Braise

Well they do describe it as NY-style grandma slices, so that might be it!

Bing Bong Pizza at You Call the Shots, E9 New York nonnas in London

Bing Bong is a silly name for seriously good pizza, with a focus on grandma slices built to show off the exceptional dough

A Billingsgate breakfast for my birthday this weekend: scallops from the market, smoked bacon from my local butchers, and Dusty Knuckle potato sourdough. Extravagant doesn't quite cover it, but I'll take it.

This feels like an important detail to bury deep in the piece. A doubled calorie deficit might just explain the doubled weight loss, and 'processed food is more calorie dense' doesn't feel like much of a discovery

Sicilian sea bass pasta salad Well, Sicilian-ish

This week’s paid post is a recipe that started life as something completely different — cooked sea bass for a stuffed pasta filling — but found new life through the power of leftovers. It turns out we prefer it like this anyway.

Joyeta Ng at Mu, E8 Expectation management

The best meals get better as they go, but you're not always so lucky. Joyeta Ng's new menu at Mu starts tremendously, but the snacks and starters are better than anything that comes after.

Wrote about food for the day job and now I'm out here getting ratioed by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission

The Rake at The Compton Arms, N1 Raking it in.

The Compton Arms has yet another excellent kitchen residency in The Rake, helping back up its claim to be Orwell’s perfect pub

Deranged campfire cooking over the weekend: a DIY shawarma of chicken, duck, and quail, roasted over an open flame. We made naan too, fried in the skillet below the meat, and were good and drunk by the time any of it was eaten.

My favourite cookbooks in 2025 Five books I can't put down

I read and test an awful lot of cookbooks these days, but these are the five I think of most fondly, and cook from most often

Singburi, E1 Out with the old...

Like every other London food writer, I went to Singburi. Maybe unlike everyone else, it was for the first time.

A little something I'm working on at the moment: chilli crisp, parmesan, and caper sourdough. Shamelessly inspired by a Ruby Tandoh pasta recipe. This is v2, and right now the laoganma is overpowering everything else, but there's definitely something here if I can get the balance right

Bar Mleczny Rusałka, Warsaw Turns out milk bars aren't just for droogs

They've been in my head since I visited a milk bar in Poland last month

Could taxpayer-funded public diners be revived? Thousands of diners were supported by the government and operated throughout the UK until the 1960s.

This is very cool! State-subsidised restaurants are such a great way to support people and potentially improve public health, and I'd basically given up that we'd ever have them again

Bar Del Monte, Washington DC Neo-Neapolitan

I was very sick when I wrote this, so I apologise in advance if it makes no sense, but I mused a little on eating Neapolitan pizza in a city where it’s still a novelty, not the norm

Environment Agency insider alleges ‘cover-up’ over sewage sludge on farmland Regulator and government accused of colluding with water industry to dump potentially toxic waste without oversight

Sewage sludge used to fertilise farmland, with minimal testing for whatever pollutants it may contain. What could go wrong?

Recipe: Soft scrambled eggs A simple, stress-free scramble

Eggs! Here's how I make 'em, with nothing more than butter, salt, and pepper, and without undue fuss or bother, but they still come out about as soft as can be.

Bar Mleczny Rusałka, Warsaw Turns out milk bars aren't just for droogs

I have a chance issue of @tribunemagazine.bsky.social to thank for putting me onto milk bars while I was in Warsaw, and I’m so glad I made the effort to track one down

Portis Pizza, N1 A slice shop, Roman-style

Amid a heaving wave of slice shop openings in London right now, Portis Pizza stands out by steering clear of NYC entirely

The Spanish Pantry, by José Pizarro Pantry staples on a restaurant budget

I’m not sure The Spanish Pantry is quite what it appears to be - an affordable, accessible entry point into Spanish cooking - but the recipes are excellent if you have the time (and budget!) for them

Always had a milk bar on my to-do list for Warsaw, and it did not disappoint. Wish I had time to work through more of them

Tamila, N1 Roti without the royalty

Tamila is a less vibey, more approachable take on the Tamil royal family that feels more casual without actually costing much less, but somehow invites you to spend a little less anyway

First food in Poland: zapiekanka, which is basically just mushroomy bread covered in a sauce of your choice. Ketchup is apparently traditional, but I didn't dare, so I figured garlic would do

Australia’s first cultured meat is... quail? Sydney-based Vow is the first lab-grown meat manufacturer approved to launch Down Under. Vow, which has sold its meat under the Forged brand in Singapore since last year, offers quail foie gras and pâ...

Let's have more cultured meat companies doing quail foie gras: absolutely bananas stuff that you just can't achieve with an actual animal involved

Rogue Sarnies, E2 The Simpsons of sandwiches

Rogue Sarnies started as a spin-off, but now it’s bigger than the original has ever been

My favourite London sandwich shops in 2025 Things in bread

Nailing down top five lists is always difficult; picking five sandwich shops felt all-but impossible. But I did my best, and here are the five I think are doing things-in-bread best right now.

New Roman-style slice shop down the road and it is doing the Lord's work 👌

Bun House, WC2 Welcome to the house of buns

I’ve eaten more of Bun House’s plump, crimson-stamped bao than I’d be prepared to count over the years, and for convenience alone I know I’ll be eating countless more

Recipe: Seeded sourdough rye bread Slow and sour

This is pretty damn close to my perfect rye bread: dense but soft, sturdy yet sour, and studded with seeds for extra texture. It doesn’t hurt that it only take about 15 minutes of real work to make it.

Bad Manners, E1 London's best burrito is back

"London's best burrito" might sound like it's intended to damn with faint praise, but I promise: Bad Manners really is great