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Far from a clandestine little black book, my little white book is instead where I will continue to openly collate all my favourites – from restaurants to contacts to products to ideas – for all to view and benefit from.
Just for starters, here are a few of my favourite comfort food places….. |
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Claridges www.claridges.co.uk
I adore the ritual of afternoon tea which somehow makes the act of gossiping and venting to friends seem much more civilised. For me, the one at Claridges is by far the best quality. I love the Marco Polo jelly – loose, mellow, tea-scented – and the finger sandwich fillings so tender they melt in the mouth. |
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Fortnum and Mason www.fortnumandmason.com
I will often go alone to this emporium of beauty when I am in the mood to be still and quiet and just sit and write, soaking up the opulence. They do the very best Welsh rarebit in town. This is no mere cheese on toast. The thick duvet of topping is rich, flavoursome, fluffy and blistered to just the right shade of golden brown. |
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Automat www.automat-london.com
A favourite weekend brunch venue with friends before wandering around Dover Street Market and then up Old Bond Street, where we try on jewels we will never afford. This smart American diner is a perfect place for Eggs Benedict with crispy fries and milkshakes so luxuriously thick you have to eat them with a spoon. |
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Betty’s Café Tea Room in York www.bettys.co.uk
This place makes me feel warm and fuzzy about being British as they serve heart-warming dishes in such a wonderfully traditional environment that you feel you can almost hear steam trains in the background whilst biting into the most succulent treacle tart you’re ever likely to taste. |
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Hummingbird www.hummingbirdbakery.com
My darling Portobello Road is, for me, like wandering through a giant treasure box. When I need to replenish my blood sugar levels, I head to this blink-and-you’ll-walk-by-and-miss-it slice of cupcake heaven. I am often found there perched on a stool with a massacre of red velvet cupcake crumbs upon my fingers. |
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Benares www.benaresrestaurant.com
This is my favourite Indian restaurant. The food here is excellent, honest and authentic and each spice is done justice. I particularly like the Biryani. The service also blows me away. Perceptive, genuine and attentive yet never intrusive, we always leave feeling warm and cherished as well as blissful over the food. |
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Leon www.leonrestaurants.co.uk
I am simply in love with Leon. It is always a treat to eat food this delicious in such stylishly quirky surroundings but which is also wholesome, natural and virtuous. It feels almost too good to be true. My favourites are the meatballs and rice, which I have with extra coriander salsa and aioli, polished off with obscenely creamy lemon cheesecake. |
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Maroush www.maroush.com
The food from this popular Lebanese gem is pure comfort for me, and the fact it is open till 5am is a little dangerous. I once naughtily sent a courier bike to collect my eight favourite dishes after I spent far too long thinking about their food and had to give in but was too lazy to go out. With dishes like their tart Samboussek feta pastries, I find it is always the right decision to succumb to Maroush at any hour. |
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Fahkreldeine www.fakhreldine.co.uk
I come here specifically for one thing – the thin sheath of crispy bread rubbed with butter and sumac that only comes with the mixed grill. Although the meat itself is delicious, I usually give that to fellow diners and instead eat the bread with their glorious spiced bukhari rice and lashings of labne yoghurt. I once engineered for three of my meetings in one week to be held there just so I could eat it over and over again. |
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Four Seasons Hotel Manhattan www.fourseasons.com
This was, back in 2007, without a glimmer of doubt, the most perfect breakfast I have ever eaten. It took me four hours, but I made the most of a selection of dishes including clouds of pancakes and home fries with bacon, that were each executed to within an inch of heaven, washed down with freshly-crushed strawberry juice. |
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Cote www.cote-restaurants.co.uk
This delightful chain makes all that is charming and stylish about French cooking accessible to everyone through its chic, understated yet open style and affordable pricing. So much so that I once when I couldn’t decide between two desserts, I had both. The Pissaladiere, served on a wooden block and cooked to tooth-pleasing crispness is almost criminally good quality at the mere price. I also like to drop in for a café noisette, an espresso with double cream served in a tiny glass. |
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Lasan www.lasangroup.com
You can taste the devotion to marrying spices and discipline of technique in every bite at Jabbar Khan’s labour of love Indian restaurant in Birmingham. Unfortunately, my first visit coincided with unexpected dental work that morning. It is testament to the deliciousness of the food that I ate through the pain, enjoying every single bit of it. |
