Mayfair nights
London’s Mayfair is as clearly defined by its boundaries – sequestered between Oxford St and Piccadilly, bordered on the west by Park Lane and on the east by Regent St – as it is by its reputation as a hig...
Tables with a view
Londoners are getting high like never before, dining and wining with aplomb at the top of skyscrapers, experiencing their city like never before. Until very recently Londoners of all classes associated suc...
Sunny and safe in Jordan
Someone said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet but such is the power of negative connotations that I’m not so sure any more. Take the idea of a restful and hugely enjoyable holiday in the heart ...
Eldorado in Amazonia
Eldorado, a mythical place in South America where a tribal chief covered himself in gold dust and dived into a lake, was searched for in vain by explorers but in the process the Amazon River was mapped for th...
Restaurant at the end of the world
The top end of Kings Road may be a hike from Sloane Square but, being so close to Chelsea’s premiership football club, it’s hardly the end of the world and especially so now that The World’s End Market has open...
The art of eating
Tate Britain came up with a logical idea as to where best to eat after appreciating an art show when it commissioned the artist Rex Whistler in the 1920s to decorate the gallery’s Refreshment Room. He spent eig...
Relaxing in Rio – Where to peacefully bed down and eat in a manic city of noisy fun
Relaxing in Rio – Where to peacefully bed down and eat in a manic city of noisy fun
It is a truth universally acknowledged, as Jane Austen might have put it, that anyone in search of an excessively good time...
A melange of metropolitan chefs
Chef Tong Chee Hwee grew up in Malaysia and he remembers the delicious meals his Hakka grandmother used to cook before he went to Singapore in 1982 to take up his first job in a kitchen. His talen...
A fire, fjords and ferries
The fire that broke out in the town of Ǻlesund in western Norway in 1904 became an act of creative destruction. There was one unfortunate fatality but the other 10,000 inhabitants, escaping the co...
Chic becomes Dublin
The born-again, post-austerity Dublin – small but perfectly formed – is a cornucopia of elegant places to be, from stylish hotels to quality restaurants and lovely, lovely things to buy – plus lots to gaz...
Escape to Ireland
Dotted across Ireland are grand houses built by the recipients of land handouts when Oliver Cromwell dispossessed the original Irish owners and rewarded his own officers. The new landlords evolved into a cl...
Cockles and Champagne
To be tired of London’s restaurants is to be tired of life but this truism may have something to do with the way new restaurants are constantly opening in the metropolis, forever offering something novel fo...