News that the new Ace Hotel in London's Shoreditch would be setting up its resident coffee shop in collaboration with Square Mile Coffee Roasters brought expectations of groundbreaking brewing techniques, cutting-edge gadgetry and barista performance art. But...
Shoreditch
Fifty Shades of Grey
[slider_pro id="25"] The slideshow above contains images of three burgers each ordered medium-rare at Bukowski, an ambitious burger grill squeezed into a shipping container on the upper level of Boxpark in London's Shoreditch. The third burger was a...
My Indefensible Rating of a London Pizza
[slider_pro id="16"] Critics have felt my ranking of the pizza at Story Deli in East London as eighth best in London was wrongheaded. After a long period of soul searching I've arrived at the same conclusion, only from the opposite direction. For purists the...
Princess Burger Transformed Into Prince Meatloaf
Come mid-August I welcome a glass of pink wine or pink lemonade for cool refreshment. But oddly I'm no happy camper when my Provence rosé tastes like old-fashioned lemonade, or when my freshly squeezed lemonade is no sweeter or pulpier than a dry rosé. I'm funny that...
Penny University a London shrine to filter coffee
Rivington burger a rare bit of umami
The image I chose for the twitter profile of @burgermonday is a photograph of a burger that is both remarkable and British. Why remarkable? Why British? That yellow goop you see dipping down irresistibly from the sides of the Rivington Grill burger is not merely...
London EATinerary turns into a food crawl
Two dear colleagues would be visiting from LA and I had to plan the meals and coffee breaks for their London stopover. The pressure I felt was considerable: Were these demanding food obsessives coming directly from California and not via Italy my task would have been...
An Albion breakfast bap on every London high street
Taking an "f" out of the caffè in his sister Priscilla and brother-in-law Antonio's Carluccio’s chain, Sir Terence Conran announced plans to open a string of British cafes based on his successful Albion formula: “Typical British caff food, nothing challenging or...
World barista champion rolls his espresso cart into London menswear shop
Rather than violate the civil liberties of a law-abiding British citizen I would prefer that Gwilym Davies voluntarily strap a GPS tracking bracelet to his ankle. But if the 2009 World Barista Champion refuses to help us trace his movements via GPS or constant twitter...
At London’s Pizza East, love is in the air pockets
Who knows why an April breeze never remains? Why stars in the trees hide when it rains? Love comes along, casting a spell Will it sing you a song? Will it say a farewell? Who can tell? Could the great lyricist Johnny Mercer have had pizza in mind when he matched these...
Tracking 2009 World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies & best street coffee in London
Since Londoner Gwilym Davies was crowned 2009 World Barista Champion my inbox has been clogged with the same two questions: Where can I find him pulling shots and why wasn't he included in my roundup of the top 10 coffee shops in London? Gwilym does not work at a...