Where to eat in St Foy en Tarentaise

 Having visited St Foy every year for the past decade and suddenly realising that there was absolutely no literature about where to eat in this rapidly expanding town - it was time to make the ultimate guide on where to dine. Please note - all prices for dinner are estimates and include significant amounts of alcohol and that bookings in high seasons are a good idea - think a couple of months in advance for La Colonnes or a year in advance for New Years Eve.

The Balcon - As chic as Chanel?

This time last year, The Boyfriend and I headed to Brasserie Roux, as a pre-Nutcracker pit stop, and ate a selection of rather uninspiring food in their grand but empty dining room. This time, we headed back to visit their new version – The Balcon, as a pre-Nutcracker pit stop and found it to be a very different experience. They've clearly tried to make the place cool - it's inspired by "Coco Chanel's 1920's Paris apartment". They are possibly under the misguided view that if they throw the words "Coco Chanel" in a restaurant blurb, the place will automatically become the new "scene" place. Last time I checked Ms. Chanel was known for the 2.55, the LBD and tweed suits but not her interior design skills.

Da Mario- a neighbourhood find

Good neighbourhood restaurants aren't easy to find at the best of times. In Central London, its a bloody nightmare. In Covent Garden I assumed it wouldn't be possible. Surprisingly, I found one.  Da Mario is an unassuming little place, from the outside and from the inside, but with an almost perfect Urbanspoon rating, it seemed to be worth a shot. 

Delaunay- a formula that works

The Wolseley, in my opinion, is a flawless restaurant. I love the nostalgic air the place has, the never-misses-a-beat service, the old school charm, the well executed dishes and the beautiful dining room.  There is something about it that puts me into a PG Wodehouse frame of mind. Amazing, given in fact this is actually a young restaurant. 

St Moritz - Where a fondue is a fondue

Last Tuesday, The Boyfriend and I, attempted to go to MeatLiquor, only to find out they had run out of hamburgers. How this happens in a restaurant dedicated to burgers, I'm not sure. Disappointed, freezing and starving, we headed to Soho, hoping to head to one of the many great reservation-less restaurants. Instead of heading to our usual haunts (Princi, Barrafina, Polpetto etc.) we ended up at St. Moritz, a place I'd wandered past at least a dozen or so times and always been intrigued by . It turned out to be the solution to all our problems that night. For just over an hour we left London and ended up in Switzerland, in a kitsch, rustic chalet. Everything, seemed authentically swiss including the music, but thankfully not the wine.

Barrafina

Whoever said you can't change a person, was wrong. When I first met The Boyfriend,  he knew a grand total of two restaurants,  neither of which took reservations or served food that was unhealthy - Sophie's and Barrafina. The Boyfriend, pre-boyfriend title, was unable to make plans more than three hours in advance, or eat food other than cottage cheese, smoked salmon and blueberries, unless it was only slightly less nutritious. In other words, he was the world's best dinner date. Luckily for our relationship - Barrafina was such a great location for our first dinner date that I didn't mind that no carbs were involved in the whole meal and that he hadn't had to put in any effort. Almost two years later it still serves as "oh-bugger-we-don't-have-a-reservation-for-any-decent-restaurant" - which happens a lot less frequently than 18 months ago. Now of course, he not only knows more than two restaurants, many of which have phone lines, but he primarily eats unhealthy foods.

MeatLiquor

I'm not very good at queuing for food and I'm definitely not very good at waiting for an hour for food once I'm seated. Normally, this would make me hate the restaurant involved, angry at the staff, tearful inside the restaurant and bitter leaving it, and yet, I left MEATliquor happy. Fatter but happy.

A long weekend in NYC

The Boyfriend and I had four days in NYC and were determined to eat as much as possible. Four days really isn’t enough to go everywhere we wanted, (we did consider taking sandwiches/hotdogs/bagels on the plane to extend our eating vacation for another day but figured that shipping meat across continents probably wasn’t the smartest of ideas), but we did pretty well for ourselves.

