Sweet Treats in London

It’s been a very long term. I've barely managed to see any of my friends from home and it seems we’re all just completely bogged down by the dreaded third year workload. However, for me, last weekend marked the beginning of the end (for this term at least), and even better, the beginning of Christmas! Yes I know it’s mid-November, and no I am not ashamed. I will proudly own up as one of those Christmas loving needs-two-months-to-build-up-excitement types, I always have been and always will be. For me, Christmas is about family, friends, great food, and fun Christmas outings, and this is definitely what this weekend was all about.

On Saturday morning Harriet and I had arranged to have brunch and as the local Londoner I left it up to her to pick the place. She did NOT disappoint! She picked a place I’d never heard of called Honey&Co near Warren Street station. Now I’m one of those controlling weird people who likes to look up the entire menu of a place and take at least 3 days to mull over what I’m going to have – I’m just far too indecisive to choose on the spur of the moment. It’s a problem. However, the Honey&Co website is pretty basic and strange to navigate, with no menu, so alas I’d have to risk the anxiety of choosing on the day.

In the end, this website turned out to reflect the intimate, friendly atmosphere of the café/restaurant. Despite being very tucked away and subtle, the place was packed and we were lucky we’d booked. All the staff were really friendly and accommodating and I felt slightly like I was in someone’s living room rather than a restaurant. However – the best part was, of course, the food. We were recommended ‘the big breakfast’, and it was an AMAZING choice. At £12.95 per person it’s a complete bargain, and it is absolutely perfect for such an indecisive person like me. I should mention brunch in particular is very tricky as I can never choose between the sweet and savoury option – so this combination was a dream come true.

After a few sips of our rose and cinnamon tea we were bombarded with mini plates of Israeli mezze. On the savoury side we had houmous, garlic yogurt, pittas and breads, curried carrots, feta salad and olives, whilst for the sweet tooth there was hands down the best granola I’ve ever tasted (and I am a granola fiend) with yogurt and berries, and delicious varieties of jam. After ALL this we then chose our own option from the main menu – Harriet went for a harrissa sausage roll with a fried egg, whilst revealing that she’d NEVER had a fried egg before – just IMAGINE. After some heavy debating I went for poached eggs baked with wilted spinach and yogurt served with potato bread soldiers – simple but delicious. The eggs were the perfect amount of runniness for me, although I like them preeeetty undercooked so you may want to specify if you prefer a less liquidy egg (yes I know I’m so gross). The combination of the tart yogurt and spices with the creamy textures of the egg and spinach was just right – I could not have made a better choice!

Despite this immense feast, we couldn’t help being tempted by the beautiful array of cakes on display – we’ll blame it on our dangerous seating position RIGHT by the counters. We decided to share a coconut and chocolate cake (so much restraint). I’m not usually a coconut fan but it was actually very subtle and complimented the richness of the chocolate sponge perfectly. A great end to a three course brunch!

Once I had recovered from the morning banquet (and having been further plied with cakes at my sister’s house) we headed to Covent Garden to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for my little sister’s 10^th birthday. I’d been really excited about this for the whole week, it’s one of my favourite Roald Dahl books and I was so excited to see how the Wonka World would be translated onto stage. When we got there I realised it hadn’t just been translated onto the stage – the whole foyer of the theatre was decked out in Wonka merchandise and chocolates and really got us in the mood.

We were lucky enough to be sitting in the Royal Box, right at the edge of the stage, I’ve never been so close to the stage before and it was such fun experience actually being able to SEE the faces on stage (a novelty for me even with my glasses on). The whole performance was just really fun, family-friendly, and often very funny – I barely stopped smiling from start to finish. But what really blew me away was the set. The way they’d constructed Charlie’s home – his grandparents’ bed, the falling down walls – and Wonka’s factory – the chocolate garden, the nut testing room, the glass elevator – made it feel like they had plucked it right out of my imagination. The oompa-loompas were also a major highlight and really cleverly done (I could never explain how) to create the illusion of their shortness. However, the real highlight was the curtain call. A steward came into our box and asked the woman next to us to stand up for a minute – next time we turned round Willy Wonka was sitting in her seat chatting to us! He did his curtain call from our box, no doubt slightly marred by our severe blushing in the spotlight, but still a really cute personal touch which just topped off a really feel-good evening.

