what to do tomorrow?

I’m catch­ing you just in time to tell you to hot­foot it to the Taste of Lon­don tomor­row, because I promise you it will be one of the most enjoy­able after­noons you can spend in Lon­don, espe­cial­ly if the weath­er is decent, which I believe it is meant to be. Of course, I must be hon­est and con­fess that you won’t be able to have quite as much fun as I did, because my friend Char­lie was avail­able only to me, yes­ter­day, and his ban­ter, wit and gen­er­al Eng­lish gen­tle­man­ly charm added that inde­fin­able some­thing to the day. But more on that lat­er. Right now, you just need to book your tick­et for the last day, Sun­day. Let me tell you why.

My God, we ate. As in years past when I have gone to this event, I’ve felt com­plete­ly exhil­a­rat­ed by the sheer vari­ety and vir­tu­os­i­ty of the cheffi­est food you can imag­ine. Here’s the con­cept: you buy your tick­et just to get you in, and then you spend more mon­ey on lit­tle tick­ets called “crowns,” which enable you to buy lit­tle tiny dish­es (usu­al­ly not more than three or four bites, which means you can share, but not with Char­lie) from THE top restau­rants in Lon­don. So you get a lit­tle “taste” of a dish that might set you back 30 pounds at the restau­rant, and would prob­a­bly be a lot more than you want­ed to eat, for just about 3 pounds or so.

Char­lie and I tucked into many, many dish­es, shar­ing near­ly all of them, which was quite per­fect, because it dou­bles the dif­fer­ent bits and pieces you can enjoy. I had, all to myself because it was tiny, dressed crab with toast at Launce­s­ton Place, home of the adorable young chef Tris­tan Welch, then it was onto com­plete­ly delight­ful and inven­tive sushi rolls — would you believe FOIE GRAS and sweet soy — from Din­ings. Then we returned to my favorite of last year’s fes­ti­val, the T&T sushi roll, truf­fle and tuna, from Sumosan, as good as I remem­bered. Fusion food can be bril­liant when it’s not tor­ment­ed or ran­dom, and some­how truf­fle and sushi work per­fect­ly togeth­er, the slimmest, most del­i­cate of sea­weed com­plet­ing the perfection.

Then we enjoyed a dish from Nahm (the first Thai restau­rant in Europe to earn a Miche­lin star, in case you care) , and while I can­not remem­ber the name of the dish, it was white crab with cit­rus, peanuts, shred­ded coconut and gin­ger in a betel leaf, very inven­tive and fresh. At Tom’s Kitchen, we shared an impos­si­bly creamy and lux­u­ri­ous chick­en par­fait with grape chut­ney and brioche, Char­lie had Dayles­ford Organ­ic sev­en-hour braised shoul­der of lamb with mash and caramelized red onions. Final­ly, last treat was at Le Pont de la Tour, seared Scot­tish salmon with fen­nel sal­ad and grape­fruit juice. Every­thing (and there were hun­dreds more tastes we left behind) such a pleasure.

Here’s Char­lie in a nut (and I use that term pre­cise­ly!) shell. As we were leav­ing, we bought a cou­ple of jute bags from a nice Taste employ­ee at the gate. As we exchanged bags for mon­ey, she asked if we’d had a nice time. Yes, very much so, we assured her. But, Char­lie said, “The only dis­ap­point­ment was that we did not see more celebri­ty chefs. That’s always fun.” “Oh, there’ve been loads of them here, though,” she said earnest­ly, def­i­nite­ly want­i­ng to please. “I saw Richard Cor­ri­g­an today in the BA VIP tent, and of course Hugh Fearn­ley-Whit­tingsall has been demon­strat­ing.” Char­lie did­n’t skip a beat. “How about that hot new tele­vi­sion chef, Kris­ten Fred­er­ick­son? Have you seen her?” “Oh, yes, indeed, she was here yes­ter­day!” the lady enthused, grin­ning from ear to ear. Oh dear! Char­lie, Char­lie. We chor­tled over that all the way to the tube station.

Right, before I close, I’ll tell you what to do with the rest of your day after you’ve feast­ed at Taste. Go straight to Trafal­gar Square and see the BP Por­trait Award show at the Nation­al Gallery. The image I’ve includ­ed here is the first prize win­ner. It’s a stun­ning show of per­haps 100 por­traits, cho­sen from the 1900 sub­mis­sions the muse­um received. Some are rather abstract, some quite pho­to­graph­ic in their real­ism, but all are inter­est­ing. And it’s cul­ture for you, isn’t it? I went with my friend Jo last week, still in the throes of suf­fer­ing over the bur­glary here, and it was a sooth­ing balm to the soul, to be in the pres­ence of so much artis­tic effort and loveliness.

And while you’re there, check out the exhi­bi­tion called “Fabi­o­la.” If you’re any­thing like me, sheer whim­sey and per­son­al eccen­tric­i­ty is cheer­ing, and wait till you see this instal­la­tion. Appar­ent­ly in the 5th cen­tu­ry there was a saint called Fabi­o­la, the patron saint of abused women, and a 19th cen­tu­ry por­trait of her became icon­ic: THE rep­re­sen­ta­tion of this esteemed lady. So icon­ic, in fact, that a sort of cult of copy­ing the por­trait grew up all over Europe. And now, an artist has gath­ered over 300 of these copies and brought them all togeth­er for this show. Two rooms FILLED floor to ceil­ing with copies of the same por­trait. Some in oil on can­vas or board, some pas­tel, some embroi­dered, if you can imag­ine it, and some in glass. Plus a case full of cameos and ceram­ic box­es, and even a hat pin: all bear­ing the enig­mat­ic pro­file of… Fabi­o­la. Fabulous.

More soon on food­ie things, because I brought home a love­ly thing from Taste in the form of cured hal­ibut. Char­lie and I suc­cumbed to a sam­ple that was cured in wasabi and gin­ger, sort of like the con­cept of salmon cured with salt and dill. So refresh­ing and light! So I’ll make a sort of sal­ad of it tonight and let you know. And you can tell me how much you loved Taste. Go, there’s JUST time.