Little Duck The Picklery is a fermenting kitchen and wine bar. Nestled in between many of the hottest restaurants in East London – including their next-door neighbour Angelina. The Picklery is cosy-intimate-dining-space meets buzzy-working-kitchen. Here you can have a front row seat to observe the magic by witnessing first hand the inner workings of a lively small batch pickling factory.

When I think of Italy, I think of how indulgence can be found in the simplest of ingredients. Campania has simplicity down in its recipe for success… they just need to add a little bit of indulgence. 

Join me for at an evening so absurd at one point I thought I was at the opening ceremony for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

The following recommendation is sent with a heavy heart and an empty stomach - stop eating at The Ivy. And I mean all of them.

So here we are years later, as lightning strikes again in East Sussex, and I want some of whatever they’re sniffing down by the harbour because they’ve only done it again. Today I’m going to tell you about The Curlew in Bodiam, why you should visit, and why it was one of the few outstanding meals I’ve eaten in my life.

There are a collection of restaurants in East London that in my head just blur into one infuriatingly trite farm to table blob. Bright, Brawn, Brat, Rochelle, Pidgin, Angelica, Angelina, the list goes on.

There is a ton of controversy surrounding MSG.

Growing up in eye-rollingly organic Brighton, E numbers like MSG were demonised, with the fury generated merely by their existence matched only by not voting Green, pre-bought hummus and a lack of efficient cycle lanes.

But often lesser known is the racism that pervades the discussion around MSG. To this day, unfounded and unsubstantiated claims are being peddled, including that the consumption of MSG – often found in Chinese cooking - is linked asthma, headaches, and even brain damage.

When your sister asks you in March if you’d like to have a ‘Sibling Sunday’ in May you’re not always cognisant of what your plans will be the night (or in this case nightmare) before. ’Of course! I’d love to’, I responded with the enthusiasm of someone blissfully ignorant of the amount of alcohol he would have consumed about 6 hours earlier.

I’m just going to throw it out there that I discovered Bancone. It was 2018 and Cardi B had just thrown a shoe at Nicki Minaj. Meanwhile, somewhere in Charing Cross, I happened to stumble upon a new little opening called Bancone. This was long before every Love Islander and their tax avoiding partner had instagrammed it to death, and long before Grace Dent described Bancone (and potentially all my single friends) as “Casually orgasmic and deeply affordable”.

The pre-theatre meal is an often overlooked but highly influential piece of the British Zeitgeist. It screams of that pair of Mango heels your Mum bought for the occasion, paying for everything in cash, and a 3-course prix fixe menu where smoked salmon and a £5 supplement ribeye were featured without fail. I have long sought for a restaurant that epitomises the essence of ‘Dinner and a Show’, a concept I hold so dear. That restaurant is Brasserie Zedel.

Whoever the coked up millennial was that thought it would be good idea to create a party room in the middle of a rooftop bar - we salute you.

Having visited this former Michelin starred haunt, which offers authentic and modern Cantonese cuisine twice, i was intrigued to see how the restaurant, which has occasionally struggled under the weight of it’s stuffy and unapproachable air, would fair in this new al fresco setting.

If the first reaction someone has when you mention you’re going to a certain restaurant is ‘oh my god, it’s so expensive there’, I find that you spend a good few days prior justifying to yourself the inordinate amount of money you’re about to spend.

Pophams is the type of place where you look around at the clientele and think ‘wow, you earn over £30,000 without sacrificing your moral integrity’. No city boys here. Just VICE-working, V&A tote bag swinging, (sexy) beanie wearing east Londoners. Like Soho House, but for people who participate in Veganuary. Pophams’ USP is bakery by day, pasta by night, so after too many mornings queueing in the rain for an almond croissant, I thought it was about time to try their dinner offering.

The type of restaurant that opts to have its famous patrons adorning the staircase walls usually goes one of two ways – An irreverent institution that reminds you of a bygone age – like Shirley Bassey. Or an aged, slightly offensive, chain-smoking former child star clinging on to her waning beauty – like Rita Ora. So as I shimmied past signed photos of the owners with Judi Dench, Twiggy, and the drummer from Bananarama, I couldn’t help but think that English’s in Brighton would probably fall somewhere between the two.