century art, with a preponderance of Matisse; he likes the way he paints geometric patterns). He also likes to throw a lavish party, spending a reputed Pounds 9 million on flying 450 guests to a charity ball in St Petersburg six years ago. His son Ben's wedding in 2009 was held in the Hampstead home, with the dancefloor on a platform above the lake and individual swan ice sculptures filled with caviar as a starter. The wedding was attended, as Hello!'s breathless account put it, by a 'high-value guest list', including Philip Green, Kevin Spacey, Kate Moss, Elizabeth Hurley, Peter Stringfellow and David Walliams. When not in Hampstead, Caring can be found at his country home in Somerset, often described as a shooting lodge, though apparently with all mod cons, or on his yacht, which he keeps in Italy. On the day we speak, Caring told me his old friend Goldie Hawn was sailing on his boat. Caring has been married for many years to Jackie, a former model, and has two grown-up sons, Jamie and Ben, who both work within their father's empire: Jamie as commercial director of the clubs and main London restaurants, and Ben, the younger, for the catering and events arm of the business. Caring recently became a grandfather for the first time to Ben's son. As we sit down to talk at his boardroom table, Caring removes his thin silver cufflinks and prods them with his finger as he talks. 'Robin Birley is great,' he asserts. 'Robin and I are friends. I have a lot of admiration and respect for Robin.' Caring famously fell out with Robin, son of the late Mark Birley who founded Annabel's and Mark's Club, when Birley Sr, having disinherited his son, sold his clubs to Caring for over Pounds 90 million in 2007. Robin Birley was understandably resentful that his birthright had been sold from under his nose, and responded with plans to launch a club in Shepherd Market, a five-iron shot away from Annabel's. His original plan was to call it Birley's, but Caring objected and threatened to go to the High Court, saying he had bought the Birley name along with the clubs. The legal wrangle caused personal rancour. Jemima Khan, half-sister of Robin Birley, began a Facebook campaign against Caring, but the two men have since settled their differences over a glass of wine at Wiltons, which neither of them owns, and the club will be named Rupert's, after Robin's late brother. 'There was a situation with the branding of the club, but that is history. It was a misunderstanding. I have no problem with any of the Goldsmith-Birley group, they are all great people,' he says dogmatically. Caring's frequent use of the word 'branding' explains both his success in the London club and restaurant scene, and why he is still viewed with a certain amount of suspicion and snobbery by some of the established players. It is impossible to imagine Mark or Robin Birley talking about their clubs as brands. Caring's mother Sylvia was Jewish, while his father was a GI of Italian descent. He says he got the best of a split Jewish-Catholic upbringing. 'My mother was very aware of being Jewish. I don't think of myself as being Jewish or not Jewish. I personally have never felt anti-Semitism. When I bought the Birley group, there were stories that old members were upset that someone from the Jewish faith had bought the clubs. I have never experienced any of those feelings, no one said any of it to me.' He made his first fortune in the rag trade, taking over the family business from his father, who was more interested in playing golf than expanding his company (a mistake Caring has not made). Caring spotted the potential for making money by producing clothes in China and selling them in the West. He relocated his young family to Hong Kong in the late 1970s and supplied numerous high-street chains, notably those owned by his friend Philip Green, to whom he still talks every day. He got into the restaurant business almost by chance, when he tried to improve the food at Wentworth and realised when talking to people at Le Caprice and The Ivy that they were covertly for sale, so he bought them from Luke Johnson, along with J Sheekey, in 2005 for Pounds 31.5 million (Johnson had himself purchased the restaurants from Chris Corbin and Jeremy King in 1998 for Pounds 13 million), and his appetite for the trade grew. He is still very involved in his garment business, spending two days a week analysing currency shifts and supply problems for International Clothing Designs, which provides clothes for Next, BHS and Topshop, as well as Bloomingdale's and Walmart in the US. Many associates believe that it is these long-honed international financial skills that have made his crossover into running a restaurant empire so seamless. Despite the nice manners, it's easy to see the steel beneath that drove him towards a vast fortune. During the interview he is clamouring for this week's figures from his assistant and when I rudely ask him how much he is worth, he declines to say, though helpfully adds that the figure of Pounds 700 million - up Pounds 100 million on the year - in the latest Sunday Times Rich List is pretty accurate. He is unabashed in his driving ambition to create the first global restaurant and club chain, and he is one of the very few Brits who has cracked America. The key to this ambitious dream is the expansion of the Soho House 'franchise', of which he owns 80 per cent, with the founder Nick Jones retaining the other fifth. Soho House is now in Hollywood, New York, Berlin - which is doubling in size to 100 rooms - and Miami, which has just opened, with plans for further pushes into Chicago, Mumbai and Istanbul. 