With a gleaming white La Marzocco FB80 espresso machine for an altar and a pop-up tent for a canopy, barista Gennaro Di Mattia presides on hallowed ground. When the clouds open a path for the sun into the narrow churchyard beside St George's Bloomsbury, his humble...
Results for "coffee"
No Chef Does Overkill Like Carl Clarke
[slider_pro id="41"] The unspoken idea behind the December 15th #4in1Saturday pop-up was overkill. And who better, I thought, to merge four of my daily obsessions – BurgerMonday, WichThursday, FryFriday, CoffeeSaturday – without a gram of compromise than Carl...
A Pop-Up Tea as Only Nigella Could Do It
[slider_pro id="31"] My November afternoon tea with Nigella for 112 guests at Andrew's Gray's Inn greasy spoon grew out of a May breakfast for two at another caff of sorts, The Wolseley, Piccadilly. Nigella liked my suggestion to do a pop-up, perhaps a...
Massimo Bottura Compresses His Grandmother
Is it a waste of your time to go to a fine restaurant for homestyle food made the same way for generations? Is it a waste of an acclaimed chef’s time to cook it? If you ask chef Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, just named world’s fifth best restaurant at this...
My Most Read Posts of 2011
So not so burger-manic a year after all. Only half on my most read posts published in 2011 were about burgers: 1. At MEATliquor, Burger Love is Blind 2. My Confidence Cracked in Bistro du Vin Burger 3. Is Devouring a St John Custard Doughnut Truly the Best Thing to Do...
No Coat, No Table
My wife, our baby and I were patiently waiting fourth, fifth and fifth-and-a-quarter on the line to place an order at the Columbus location of Joe the Art of Coffee, a busy coffee shop near both the real and fictional Upper West Side apartments of Jerry Seinfeld. When...
Dutch Designer Marcel Wanders Out-Geeked by Blanch & Shock at Galleria Illy
Only a fool tries to upstage Marcel Wanders by out-smiling, out-dressing, out-tanning, out-hairing or out-flirting the tall, dark and handsome Dutch designer. But were you to tie your hair in a bun, as Josh Pollen did, or hide your intense gaze behind protective...
You Say Spaghetti and I Say Spaghettoni
When I received the long shopping list from Arcangelo Dandini for the SpagWednesday pop-up dinner the great Roman chef would be preparing in London 26 October the instructions appeared to be straightforward. For the alla matriciana sauce I could depend upon Andreas...
Top 10 Artworks at Frieze Art Fair
To prove to you there's a lot more to young&foodish than burgers, spaghetti, pizza, sandwiches and coffee I decided to devote my newest top 10 to the Frieze Art Fair at London's Regent's Park. Whenever I go to art shows, which is pretty much all the time except...
Belgian Chef Viki Geunes Lays It All Out on The Table at Galleria Illy
"Spain," Belgian chef Viki Geunes told a group of London foodies at the Galleria Illy, "is more technique and less product. Whatever I do must add value to the product." By evoking Spain the two-star Michelin chef at 't Zilte in Antwerp was asserting his opposition...
Duke Ellington: King of Jazz & Gluttony
The three-part profile of jazz great Duke Ellington written by Richard O.Boyer for The New Yorker in 1944 isn't just one of the greatest musical portraits ever written for a magazine. "The Hot Back"Â is a classic in food and travel writing, too, a tell-all from a then...
Say Goodbye to Hollandaise
The great Clerkenwell coffee shop St Ali has given over the prime position on breakfast and brunch menus traditionally occupied by Hollandaise sauce to truffle mascarpone. I repeat, truffle mascarpone. It is served atop toast alongside two poached eggs with smoked...
Is There Life for the Caravan Burger After the #BurgerMondayPopUp?
[oqeygallery id=1] slideshow photos by Paul Winch-Furness My BurgerMonday pop-ups provide a burger-loving stage and audience for chefs who don't currently have a London kitchen to work in or who, for artistic or personal reasons, wouldn't dream of doing burgers at...
Krazy for Kaffe & Kaka
No one who knows Stockholm will be surprised I fell back in love with kaffe & kaka on a family visit there in October. But everyone who knows me will wonder how I fell out with the combo of coffee and cake in the first place. Coffee and cake are in my blood. My...
