Restaurant Review

It’s that time of year again. While we may have made it through the darkest day, or winter solstice as it is more properly known, there is still the slow, gradual climb out of these dimly-lit early months...

Never mind cabbage soup or grapefruit. One of the more esoteric weight loss plans of the Seventies was The Sexy Pineapple Diet by Inge and Sten Hegeler. It involved swapping regular food two days a week...

Call emergency book rescue, as the copy of Aran in its namesake cafe is worse than dog-eared. The hardback spine is cracked, the edges of its well-thumbed pages, once virginal white, are crumpled and...

In the 1800s a group of well-heeled Glasgow merchants, bankers and professors used to walk down the old Dumbarton Road every Saturday. Back then Partick was rural and leafy and after their perambulations...

"88 Dumbarton Road, please”. “That’s Two Fat Ladies”. This is how you play restaurant bingo with taxi drivers. They know all the city’s institutions – Rogano, “The Chip”, Gamba, La...

In Japan, they throw hanami festivals to celebrate the blooming of sakura. These plants are symbolic, as they represent the transience of life, and the Japanese phrase “mono no aware” – the awareness...

I’m the Christmas police. On the 1 December, I permit you to put up a few tasteful decorations. Don’t be like that neighbour who’s had a flashing-nosed Rudolph and a waving Santa in their window...

At this time of year the forecast is for temperatures to plummet, and the big freeze is to make an appearance very soon. It might be chilly outside but inside our house it was utterly Baltic, resembling a...

Cheeseburgers. That was our final meal on a recent visit to Madrid. My defence, apart from mild sunstroke, is that it was a Saturday night, and I had failed to prepare. It got later, the restaurants...

Private jets, penthouse suites, top of the podium. Champagne always seems to be drunk at altitude. People at ground level can keep their tepid beers and hot drinks, as they need to stay warm while...