I can’t promise a chat with Wonka for everyone, but I can guarantee a great evening out – get tickets here

London Weekend Part 2: Macbeth at The Globe

Having spent the interim between lunch and the theatre exploring Angel, having some frozen yogurt, and a glass of wine or two in a very cosy local pub, we made our way over to Southbank for the main event!

Despite being a self-professed Shakespeare lover, much to my shame I have never visited The Globe before – so by the time this weekend finally came round I was ridiculously excited. The Globe does not stick out in the modern London cityscape as I thought it would – as you walk further along Southbank it seamlessly transforms into Shakespeare-land, with statues and signs featuring the likes of Francis Bacon, so that when you approach The Globe, it just feels natural.

After having a little look around the shop (a little, chilled wander for Angus, a rather too excitable dash around for me) we made our way into the grounds surrounding the actual theatre.  Angus had opted for standing tickets, said to be the best way to see a play there, so we took on our roles of Shakespearean groundlings and queued up outside the doors. Once in, we established a great place almost right at the front, definitely within touching distance of the actors (not that I would EVER do that…). My worries of some sort of Shakespeare induced mosh pit full of pushy punters were quickly diminished, everyone was very polite and chilled out and we had more than enough space to enjoy the performance.

The performance began with an eerie drum performance followed by the witches’ first scene. Far from the scraggly old Scottish women in decrepit pointy hats that has so often been the image of Macbeth, these three were beautiful and strong young women – and funny too. Their sexuality was both emphasised and subverted to make fools of the egotistical military heroes such as Macbeth and Banquo, who they fundamentally control. The presence of these three women throughout the play on the balcony above the stage, hiding around pillars on the stage, or orchestrating a song, really highlighted their role as the puppet masters of the action.

Macbeth himself was not only extremely easy to look at, charming, handsome, rugged…I could go on…but he was also strikingly modern. Technically nothing had been updated about the performance, they were all in traditional dress, they used Shakespeare’s script word for word, it wasn’t one of those contemporary interpretations – but that’s what made me realise: Shakespeare doesn’t NEED updating. His pure words performed on a stage speak to an eternal audience, unbound by geography, gender, class or time. The performance showed me that a single phrase featured in the middle of a long speech which is easy to skim over or dismiss as just a linguistic product of its time can actually be one of the most crucial lines of the play – conveying precisely what the character is about and how this relates to us the audience.

Sadly it’s impossible to describe every part of the play – but a couple of parts really stood out, on top of what I’ve already mentioned. The Globe is, and always has been, an open air theatre (luckily the weather held out for us), in the majority of Shakespearean or other Renaissance plays there are numerous references to the weather and the heavens, at which point it was likely the actors would gesture to the sky – jokes about the elements or the technicalities of the stage were common and popular. However, in this production, this tradition was updated. Throughout the performance there were planes flying over, muting the actors’ words, and a particularly endearing and unexpected moment was when Macbeth actually referenced the inconvenience of this during one of his speeches. The pure unpredictability and accidental nature of this little addition was just another one of those nice aspects that brings you closer to the actors and their performance, and reminds you of the universality of the theatre.

Now, ghosts can be a bit of a taboo with regards to Shakespeare. I’ve learnt throughout my education that everyone has their own preference of how a ghost should be presented, from being physically on the stage to speaking off stage to the modern fashion of video footage and sound effects. I’m not hugely fussed about it - as long as it goes with the tone of the performance and there isn’t a madman in a white sheet running around the stage, it’s fine by me. Despite my lack of preference, I reckon Banquo’s ghost scene would have satisfied most fussy customers. His physical presence made the scene both terrifyingly haunting and hilarious at the same time. Banquo remained silent for the entire scene, merely following Macbeth around as he erratically leapt over chairs and scrambled around the dining table. The on-stage presence of the ghost made the scene all the more comic as the audience could see what the on-lookers could not – what was causing Macbeth to act so insanely - but his constant eye contact with Macbeth equally hinted that it could indeed all be in his head. This combination of comic and sinister devices, the stark contrast between Macbeth’s slapstick hysteria and Banquo’s eerie silence, encapsulated the entire performance for me. Not only did this production deliver the genre-defying plot and techniques that I feel so define the genius of Shakespeare, but they brought it to life in a modern context, without actually BRINGING it into a modern context – it proved that four centuries on, Shakespeare can still be enjoyed, and refreshed, by all.

