London: a world of food

Close to Piccadilly Circus and well sited to pick up the tourist passing trade, Albert's Schloss is a vast emporium with an Alpine ski lodge vibe.  It opened recently, a sister to the orginal in Manchester, which was a conversion of a Victorian hall named after Prince Albert. On the ground floor there is a bar where you can also order food, but in the cavernous basement is a vast beer hall with long tables emulating a Bavarian Hofbräuhaus and with a live music stage.   This kind of ersatz traditional theme park outlet is not normally our thing - it replaces the former Rainforest Cafe in that block on Shaftesbury Avenue close to Piccadilly Circus that has never really found its feet: but we were seduced by an amazing review by Grace Dent in the Guardian.  She described it as 'wall-to-wall schnitzel, strudel and currywurst ... I had more fun here than I’ve had at many a Michelin-starred restaurant. And that’s quite wunderbar.' And it fitted into our world cuisine ambi...

Twenty years ago the back lanes and courts of Soho were grim spaces -- loading bays, dumpsters and dereliction. Now they have been liberated and filled with new restaurants, bars and fashion outlets. One such area is Kingly Court between Carnaby Street and Regent Street, which offers a wide range of ethnic food on two levels in a busy canopied courtyard.   Above the ground level food court there are more substantial restaurants, including the Darjeeling Express .  By London standards it has a spacious interior hinting at Indian station cafes in shades of ochre, and focuses on the street food of north-eastern India.  The food (and people) of Darjeeling owe as much to the Himalayan populations of Sikkim and Nepal to the north as to mainstream Indian cooking, but the menu here draws not only on that but on the owner's knowledge of food from Calcutta, where she was brought up, and beyond.  There are over 1200 'Indian' restaurants in London!  In fact most are fr...

We started with a bang at Frog by Adam Handling .  It seemed appropriate to start this exercise with a truly international cuisine.  This was to celebrate my birthday and we got the expected blowout, having been several times since just after it opened, watching as Adam 's reputation grew until achieving a Michelin star in 2022.  This is simply the best restaurant we know, anywhere. We were treated to a tasting menu of spectacular courses (listed as seven but with many little treats between on the way, and an edible birthday candle at the end!).  You don't get a menu, just a map showing where in the British Isles the ingredients are sourced.  So each course is a surprise and presented in unusual and spectacular ways. I won't spoil the surprises therefore by describing the dishes, but the flavours and look are out of this world!  All washed down with their recommended wine pairings for each course, described with great enthusiasm by their young Welsh sommel...

London has the richest collection of food outlets in the world!  Within a mile of my house in Finsbury Park -- as well as the obvious cuisines such as Italian, Indian, Cantonese, Thai, Greek, Turkish and of course American burgers and good old British fish and chips -- you can tuck into the cuisines of Ethiopia, Nepal, Korea, Japan, the Caribbean, Lebanon, Algeria, Uighur, Vietnam ... the list goes on. I had a bet with Ian that within a year or so we could eat the food of practically every nation and region within the confines of Greater London.  So let's see how we do.  Let me know if you spot a Bhutanese restaurant!