Meatopia. Not to be missed.

After ten well-acclaimed years Stateside, Meatopia festival is pulling up roots in New York, and heading to London.

Hailed as “the Woodstock of edible animals”, Meatopia will be running for one day only: September 7^th.

Wapping’s Tobacco Dock will swarm and smoke with the world’s Meaterati. Over twenty chefs, all cooking their own creations to perfection. From Texan slow-and-low aficionados, to Turkish grillers, to London’s own Tom Adams of Pitt Cue fame. Variety’s the word.

But for all their differences, they’ll be united under one adage: no vegetarian options, no fake fire. Just the best meat, and the finest real wood and charcoal, giving up the ghost in plumes of sumptuous smoke.

With barbecue season drawing to a close, here’s your curtain call. I defy you to find a better show-stopper.

By James

Best for...a potentially bad date

Picture it. You’ve been set up – stitched up like a kipper – by that friend who insists on playing matchmaker. “I know someone you’d just love,” they say, about a different eligible singleton each week: a rotating menu where nothing is appetizing and you’d rather just eat takeaway alone.

Metaphors aside, you’re going out to dinner and you’d rather not be. My advice – go to Inamo, in Soho. It’s built on talking points.

The lighting
It’s dark and sort of mysterious of an evening.

The food
Friends had been telling me for ages to try the pork neck, which comes with a spicy chocolate sauce, and the black cod main. I'm glad I listened to them. 

The menu
At Inamo you don’t get a menu handed to you. It’s projected on to the table. And you get to frantically click away at it and see pictures of all the dishes appear on a plate in front of you. (The plate is also projected.) That in itself can provide a whole evening’s worth of chatter. If it doesn’t, well you can play Battleships on the table. And if the date is a complete dud, you can even order a taxi.

But all in all, you should have enough entertainment to make every moment of silence more golden than awkward.

5 places to make up with gin

Gin and I have a fraught relationship. The on-again-off-again sort. But when we make up, oh what a sweet reunion.  

London itself has had some tempestuous times with gin. From the rabid push at temperance shown in Hogarth’s Gin Lane lithographs to the glory-days of London’s gin palaces — their closure, and now their second coming.

What better place to reconcile? What better time than now?

My five spots for a make-up session:

1. You’ll forget yourself, the time, the year even, when you walk into Marylebone’s Purl. It’s modelled on a Victorian gin palace, and slings an unmissably odd, eponymous cocktail.

2. you prefer your old-world-charm served with a touch of class? (A touch that don’t come cheap.) Soak up the Hendrick’s Gin Cocktail Afternoon Tea at Green Park’s Berry Bar.

3. For a more modern take, head to Graphic, in the heart of Soho ad-land, with its enormous and colourful selection of brands.

4.  214 Bermondsey wields mystery well, and a cocktail shaker better. Enough to help you make nice with your old frenemy, gin? Perhaps.

5. Like 214 Bermondsey, 69 Colebrooke Row is too cool for a name. An address is all they need. Well, that and the damn fine gin. Their master classes also look worth a shot. 

By James McKnight

50 Shades of Cake

One in four people will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their lives. That’s a serious statistic for our otherwise chirpy little blog, and one well worth talking about.

The Depressed Cake Shop, is this year’s charity project by Cakehead Loves. Opening soon in London, then travelling cross-country, The Depressed Cake Shop is a pop-up bake sale with a great concept.

The symptoms of depression are complex and can vary widely. Most commonly though, people who suffer from depression can feel sad and hopeless — you lose interest in what you once enjoyed: the world can fade to grey.

So the cakes on sale will vary hugely, but each will be grey in its own way – inside or out – as a reminder of how dangerous and draining depression’s effects can be.

Interested in getting involved? Join the Depressed Cake group on Facebook, or email emma@misscakehead.com.

Otherwise, come to Suzzle at 47 Brick Lane in E1 on the 2^nd – 4^th of August, and visit Miss Cakehead for more details and dates in other cities.

By James McKnight

The conundrum of cooking shows: tasting the fourth wall

Lately, Rick Stein’s been asking the big questions. Like, 'what makes a curry so curry-y'? And I've enjoyed finding out the answers on his show, India: In Search of the Perfect Curry.

But I’ve always had a slight problem with cookery shows. It’s that dastardly fourth wall between you and the lovely lush eats onscreen. If the show’s any good you can almost taste them, but that ‘almost’ is the real issue — you’re tantalised to the point where you’d do anything to get at the goodies…except leave your sofa.

But this time round you can actually get a piece of the action. To celebrate the TV show, Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick, and Harrison’s in Balham, are hosting Stein-inspired Indian feasts — menus concocted by co-owners Sam Harrison and Rick himself.

I for one look forward to getting my curried squid on. I want to face down stacks of cumin spiced flatbreads, karahis of kofta curry, and generally stuff my gills with wholesome colourful yums.

The menu is running throughout July. Perhaps longer if it meets with the approval it deserves.

By James McKnight

What happens to a pop-up once it’s…‘popped’?

That’s what BBQWhiskeyBeer have got me pondering, as they squat at the Wargrave Arms. It’s a Marylebone pub with an award-winning array of low-‘n’-slow cooked Americana. They’ve run the pop-up gauntlet and come out on top. With a heavyweight Ribstock title to prove it.

Here’s what they do.

BBQ — from classic burgers on brioche buns, to the same again topped with the kind of pulled pork that deserves its 24 hour cooking time as it much as it deserves the praise it gets. Southern fried chicken livers, or three-day smoked beef ribs, finished over charcoal: that thing of ludicrous beauty known only as ‘The Jacob’.

As for drinks, the name simply won’t let you sell them short. They take up two thirds of it after all. BBQWhiskeyBeer boast one of the biggest selections of single malts in London. If a Scottish distillery is producing still, you can guarantee they’ll have a bottle. They’ve even got some from dearly departed distilleries to round out the collection.

Add to that a ragtag crew of quality London cask ales, craft bottles, and special under-the-counter somethings for the discerning customer, and you have a bar to be reckoned with.

I think they deserve a permanent home at the Wargrave Arms. BBQWhiskeyBeer certainly hasn’t lost its fizz, post-pop. 

By James McKnight

London is the place to be: sing it with me

I love London and started these food tours because I wanted visitors to love it too. I love being able to share the history of the city. Particularly the history of the east end and how many different communities have been through the area. It gives the place character and the streets a brilliant mash-up of foods from all over the world.

My friend introduced me to this song yesterday. If these tours had a theme tune, this would be it. It’s a calypso track from the 50s. The guy is singing about how marvellous London is, coming to it from Trinidad. 

We Londoners can be a cynical bunch. We moan about the tubes and the weather and how busy and expensive it is. (I’m certainly guilty of that and London Grumblr is one of my favourite sites.) But take a listen to that song and tell me you don’t fall in love with the capital a little bit.  Go on.

By Charli