Sadly, we caught one of the last performances, but The Globe are constantly showing great performances, I would go every week if I could! Find tickets for the latest shows here

London Weekend Part 1: Ottolenghi's Restaurant

Last weekend had been much anticipated in my calendar for the past two months: my surprise belated birthday weekend arranged by my lovely boyfriend! He combined my two favourite things: eating and Shakespeare, for the ultimate perfect weekend in London.

Angus kept lunch plans well under wraps, and I was completely surprised when I found out we were going to Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurant in Islington.

I’ve only known about Ottolenghi for about a year, thanks to my Mum receiving his book Plenty and producing out of it the Mediterranean Farro Salad – something that has quickly become a firm staple at any family dinner. It’s totally delicious and always completes the perfect tapas style dinner – my absolute favourite type of meal. Having this limited knowledge of Ottolenghi, the restaurant both met my hopeful expectations and completely surpassed them.

You can’t book for lunchtimes so we went early (12.30) to avoid missing out. We only queued for about half an hour, and were happily seated by 1. I’d advise not going any later than this as soon after we sat down the entire front of the restaurant/shop was a crowd of hungry people. I say restaurant/shop because this is both a sit-down restaurant and a (very posh) take away. As we were queuing a constant stream of yummy mummies and fashionable London-professional-types were running in and out with their boxes of salads and cakes.

As well as this, the front of the shop is lined with shelves of all sorts of Ottolenghi products. For a start: the desserts (I didn’t even know he did desserts!). The front window is packed with an innumerable number of sweet treats, from cupcakes to meringues, chocolate torte to apple tart, if you could name it, it was there. And all beautifully laid out. The other front window is similarly adorned, but this time with various store-cupboard goodies – I was particularly tempted by the homemade granola and jams (yes I am a breakfast fiend). With all this to work your appetite well and truly up, along with the copies of Ottolenghi’s cook books to flick through, AND the table of beautiful, colourful salads to excite you for what you’re about to dig into, the wait literally flew by.

Now onto the important stuff…the lunch menu is a ranging option of about 10 salads and 6 mains – there are various choices of how to mix and match these, but we both went for ‘normal’ (their subtler way of saying large) – 1 main accompanied by 3 salads. We chose to share these so all in all we had (get ready for this): Sundried tomato, caramelised onion and goat’s cheese quiche, seared tuna, grilled peppers with mint yogurt, spiced cauliflower with curried almonds, quinoa and giant cous cous with gorgonzola, roasted aubergine with pomegranate seeds and yogurt, roasted butternut squash with chargrilled sweetcorn and feta AND roasted new potatoes with an anchovy tapenade. Phew. Not your average green soggy salad from the supermarket.

Everything was absolutely incredible, even the things I wasn’t expecting to love (butternut squash – not a huge fan) I wolfed down. My favourite was definitely the aubergine – I always go for an aubergine dish in a restaurant as I can never recreate it at home - but with its perfectly chargrilled aftertaste and crispy skin, combined with the thick yogurt, this was by far the best aubergine dish I’ve tried. Having mopped up the rest with the generous assortment of bread, which was also really unique and unrivalled by any ‘bread baskets’ I’ve had before, we were well and truly stuffed.

Dessert is self-service; you simply go and pick which cake/pastry/tart/chocolate monstrosity you want from the front window. Having been desperate to sample these at the start, we decided we definitely needed a bit of a wander to work off our main...we’ll have to sample those another day!

Although we weren’t having dessert, the staff were extremely polite and accommodating. We weren’t rushed out at all, and were left to have our coffees in peace. Despite there being an ever growing queue of waiting diners we were under no pressure to leave, unlike in some busy restaurants. As well as an unrivalled meal and perfect service (as if you need another reason to pay a visit immediately), the prices are extremely reasonable. For what I’d definitely call a large plate of the most delicious, perfected and creative mixture of dishes you pay £16, and that’s the most expensive choice on the menu! Pretty good for a wonderful, filling meal at the restaurant of one of the most innovative and unique chefs around today.

Thank you, Ottolenghi! (And Angus…)

Ottolenghi also has restaurants in Soho, Notting Hill and Belgravia – you can find information and sample menus for them all here