'You can't rush in,' says Caring. 'These places take time to bed down. The reason why English restaurateurs have found America to be a graveyard is they don't understand the market, and don't take the time to learn it.' Those who know Caring say that he is exceptionally handson in all areas of his business, and has developed a genuine feel for what will work in different cities. Even his most grudging admirers are impressed that he will not be hurried into openings, even if delays are costing the company a lot of money. And Shanghai is the next part of the plan. 'I'm afraid I do believe that one day China will rule the world, I don't think there's any question of that. Look at the growth, the hunger, the work ethic - unbelievable.' Intriguingly, Caring turns quite coy when I ask him about rumours, fiercely denied by his PR company, that the whole Soho House empire could be sold - recently it was reported that Jones had been in touch with investors about raising money to buy Caring out. Caring dismisses the idea, saying, 'You get these high rollers going into Soho House in LA and thinking, "Wow, I'd like to own this." I can understand they approach Nick, he must get this all the time.' Even so, he says that while it's 'way too early to sell up, everything has a price at the end of the day. Everything. So if someone wants to come along and pay an exorbitant amount of money at this moment, as long as I felt the members and staff landed in the right place, then I would entertain the offer.' Any reports of friction between him and Jones are, he says, 'absolute bullshit', whipped up by the press. 'Nick and I are very good friends. We don't disagree on anything, we get along fine,' he says, perhaps a tad too emphatically. (A spokesman for Soho House said Mr Jones was travelling and unavailable to comment on whether the admiration was reciprocated.) Despite his insistence to the contrary, Caring does seem to be in a constant state of conflict with his peers. For instance, he is in a fierce competition to take over the site of the Oriel restaurant in Sloane Square with Jeremy King and Chris Corbin, owners of The Wolseley. 'Competition can only be a positive thing, it benefits London,' he says. Today there's no unpleasantness at all for his rivals. Caring asserts, 'Chris is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.' But is there perhaps a hint of Schadenfreude in his regret that 'Jeremy has been very unlucky in a couple of business deals that went against him'. In this Caring is presumably referring to the fact that Corbin and King's restaurant St Alban shut down in 2009, and also to their failed bid for the Covent Garden Theatre Museum site, which they had earmarked as a restaurant and spent two years working on a bid for, only to seeit snaffled from under their noses at the last minute by Caring. 'I'd like to think we're colleagues in business. I know if Jeremy were to ask me for any help I would, and I'd like to think he would do the same,' and then the mask slips and Caring starts to laugh, concluding with an explosive snigger. Then he adds solemnly: 'But are we rivals? No.' Caring has great self-confidence, despite the headwinds of the lousy economy, and though he says he can feel in his weekly sales returns 'the vibration of economic nervousness', his likefor-like business is about 15 per cent up on last year. He insists when times are hard, you have to do more, 'because there is no second place any more, you are first or nothing,' and has just put down more than Pounds 1 million to create a smoking terrace at Annabel's, as he didn't like the idea of members dropping their dog-ends in Berkeley Square. And while most hospitality groups are trimming their ambitions, Caring is determined to add to the 74 businesses he has around the world. Some Pounds 15 million has been set aside for a new upscale steak restaurant opening in the autumn at 34 Grosvenor Square, which is supposed to do for Scottish, Argentine and Japanese beef what Scott's, which some regard as the best restaurant in London, does for fish. Then, most ambitiously, next year Caring will bring the mercurial British restaurant superstar Keith McNally (creator of SATC favourite Pastis) to Covent Garden to create a London sister to the New York's iconic Balthazar restaurant. In this McNally is doing what he always suggested he would never do, which is to take part in a franchising operation. 