Providores - Brunch

The Brunch Buddy and I were on a hunt for the best breakfast in London, and over a two month period we visited a significant number of places. We started the experience with Providores. Having visited Kopapa a couple of months earlier and having loved it, I assumed the original Peter Gordon restaurant was to be just as satisfying. In terms of food it was. Providores is situated on Marylebone high street, and divided, as is so fashionable these days, into two parts - the downstairs being more casual and accepting no bookings and the upstairs being a slightly more formal dining room. The Brunch Buddy and I sat upstairs being too lazy and lacking the mental capacity too queue.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club has been on my “to-eat” list forever - they have four branches, the Soho one not too far away, but always I’ve been put off by the lack of reservations and the threat of the queue. Okay temperature, sunshine, and only a slight hangover made it a feasible option for The Brunch Buddy and I. When we arrived at 11am, the queue outside was already snaking up the street, and we waited about 15 minutes before grabbing a table outside next to the ever growing queue. 

Nizuni

22 Charlotte Street is  an unfortunate address for a sushi restaurant, opposite Roka, the constantly packed and incredibly scene Japanese restaurant. It's a bit like being a normal person forced to stand next to a supermodel in a group picture. In this case the normal person was actually rather good-looking. 

Vapiano - Italian food organized by Germans

It is a dream combination. Italian food, created in an incredibly efficient way. This is what Vapiano is all about. There is no messing about wasting time trying to work out who pays what, as every person is given a card, that they then "charge" food and drinks to at a selection of various stations. Your food is made to order at one of each station whilst you watch (pasta, antipasti), or just collect them (dessert or drinks), or order and get a buzzer (Pizza). It works out perfectly. Each person gets what they want, charged to them and can edit their dish to their particular liking - no basil, no issue, no garlic, no problem. Even better, you can get it to go (their pasta makes a very good breakfast), and their takeaway boxes are perfectly lunch sized Tupperware. In fact, this is possibly one of my favourite casual places to go. It is great place to meet up with old friends, as the lack of service means no-one really cares if you sit there for four hours, as I did last Tuesday.

Christopher's - The Search for Brunch Continues...

Still on the search for the "Best Breakfast in London", and killing time until Wolseley V. 2, Delaunay, shows up in the neighbourhood, The Boyfriend, The Sibling and I checked out Christopher's - an American style grill, that has a mouthwatering brunch menu. Its a fairly upmarket place, occupying two floors of a large building in Covent Garden, with a large dining room. Sadly, no newspapers were offered, and this is not the kind of place that its acceptable to look obviously hungover. Service was unmemorable, everything showed up on time, in the correct place, but nothing special. 

Cecconi's - Brunch

Despite having found a pretty perfect Brunch spot in the form of Dean Street Townhouse, The Boyfriend and I decided to check out a similar place on the other side of Regent Street - Cecconi's. We had tested Cecconi's, earlier in the year, for dinner and had come away rather unimpressed, but the breakfast menu looked so appealing we decided to give it another shot.

Dean Street Townhouse - Brunch

I'm on a hunt for my perfect brunch spot. So far I haven't found it. My brunch spots needs to have:

a) Satisfying food, innovative but not too pretentious (Sorry, Helene Darroze)

b) A cute set-up, but not so "scene" I have to make as much effort as I would turning up to Zuma (Goodbye The Wolseley) 

c) No queue (It's just not meant to be, The Breakfast Club) 

d) Proximity to Covent Garden (It is not you, it is me, 202)

e) Brunch served past midday (Why, Nopi? Why?) 

f) Free papers (What were you thinking, Roast) 

The Ivy

There are two things about The Ivy that make it truly remarkable - sadly, neither of these two things are its culinary abilities. Firstly, it must be the only restaurant in London that was full on packed at 5.30 on a Friday. Its not even like this place has a great Pre-Theatre menu that makes it irresistable, because that's only available Monday to Wednesday. Despite that they are very on the ball about theatre and opera, the man who took my reservation knew which opera I was seeing when I didn't! 