Now Playing in London’s West End: the Maserati of Espresso Machines & Stradivarius of Pizza Ovens
If real wizardry was what the people wanted, November's red carpets would have been diverted from the Harry Potter premiere at Odeon Leicester Square to a great new coffee shop on St Martin's Lane and a superb new pizzeria restaurant on Great Newport St. Notes Music...
2009 World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies is Done With Lattes & Flat Whites
Gwilym Davies has sworn off lattes and flat whites. The 2009 World Barista Champion has also removed cappuccinos and cortados from the menu of his Prufrock Coffee trolley at London's Present. Gibraltar, SG-120 and all the other groovy terms for an espresso with hot...
Eataly Feeds NY’s Italianissimo Complex
To shop Eataly's 50,000 square feet of Italian foods you must first pass through the Lavazza espresso bar just inside the marketplace's Fifth Avenue entrance. The backdrop to this virtual Via Veneto of consumed – and consuming – New Yorkers and tourists, many of them...
Bánh Mì in the Bag(uette) for City Cà phê
Julie Vu knew where to find the right baguette for her bánh mì sandwiches at City Cà phê, the Vietnamese luncheonette she was planning to open this month in the City of London. She just wasn't sure she could find it within 100 miles of Ironmonger Lane. The baguette she...
Goodbye to Penny University, Hello to Tim Styles
One shortcut to following the global coffee scene is to track the movements of Tim Styles, such is the Australian barista's knack for turning up at seminal shops at the right time. He's worked stints at Ray Cafe in Melbourne, Joe the Art of Coffee in New York, Flat...
2 Hip Haunts for 2-Wheeled Cafenatics
The London cafenatic's Tour de France is a kilometre long, with no hills or turns from start to finish. It departs from look mum no hands, a garagehouse coffee shop at 49 Old St, and arrives at Rapha Cycle Club, a pop-up gallery, boutique and coffee bar at 146-148...
Splitting Beans, Michael Phillips Wins 2010 World Barista Championship
Behind the top-scoring performance of Michael Phillips in finals of the 2010 World Barista Championship, held on the 25th of June at London's Olympia Exhibition Centre, was a single idea: how can the processing of coffee beans influence a barista's calibrations? That...
Is Isaac McHale the next big thing?
Were a CV a sure indicator of a chef's potential, as only gullible restaurateurs and food critics are led to believe, then Isaac McHale would already be counting his Michelin stars. Three weeks shy of 30 and three months from running his own kitchen for the first time...
The New Trainee Barista at Penny University
Early this morning, Gwilym Davies was about to board a flight home from Malta to London when he received a urgent call from Tim Styles of the coffee shop Penny University. Penny U was a man down for the day and Styles wanted to know if Davies, the 2009 World Barista...
Great Greenwich pairings at the all new Old Brewery
Nearly any sane person stepping up to the bar at The Old Brewery in Greenwich would spot the taps for Meantime London, lick his or her lips and think 'great brews'. The name is already a clue this new establishment has something to do with beer. Only a...
Closing of Bialetti’s moka pot factory a bitter cup to swallow
L'omino con i baffi – "the little man with the moustache" – is closing shop and leaving Italy, much to the consternation of both stovetop espresso and Italian design purists. To cut costs, Bialetti announced it would close its Moka Express production plant...
With illycaffè’s Francis Francis X7 espresso machine, perfection has its limits
As an amateur barista who's been through 7 home espresso machines in a dozen years I understand the appeal of a foolproof model that makes you the same beautiful espresso every day. With most semiautomatic machines you need to get the beans, grind, measure and tamping...
World’s thickest, moussiest espresso crema
The technique used by Rome's renowned Caffè Sant'Eustachio to produce an astoundingly thick, foamy head of crema atop its signature Gran Caffè is a closely guarded secret. Screens on each side of the Astoria espresso machines block the view of nosey cafenatics seeking...
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...
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...
Detouring for the indelible delight
When travelling across nations or neighborhoods I revel in the long detour for the indelible delight. My willingness to wreck itineraries and rile companions for a nibble of potentially life-changing apple strudel partly explains my reputation amongst those who know...