Sometimes I feel that I am the only one who likes the Chandos – a large Sam Smiths pub near Charing Cross station where the downstairs always feels kind of old and stuck in time, and the upstairs like a velvet throne of luxury and depraved deca[…]

Colleagues L and D bravely join me for this cheesy lunch.
Brillat Savarin
French unpasturised soft cow’s milk cheese, bought from Une Normande à Londres
We have a quarter of a squat round wheel of this cheese. It’s smooth and fluffy whit[…]

It’s almost exactly six months since I posted the first of these cheesy writeups, and  cheese # 50 is coming up later this week. Either of these things would be a good excuse for a celebration.  Both together most definitely are! Clearly, the[…]

Having worked around Covent Garden from the middle of 2002 I’d walked past the Newton Arms loads of times (not least on the way to Parker Place where the original Club FreakyTrigger was held) , but always thought it looked a bit, y’know, […]

My first M R James story was Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook, which is also the first in the book. I talk about it at some length here, and most of the way through it I have to confront the issue that I did not find it very scary as a ghost story. So now[…]

Flower Marie
Soft, white-rinded, raw-milk sheep cheese, from Sussex, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy
Flower Marie comes in little brick-like squares. The rind is white with gentle pink tinge, and adorably soft and velvety-furred and strokeable &#[…]

Pubs can offer many excellent things, as are being amply revealed in our Pubs of the 00s series. However, culinary invention is rarely one of them. Even self-proclaimed gastropubs rarely get further than putting ‘twists’ on the standard p[…]

Cone du Port Aubry
Raw French goats cheese, from Mons
Cone du Port Aubry is, as the name implies, conical. Internet anecdote says that the cheesemaker nicked his wife’s bra and used it as a cheese mould. If this is true, then the cheesemaker&#8[…]

Unpacking my crate on the first day in a new office I glanced out of the window. The first thing I noticed was a pie with Hitler’s face.* The second thing I noticed was this unassuming, but tempting, little boozer.
“Excellent,” I sa[…]

Tomme de Savoie
Raw-milk cow cheese from France, from Le Marché du Quartier
This wedge of cheese is grubby on the outside; gray and brown, pitted and wrinkled. Inside it’s a soft moist translucent creamy paste dotted with little holes. The ins[…]