Restaurants
Ivy league
Oxford is not an easy city to homogenise; but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. I found a vast shopping…
Rich pickings
Pity the gilded restaurants of Mayfair, if you can: they are dying. Some have reopened; they ache on like men…
This dead-bat business minister should plead to be reshuffled
What advice can I offer Alok Sharma, who took a pasting in the weekend press for his lacklustre performance as…
A world apart
Plexiglass bubbles hover over diners’ heads in restaurants. Plastic pods, spaced six feet apart, separate weightlifters in gyms. Partitions of…
Soho: home of the brave
London is gasping — so where to go but Soho, which is so good at despair? It is often necrotic…
Dear Mary
Q. Almost a year ago I attended the funeral of my godfather — a bachelor and distant relation whom I…
A flash of life
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
Steak at stake
Pandemic has brought many truths, the most minor of which is: I can’t cook steak. I thought I could. I…
Great Dane
Snaps + Rye is a Nordic-themed restaurant and delicatessen on the Golborne Road, at the shabby and thrilling edges of…
BP, Amazon and airlines light different paths to survival
We should take heart from BP’s £5.1 billion second-quarter loss, accompanied by a halving of its dividend. What’s good about…
Barometer
The other Argos The Argos catalogue, known as the ‘Book of Dreams’, is no longer to appear in printed form.…
Bringing Sexy back
Sexy Fish is an Asian fusion barn in Berkeley Square, near the car dealerships and the nightingales, if they are…
Comfort eating
Brasserie Zédel is a grand salon under Piccadilly Circus and the only place I desired when lockdown (or lock-in) ceased…
A bailout for the arts is good but reopening would have been better
The government’s £1.57 billion lifeline for the cultural sector was bigger than most practitioners were expecting — and drew a…
A wing – and a prayer
Drive-through restaurants were invented so Americans could spend more time in their cars. I don’t blame them. American cars are…
Letters
Disastrous decisions Sir: One cannot but agree wholeheartedly with Lionel Shriver (‘This is not a natural disaster’, 16 May). Given…
Only the worst will survive
What does a critic do when her genre collapses? Mostly I panic. I speak to restaurateurs who believe that without…
Dear Mary: How can I stop other diners eating my chips?
Q. My husband and I are committed Brexiteers. For many years we have regularly enjoyed friendly bridge evenings with a…
Fairy food for fairy wives: Julie’s Restaurant reviewed
Julie’s is a 50-year-old restaurant in Holland Park, London, newly emerged from three years of closure as plushly renovated as…
This food needs a little less grandeur, and a little more love: Simpson’s in the Strand reviewed
Simpson’s in the Strand stopped serving breakfast in 2017, after it had been renovated to stop it smelling of cabbage.…
Plumbers always have the best restaurant recommendations
Whenever I use the security lane at an airport, I enjoy watching people retrieving their bags and metallic items when…
At least Thomas Cook’s fall allows ministers to look in control
It’s not obvious that the state has a moral obligation to repatriate holidaymakers whenever a tour operator goes bust, as…
It’s so easy to go mad in Oxford: Chiang Mai Kitchen reviewed
Oxford is a pile of medieval buildings filled with maniacs, and is therefore one of the most interesting places on…
Dear Mary: What do you do when your hostess licks your spoon?
Q. I have happily overcome many moments of diplomatic and social challenge, but was stumped by the case of the…
Dear Mary: How should one react when someone invites you to an expensive restaurant — then lets you pay the bill?
Q. Further to your advice about how to refuse invitations, I had a friend, who sadly died young, who disliked…
