Category Archives: london

melissa & ben

30 Thursday Oct 2025

Posted by in friends, london, sevilla, tapas, tapas bars

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I first met Melissa Cole (aka London’s Queen of Beer) back in 2016 in London, and we last saw each other (also in London) at an event at the Spanish Embassy. This week she and her husband Ben are in town for a “birthday trip” and today we went out on a slow-paced crutches friendly tapas tour. Basically three bars close together in my barrio. I’d love to do this more often but these bars don’t take bookings and are usually jam packed (well, they took bookings for me today, but I wouldn’t want to have to call in favours like that too often). Anyhow, what a fabulous time we had. Lots of good food, wine and chat. Hope they’ll be back soon.

andalusia – recipes from seville and beyond

21 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by in books, friends, getaways, london

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Got a surprise delivery today – my own SIGNED copy of José Pizarro’s new cookbook! I’m so excited. This was so unexpected but also just the sort of thing José would do. You may remember when he came to town last May with his team to do research for this book, and I took them around to some of my favourite traditional bars. I was thrilled to see at the Spanish Embassy party last week that not only was I given a mention in the acknowledgements, but there was also a photo of us from our day out. And now I have my own copy!

It’s a gorgeous book and I can’t wait to try out the recipes. Publishing date is May 30th but you can pre-order it here from Amazon. Happy cooking!

Andalusia – Recipes From Seville and Beyond

london getaway 2019 | day 6

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in friends, getaways, london

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So…….. woke up with an eensy hangover after the excesses of my very full-on Friday. But after a shower, and some juice and yoghurt, I felt ready to once again get ON THE BUS and head over to meet Tim @biltawulf at José in Bermondsey. And then suddenly it was Sherry O’clock and we were off. The main plan for the afternoon was to (finally!) have lunch at 40 Maltby Street, but first we took a stroll through the Market. You may recall my first ever visit to Maltby Street Market, during which I fell in love with the place, meeting several of the vendors and spending an amazing afternoon chatting with everyone. A return visit a year later was less happy, as the market was over-crowded and felt less personal. So I wasn’t sure what to expect this time.

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