Canteen Covent Garden

Harrods,  nine "amazing" courses prepared by Thomas Keller, the six-michelin starred chef, widely regarded as the best in the world, for an impressive £250 a head. For many, that was the highlight of the year. For a ten day period London's foodies, and I'm sure the odd banker or two, enjoyed what many described as a once in life time experience. This was the pop-up to end all pop-ups. On the other side of town, The Boyfriend and I dined at a slightly less glamourous pop-up, in the oh-so exclusive Covent Garden, where we ate one course, at a cost of a £18 a head. Yes, The Boyfriend and I we were some of the hundreds of other people who called a little too late and thus will we be sentenced to dream about the meal we missed until the fanfare dies down. Given the reviews I'm not optimistic that this will be soon 

Nopi

I am divided on the small plates concept that has invaded London. Yes, it provides flexibility, and the chance to try many things on the menu, a major benefit when the restaurant in question has a menu that leads to drooling and mentally questioning how many dishes you can order with out being judged by your waiter. But at the same time there are some downsides. Call me old-fashioned, but I like having a rhythm to a meal. I think there is nothing worse than having eight plates show up at the same time, especially if each comes with a hefty price tag, having nothing left to look forward to and not getting a chance to savour each dish.  Ultimately things get cold, the meal takes half as long as it should and the whole experience feels rushed.

Hawksmoor - A place to find happy dead cows

The day before one goes on a beach holiday most people attempt to detox a little bit - lose the fat that has built up over the winter, the fat that noone except the person who really loves you needs to see and the fat that a beach full of sunbathers certainly don’t want to see.  Stop drinking for a couple of days, so you show up to the beach in question, nice and glow-ey, without looking like a government advert for what happens to people who don’t exercise three times a week or consume their five fruit and veg. Not The Boyfriend and I, no, we decided to hit Hawksmoor, a restaurant with a menu packed with all the things that make you look ugly. Given The Boyfriend and I’s incredible lack of willpower this was a mistake. The holiday snaps from the five following days in Croatia are not quite as pretty as they should have been but the two hours were completely worth it.

Polpetto

Faced with the familiar situation of yet another Saturday night with no reservation The Boyfriend and I ended up at Polpetto. Barrafina, would be the normal choice in this situation, but we felt like going outside the box.

Corner Room

I really didn't want to like the Corner Room. Why? Because the Corner Room is really far away from Covent Garden, and I mean River Cafe far away. A £20 and 30 minute long cab ride each way and this place becomes expensive and time consuming. To be perfectly honest, had The Boyfriend and I not been heading to the East End anyway we probably never would have gone. This would have been a mistake because the Pork with Portugese Bread and Butter Pudding was so worth the journey. 

Bocca di Lupo

I've really tried hard to fall in love with Bocca di Lupo the way the rest of London has. Seriously, I have gone and attempted to be wowed every time and yet it has never happened. Every time I'm left with the feeling that perhaps, I'm just ordering wrong but after three attempts I have officially given up. It is the kind of restaurant I know I should like - Italian food from a variety of different regions, flexible ordering, an elegant dining room and prime location in Soho. This is technically the kind of restaurant that could suit every occasion, if only the food lived up to everything else. 

Nordic Bakery

Soho, cinnamon buns, coffee, cakes and a whole host of other wonderful things.

Vinoteca

I had high hopes for Vinoteca. Its near to my new place of work and I had hoped this would be my "Dear God, I need a drink and some fattening food" place.  Sadly, I don't think this is it. It wasn't that it was bad, it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination, it was just very familiar.

Princi - The Happiest Place on Earth

There is one over riding factor that puts me off visiting a restaurant - a lack of information. Apparently, this is cool at the moment  and seems to be a common  theme with new restaurants, I blame Nuno Mendes and Russel Norman. As a control freak, I hate this. A normal trip to a restaurant is incrediby well researched - I tend to know everything about the place before I show up - I know what I am going to eat, what the place looks like, and roughly how much the experience will cost me.

Cox, Cookies & Cakes vs. Hummingbird - A Tale of Two Cupcakes

The corner of Brewer Street and Wardour Street in Soho is a great place to be standing, as both streets have a fabulous cupcake shop. The question is which street to take? One afternoon, The Boyfriend and I decided to taste test. One Vanilla Cupcake (Cox,Cookies and Cake) and one Toffee Apple Cupcake (Hummingbird). Sitting on a step on a random street in Soho we compiled the following list of merits: 

Meatballs - A Reason to Roll to Farringdon

Okay, so I'm either prophetic, a trendsetter, or just damn lucky. About 2 months ago, following my trip to Istanbul, I wrote a post/ song of praise/ love poem/ letter to God/ alcohol fuellled rant extolling the many virtues of the meatballs as a vehicle for serving meat that can be read here.