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Tayyabs www.tayyabs.co.uk
Sometimes, when I stand outside this much-loved Pakistani grill-house in Whitechapel, I feel a swell of what it must feel like to witness your child at their graduation. I used to come here when at university many moons ago, when it was just one small room serving the kind of food you come to crave. Now Tayyabs is a full-on experience with its name up in neon light above the door and serpentine queues snaking their way around crammed tables of the most eclectic mix of diners, noisy and joyous. However, when I took one friend there, she asked to be left in pure silence whilst she ate her lamb chops, so intense was her reverence. Yet despite acclaim, the laminated menus and prices have remained frozen in time since my student days. An utter steal. |
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The Stag at Breckland Lodge in Attleborough www.brecklandlodge.co.uk
This is where my siblings and I make our parents take us to whenever we are in Norfolk. They do an incredible carvery of slow-cooked sweet and juicy roasted meats including beef, gammon, pork and turkey with high quality produce trimmings ranging from traditional favourites like crunchy roast potatoes and large curls of Yorkshire pudding to an impressive array of eclectic side dishes to pile plates very high with. |
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Roka www.rokarestaurant.com
I hate feeling claustrophobic in restaurants so Roka, with its glass walls and plenty of natural light, is a real favourite of mine, especially in summer. I love to sit on the gnarled wood benches, head propped in palms, and watch the flitting hands of chefs at the Japanese robata grill. The staff here are so dedicated and knowledgeable. A waiter once approached me to say he simply could not bear to watch me eating my duck without a particular sauce on the same chopstickful, enthusing that it tastes so much better with this accompaniment. |
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Whole Foods www.wholefoodsmarket.com
Forget rollercoasters, it is this veritable Disney land of food that lifts me up with a headrush of excitement, with its abundance and global variety. I find I can never leave without purchasing armfuls of new things to try. Sometimes, if you are not sure whether you will like something, the ever-passionate staff not only give you lots of information and ideas on how to use it, but sometimes also take you to the till to authorise for you to try it free the first time, which I find exceptional customer service. |
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Tiki Café coffee www.tikicafe.co.uk
This is the very best coffee I have tasted in ages, with a lovely velvety, rounded flavour and mellow, comforting depth with none of the acidity left in the mouth by some other coffees. Their sugar-free iced caramel lattes have been quite an addiction. |
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Kingsland Edwardian Butchers
For incredibly fresh and flavoursome meat to make comfort food at home, I go to this very special place on the Portobello Road where the butchers are so proud of and dedicated to what they do that it sometimes almost feels like it is a calling and you cannot help but share their intoxicating fervour in their presence. |
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The Providores www.theprovidores.co.uk
I could very happily stay at the Providores from morning till night, with some books at my side, and work my way through the imaginative menu. The Turkish Eggs with butter, yoghurt and chilli are a revelation and stopped me in my tracks when I first tasted them, washed down with a steaming pot of fragrant Earl Grey. I once had a starter salad so very tasty that I ordered two more consecutive portions instead of a main course. |
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The Wolseley www.thewolseley.com
If I am feeling down, there are two places you are guaranteed to find me – Selfridges or The Wolseley. There is nothing that makes me feel like all is right again in my world than cocooning myself in this art deco haven for a few hours to replenish. I particularly love the bustling Manhattan feel of the atmosphere and endorphin raising service. |
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Mela www.melarestaurant.co.uk
I love the lunchtime menu at this colourful Indian restaurant on Shaftsbury Avenue. They do a wonderful selection of paratha breads, inspired by the ‘Alleyway of Parathas’ in India, which you can have made with a variety of flours and stuffed with different fillings. It is extraordinarily good value and also one of the very few places that serves Khadhi – a yoghurt, gramflour and fenugreek Punjabi dish, so I go here when I am missing home. |
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Petersham Nurseries www.petershamnurseries.com
There is always a slightly magical feel to eating here, sat with your feet on the earth at a table amidst the branches, with the enchanting merchandise glinting here and there. The vegetables and herbs, in particular, on your plate here are so immediate and freshly plucked from their natural state that it is such an intimate and humbling experience to enjoy a meal in these surroundings. |
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Laduree www.laduree.fr
If when I die heaven does not look like Laduree, I shall be thoroughly disappointed. This is my favourite place for sweet treats and only a very cold-hearted person could fail to melt over their rainbow selection of light as air macaroons. |
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