Everything you need to know about London Restaurant Festival 2019

October is a good month to be in London. Not only is London Cocktail Week on the way, London Restaurant Festival LRF) launches today.

For the whole of October, there are a huge number of events, competitions and exclusive festival menus being served at restaurants across the capital.

This year, there are around 250 restaurants taking part.

The festival menus are set around six themes:
Flights and Pairings features menus with drinks pairings, signature cocktails and fine wines.
London Legends features the city’s established stars at restaurants including Gordon Ramsay’s Maze Grill Mayfair, and Simon Rogan’s Roganic.
Amazing Spaces spotlights much-loved restaurants with beautiful surroundings, such as The Cinnamon Club in the Old Westminster Library and the grandeur of Holborn Dining Room.
Talk of the Town offers guests the chance to dine in some of London’s most newsworthy restaurants including Frog by Adam Handling, the legendary Otto’s, and new opening Farzi.
London with a View takes diners from the heights of Helix at the Gherkin and the Shard’s Ting Restaurant at the Shangri-La, to the banks of the River Thames at The Waterway.
Avant Garde celebrates the diverse, boundary-pushing cuisine from the likes of Marcus, Black Roe and Lima London.

And if you like a little competition, if you sign up to the LRF newsletter during October, you’ll be in with a chance to win a trip to Bangkok with Thai Airways; a weekend in Galicia with Estrella Galicia; or a trip to Jerusalem for the Open Restaurants festival in November.

LRF founder Simon Davis says, “I’m delighted to be partnering with OpenTable to make it even easier this year for guests to access London’s top dining experiences - we have some fantastic menus available. It’s one of my favourite parts of the festival, and this year I think we’ve got the best line-up yet. We’ve been running the festival for the past 11 years, and during this time we’ve seen other cities around the world emerge as impressive culinary hotspots. I’m delighted we’re able to transport our own guests to these cities to explore for themselves.”

All the information on this year’s LRF can be found at www.LondonRestaurantFestival.com.

Aerolite Lyndsay 10-year whisky: A mystery from Islay

I love a good mystery. I love a mystery even more if it involves whisky… a whistery? Whiskery?

Independent bottler Atom Brands has launched a new range of Islay whiskies, and this is the first release from its Character of Islay Whisky Company. Future releases will be single and blended malts representing the unique characteristics of Islay spirits.

The Aerolite Lyndsay - an anagram of ten-year-old Islay - is a peated single malt bottled at 46% abv, and interestingly, it’s from a mysterious unnamed Islay distillery. It’s been matured for at least 10 years in 70% ex-Bourbon barrels, 25% ex-Sherry Spanish oak quarter casks, and a bonus 5% mystery casks.

Islay whisky

Islay is one of the southernmost islands of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Although it’s a very small island, it has nine active distilleries. Islay whisky is known for its smoky, peaty style.

Islay itself has a bit of mystery about it. As well as being tricky to get to, it’s got an interesting, varied and rugged landscape. To the south of the island, you’ve got Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig, which epitomise the Islay style with their salty, peaty, smokiness.

To the north of the island, you’ve got Bunnahabhain and Jura, which have both used and not used peat over the years, as well as Bruichladdich, which is typically unpeated (except for a couple of big hitters in recent times).

And then there’s Caol Ila which mostly produces fragrantly smoky whiskies, but spends part of the year making unpeated whisky, Kilchoman - which only opened in 2005 - and Bowmore, with its typically fruity, smoky whiskies.

Islay is also home to one of the most famous ‘lost’ producers. Port Ellen closed in 1983, but its whiskies are still incredibly sought after today. Which one could it be from?

Less mysterious about the Aerolite Lyndsay is the packaging. It’s quite basic - not in a bad way - and keeps things real, stating ‘believe what you will’, bringing the focus back to the whisky itself.

Filling your nose with this stuff transports you to the Hebrides. It’s rugged, salty, peaty and smoky. Add a few drops of water and you open up some sweeter notes too. On the palate, straightaway you get a burst of rugged coastal smokiness, but there’s some sweetness in there as well. It tastes like a trip to a stormy, dramatic seaside. The finish lingers for a little while with a woody smokiness, and some spice.

Overall, Aerolite Lyndsay covers quite a few aspects of a ‘typical’ Islay peated whisky. It might not be the most complex whisky I’ve ever sampled, but it’s tasty, and incredibly drinkable, with a reasonable price. I just had to keep drinking to see if I could work out where it was from.

It looks like the Aerolite Lyndsay won’t be the only mystery release from the company, with future releases exploring ‘a unique personality based on stories, legends and experiences associated with the island and its people.’

Aerolite Lyndsay costs £44.95 a bottle, so well priced for an exciting Christmas present, and is available from Master of Malt.

Darling House party bar: pillow-filled bath tub, 'push for prosecco' and butterflies in the library

I sometimes miss being a teenager and going to house parties, seeing what interesting concoctions you could try from someone’s parent’s booze cupboard, hanging out in the kitchen…

Well, a new bar in London could see you reliving those days, but in considerably plusher surroundings.

Darling House is the latest work from Darling & Edge, the theatrical set designers behind some of London’s coolest, wildest and most unusual immersive experiences (Alice’s Adventures Underground, Gingerline’s Grand Expedition etc.).

Their latest space is above Hello Darling restaurant in Waterloo, and is definitely not a normal bar. You enter through a painting (perhaps not a particularly new concept in London, but unless you know what’s behind it you genuinely wouldn’t spot it was a secret door), and you’ve got the run of six rooms, featuring a pillow-filled bathtub, library and five-foot tiger head coming out of one of the walls.

The space takes up two floors to create an ongoing house party:

Lounge: Striped like a Big Top tent, and casually featuring a giant tiger head on the wall.
Library: Lots of books, lots of butterflies
Lounge/bedroom: This is in a ‘30s style, with sofa seating and hand-painted flowers decorating the walls.
Kitchen: As the song goes, you will always find me in the kitchen at parties. This one features chandeliers and marble countertops.
Bedroom: There’s a four-poster bed (feel free to lounge but those sheets are bolted down), and pampas grass all over the walls.
Bathroom: Chill in the pillow-filled tub with a cocktail. Perfect.
Hallway: Sicilian lemons everywhere.

The bar is hidden in a cupboard near where you come in, with a bartender on hand to mix you up a little something. Much more pleasant than trusting your pal to dig out some 80s vermouth from the back of the shelf.

We know everybody loves a ‘push for prosecco’ button, so naturally there’s one hidden in Darling House. Push the brass doorbell in the hallway, and reveal a hidden magnum.

Each room also has its own speaker system, so you can plug in your own music and have a different playlist in each room. Up to 60 people can party the night away in Darling House, and the whole place is available to hire for private parties.

No washing up, and you can go to bed whenever you want!

Find out more.