Do You Come Here Often?

I spent most of last week working just off the Edgware Road, up near Maida Vale. The area has changed a lot in recent times. Church Street market is the same but it sells more exciting and exotic ingredients but sadly, most of the old pubs seem to have gone. We were done each day by sunset and one of the few places where we could get a drink at that time was the brilliant Don Pepe restaurant round the corner on Frampton Street. Apparently, it's London's oldest Spanish restaurant and I loved it. It wasn't open at 4pm but they let us in anyway and we drank the best white wine I've ever had with a little tapa of pata negra and some salted nuts. Three days in a row we went in and ordered the same bottle of Albariño wine. For half an hour each evening we really were in Spain on our holidays.
On our last day, Friday, I went to the Spanish deli next door to buy a couple of bottles as I don't know when I'll next be back. And who was in there buying the very same bottle but that Rhys Ifans. We obviously have very similar taste in food and wine. "He buys it for Sienna," said the bloke behind the counter once he'd left. "She drinks one bottle every single day, seven days week!" So there we are. Perhaps he'll be in Hoa Viet next week with a bowl of number 108.

Hang On, Maybe This Is The Best Restaurant In London...

This afternoon we went for our now traditional post-Christmas, pre-New Year lunch at The Wolseley. This is the fifth year in a row we've been now and, I think, this was the best one yet. When I say best one yet, it was precisely the same as all the others only more so. We even sat in the same area of the restaurant we always do, but there's something so perfect about this place that the fact you know the menu by heart, you know what the breadsticks look like and you recognise the brand of butter they use just makes it all the more enjoyable. The Wolseley is brilliantly, inspiringly reliable, you know that the service will be fantastic, you know you'll look at the tableware and linen and want to take it all home. And I couldn't give a monkey's about tableware and linen. Silvana's drinks - a glass of champagne, a glass of their own petit Chablis looked great (I stuck with fizzy mineral water). And while I grimaced slightly at paying £4.75 for a small bowl of buttered spinach, the espressos (served with a small glass of water and a dark chocolate) were great and less than two quid a pop, so it's swings and rahnd-a-bahts, innit? Scrap had - and really enjoyed - Eggs Benedict and we all shared the world's greatest, crispiest, most delicious whitebait starter. Oh, and Rhys Ifans and Sienna Miller were in there hoiking down roast beef and yorkshire puds in between nodding politely at strangers. I interviewed Rhys once, so I kept a professional distance and allowed Silvana to tell me what was going on over my shoulder. When they left he pulled on a pork pie hat and she climbed behind a huge pair of sunglasses. You see, our celebrity cousins can be reliable too. So, all good then. Perhaps it's even better than Locanda?