La Cave a Fromage

La Cave a Fromage may not seem like the obvious choice for breakfast,  given it is essentially a glorified cheese shop that serves wine, but what a wonderful brunch I had there last week. Most people can't handle wine and cheese first thing in the morning and by first thing I mean noon, luckily my new brunch buddy could. 

Istanbul (4) - Park Samdan, Reina

Our dinner post Kanaat at Reina was less exciting. Reina is one of those places that it is good to see and be seen. Its in Ortakoy part of an upmarket strip of nightclubs and restaurants near the first bridge. The Boyfriend, his friends and guidebooks all seem to have a similar opinion on Reina – they love to hate it. They hate the occassionaly chavvy and over the top-ness of the place, the pretentiousness , overpriced drinks and service, and the crowds, the mix of gold-diggers, too old businessmen and tourists, and yet people, including The Boyfriend and his friends go there a lot... We visited on both a Monday and a Thursday and on both times the place was packed.

Istanbul (3) - Kanaat

Kanaat, located on the Asian side of Istanbul, is a renowned restaurant for home style Turkish cooking. The Boyfriend face glowed as he stared at the menu-and his eyes grew wide – the way mine do at the sight of a Net a Porter sale - pointing out the things that he hadn't been able to eat outside of his parents home. Obviously, this meant that every dish was compared to The Parent's version - and whilst all fell short, it was only by a little - extraordinarily high praise. (Please note - The Turks are a bit like the Italians in the sense that no food is as good as Mama's, whereas most people in the UK go out to eat better food than they can find at home, most Turkish people seem to feel that anything found in a restaurant is never as good as home leading one to wonder why they even have restaurants in the first place? Anyway, any Turkish person you meet - if discussing some type of food you want to try, will normally invite you to their home or in the case of one of The Boyfriend's friend will offer to ship you their mother's version of the dish in question. So basically any Turkish restaurant is a really an imitation of the best Turkish food.

Istanbul (2) - Sultanahmet Koftecisi

Our second day in Istanbul involved a trip to the Grand Bazaar. After two hours of wandering around in circles looking at thousands of almost identical scarves, bags, bowls and packets of Turkish tea, The Boyfriend was close to abandoning me alone in the middle of the thing. The final straw came after a ten minute discussion with a store owner about two very similar bracelets, The Boyfriend let out a howl of frustration and it was time to leave. Walking quickly we left the Bazaar, and headed down the main street in Sultanahmet. This was a probably a good thing - my arms were starting to strain under the weight of new purchases as I knew my suitcase would in three days, but hey, at least my wallet was lighter.

 We were headed for Sultanahmet Koftecisi - a 90 year old restaurant specializing in Turkish meatballs. Despite its location in the heat of tourist Istanbul, proximate to the Blue mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Cisterna, this was by no means a tourist trap. Reassuringly, there were mainly locals, and a distinct lack of catering for English speakers.

Istanbul (1) - Zuma

So The Boyfriend and I had four days in Istanbul. For The Boyfriend this is no excitement, being an Istanbulli and all. For me this would be the highlight of my year. Now I know its pathetic to go all the way to Turkey to eat in a restaurant that I could technically eat in in London. I accept that. I judge myself. I judge others who do the same. Will I eventually end up as that person who leaves the UK and only eat in restaurants where they recognise the name? I hope not and I have a long list of reasons that attempt to justify heading to Zuma in Istanbul on one of our four nights. 

Travels in Italy (4) - Rome, San Crispino Gelateria

I expected most meals in Italy to challenge my thoughts abut food. I expected the pasta I ate to show me how "real" pasta should be. The vegetables, to show me how "real" vegetables should be cooked and the beef to show me what "real" beef was like. High expectations, non? But on a culinary pilgrimage to Italy would you expect any less?


In reality, only one experience confounded my thoughts about food - San Crispino. It seems like a lot to say about an Ice cream place. I accept that. I, myself am not a big ice cream fan, in our 10 days we only ate the stuff twice but San Crispino changed the way I felt.  San Crispino is now infamous as Rome's best ice cream. There's two locations, but we headed to the one near the Trevi fountain.