'By nature,' McNally once told Vanity Fair, 'I have an intense dislike of chains and sister restaurants. Even the phrase appals me.' Clearly he had not reckoned on Caring's powers of persuasion, because McNally has opened a pizza restaurant, Pulino's, in New York with Caring's backing, and bought a house in Notting Hill as he works on next year's opening in Covent Garden. Caring describes Balthazar London as 'an act of love', with Keith - who is, naturally, a 'close personal friend' - absolutely in charge of every detail of the fitting out of the restaurant. 'This will not be some Far Eastern copy, everything will be made in the US, the real McCoy. It won't be a copy of the New York Balthazar, but it will be in its image.' Caring is so relentlessly upbeat, so determined to promote his various brands and outlets, that he seems taken aback when I ask what is his biggest regret. He says it was not going to university - he left Millfield, which he attended on a golfing scholarship, with five indifferent O levels - and says he now feels his lack of formal education when he talks to his sons. The bigger sadness that still clearly haunts him was the sudden death of his mother. In the rudest of health, and destined to live to 100, she was knocked over in Cannes 13 years ago by a drunk, underage motorcyclist. 'My mother was my best friend. I miss her. I talk to her every day. You see, I can be overenthusiastic about things, so I talk to her and she balances me because she had the hard, fast Jewish brain.' It is while talking about his mother, a 'beautiful, Elizabeth Taylor lookalike', that Richard Caring momentarily loses his relentlessly polished sheen and I notice that, ever so discreetly, he is trying very hard not to cry. ES Yis for Young Turks The credit crunch may have sent commercial property prices through the floor but this remains a tricky time for novice restaurateurs - hence the huge number of pop-ups and temporary restaurants in bohemian neighbourhoods such as Brixton, Peckham and Dalston. 'In one way the recession was actually good for the industry - it's why we're seeing a surge of independents,' says Tim Hayward, editor of Fire & Knives food magazine. The Young Turks, Isaac McHale, James Lowe and Ben Greeno, together form the most innovative of these roving kitchens. The trio often work with the Clove Club, a collective of waiters from Great Queen Street restaurant in Covent Garden and St John in Clerkenwell. They cook seasonal, occasionally challenging dishes such as poached pheasant egg with wild garlic and snails, raw beef rib, oyster and chickweed, and cured Middle White fat and Lop ham at places including the Loft Project (a supper-club restaurant hosted by Nuno Mendes, chef patron of the hyper-modern Viajante in Hackney). At the same time they hold down day jobs in restaurants such as The Ledbury in Notting Hill. Later this month the Young Turks and the Clove Club will take over a disused office block in Canary Wharf as part of Restaurants in Residence, four weeks of temporary restaurants set up by Create London as part of an East London cultural festival in host boroughs of the Olympics (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest). Expect inventive, ever-so-slightly Scandinavian food (left), featuring ingredients such as beremeal (an ancient strain of barley only grown and milled commercially near the Orkney village where McHale grew up) and loganberries. theyoungturks.co.uk; createlondon.org/restaurantsinresidence Zis for Zythology London breweries produce some of the best beer (the zyth in zythology) in the world - Bermondsey's Kernel Brewery's export stout was the Society of Independent Brewers' bottled beer of 2011. You can have a pint with your Michelin-starred food at Chez Bruce in Wandsworth, or at Pied a Terre in Marylebone, as well as at the Wright Brothers oyster restaurants. 'Kernel brewer Evin O'Riordain brews incredible beers,' says Charlie McVeigh, owner of The Draft House pubs, which stock Kernel and hundreds of other boutique beers. 'When everyone was getting into extreme American craft beers, he came along with his super-strong intense products, which are almost like wine.' The Draft House is now serving a third of a pint beer tasters and the burger chain Byron will launch a dedicated craft beer list this summer. Try beers by Brodies, Camden Town and Redemption, all young London breweries. thekernelbrewery.com; drafthouse.co.uk; brodiesbeers.co.uk; redemptionbrewing.co.uk; camdentownbrewery.com ES 'LAST WEEK WE HAD DINNER WITH SIENNA MILLER; THE WEEK BEFORE IT WAS BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH' 'I WON'T DRINK AT KATE'S WEDDING, NOT EVEN A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE' 'THE NECKLINE OF THE GALAXY DRESS IS THE SAME SHAPE AS A DINING TABLE' 'I THREW SOME JELLY AT FERGIE ONCE TO SEE IF IT STUCK' 'I CAN JUST ABOUTMANAGE BEANS ON TOAST IF I'M REALLY HUNGRY' 'THERE IS NO SECOND PLACE, YOU ARE FIRST OR NOTHING' 'EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE. IF SOMEONE WANTS TO PAY AN EXORBITANT AMOUNT FOR SOHO HOUSE I'D ENTERTAIN THE OFFER' (c) 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]