Features

Lonely Planet’s Street Food Festival

A clear blue sky, shirt sleeves and a well-poured pint of Dorset Nectar are hardly conducive to the Great Indoors. But that indeed is where I find myself, struggling to be heard by my mate over the thumping Afrobeat constrained and concentrated by the bare brick interior of Village Underground in Shoreditch.

Food

Easter range at Carluccio’s

The gargantuan glass jar of mini eggs is emptying worryingly rapidly. Conveniently situated in the prime real estate just to the left of my keyboard, as an estate agent would have it, the tiny foil-wrapped ovoids are tantalisingly close- and the perfect reward for finishing an article. A paragraph. A line. Oh, let’s be frank: a word.

Restaurant Openings

Vivek Singh opens Cinnamon Soho

‘All Balls!’ screams the menu. But it’s not. In fact, it never is with Vivek Singh, whose culinary rambles from continent to continent deliver time after time. Cinnamon Soho is his shiny new venue- bringing Singh’s trademark collision of Indian flavours and European sensibilities to West End diners.

Books

No Place Like Home. Rowley Leigh

Slightly cheaply printed, and with the odd typo creeping in, this is not a book for the coffee table. Instead, petit, precise and packed with sensible classics it’s a book the true home chef can turn to again and again for reliable recipes that will always hit the spot.

Recipes

Salter’s Simnel Cake Recipe

If you are getting a little bored with all the same old chocolate eggs every year, why not try something different this year and bake a cake that is synonymous with Easter? Simnel Cake is a delicious fruity cake, covered and filled with marzipan.