16 Comments

Having just been to California, where the prices similarly knock you off your feet, this is fantastically useful Fiona!

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Mar 8, 2023Liked by Fiona Beckett

Shameless plug for Hawsmoor, (I know your family connection. Full disclosure. )

My daughter and I were looking for a top NY steakhouse , Peter Luger, S&W, Morton’s all considered but we chose a newcomer in the upstart - what a treat, great cocktails, generous sommelier, great steak. Loved that it was a Yorkshire pudding not a popover or Dutch baby. Not cheap but totally worth it as a end of trip show stopper.

Taking my wife next month to Hawksmoor Manchester (daughter running marathon) and really looking forward to it

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Mar 8, 2023Liked by Fiona Beckett

My current "everyday" restaurant tip is not to order wine, but instead a glass of non alcohol beer or just mineral water.

Most evenings at home I drink wine with dinner - usually a glass each of two, or sometimes three, different wines. These wines could retail at anything from £6 to £25+ a bottle. I usually open a bottle and immediately decant some of the contents, to the brim, into either/and half or quarter screw top bottles. So on my carving table, or fridge, I will always have a selection of different wines to serve. For example I could have a quarter bottle of a Chenin Blanc to start, and follow with, for comparison, say, a quarter of a Pinot Noir and a quarter of a Chianti. Nice to try some different food/wine combos. Sometimes I will ask my wife to serve some of these wines, blind, so I can see whether I can identify them, or to determine if I can appreciate the quality of a more expensive wine. This keeps me humble. All this is so enjoyable I struggle to have a night or two a week without wine!

My solution is to have my alcohol free nights when I am eating out! Hence helping my health and bank balance. To have 2 or 3 glasses of similar quality wines in a restaurant (if available) would be very expensive, and often disappointing with oxidised examples served.

If eating out, with friends, at a good restaurant, then we would splurge out a bit - often having studied the wine list online before. But for pretty ordinary meals out for two, this is my approach.

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Fiona, love this. After years of long annual visits to and around the UK that I really can't afford, I follow a similar pattern. My London regimen typically consists of supermarket meal deals, Nandos, fish and chips (Master's Superfish near Waterloo is very good!), snacks in lieu of meals, and reluctant splurges when I go out with friends.

Full disclosure: I have lived in the States for four decades, visited every state in the continental US at least once, and every major coastal city (several times)...except for NYC. I like to annoy New Yorkers with this: What does NYC have that London doesn't, I ask? :)

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Mar 8, 2023Liked by Fiona Beckett

The Lincoln Centre has concerts on Sundays where you can turn up and queue for a bit and get in for $10. We saw Maurizio Pollini there one Sunday.

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Going to NYC for the first time in a few weeks for four nights so have been reading this and your posts about your trip with interest... any recommendations for suggested places to book for dinner much appreciated! We enjoy great food locally (Jane Baxter’s Wild Artichokes is one of our favourites so enjoyed reading about your visit to Kingsbridge) but am feeling a bit overwhelmed by choices for our trip!

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