On the Buses

On an unassuming street corner on Deptford Church Street lies a new pizzeria that has really reinvented the wheel(s). Quite literally, in fact, because The Big Red Pizza Bus is based in an unused double-decker bus that has been repurposed as a pizza restaurant and bar. I'm always looking for new places to fill the south-east London pizza void, so the family and I went to check it out on Saturday night.

It was pretty busy when we arrived — there was a large group sitting on the tables on the heated outdoor terrace — but luckily, we were able to sit on the bus itself. And on the top deck, no less! Although there are a few pastas and salads, the menu is all about the pizza and the prices are pretty reasonable, starting from £7.50 for a Big Red (margherita). I ordered a glass of Prosecco (£5) while we perused the menu. It was slightly flat, so I might try to persuade the others to share a whole bottle with me next time, but a nice, fruity flavour.

To start, we shared one of the meat platters (£9.95), which came with Serrano ham, salami, buffalo mozzarella, rocket and some bruschette. The food was very tasty — the mozzarella was particularly good — and the platter-for-two was about the right size for the three of us to share to start.

The pizzas themselves were good, although not quite great (they were mainly let down by the cheese, which wasn't as fresh and delicious as the mozzarella we had to start). I ordered the margherita, as usual, and for the money, I think it was pretty good value. Next time I might try one of the buffalo mozzarella pizzas, although a lot of them had quite a few ingredients on top and I'm a bit of a pizza purist. We thought about staying for another drink, but the call of the cocktails at the Job Centre was too strong.

As well as serving food and drink, The Big Red also screens movies, and Tuesday night is comedy night. Check out their events page for more information. Sadly, you can't pay by Oyster card — not yet, anyway — but then nor do you have to wait for a short while while the drivers change over, or find yourself on an unwanted diversion.

The Big Red Pizza Bus. 30 Deptford Church Street, London, SE8 4RZ (transport: Deptford Bridge DLR). Website. Twitter.

We Didn't Start the Fire

My preference for dramas over comedies and the dark over the footloose and fancy-free is well documented, but even I found David Cronenberg's new film Maps to the Stars pretty damn bleak. As the film opens, the young, brooding Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) steps off a bus in Los Angeles and gets into the limo she has hired, driven by Jerome (Robert Pattinson). You can tell that something is off right away, because who travels by long-distance bus from Florida and then hops right into a $90-an-hour limo? She then asks Jerome if he has the eponymous map to the stars' houses and asks him to drive her to an empty lot just under the Hollywood sign, where some famous folks used to live.

It turns out that all of the characters in Maps to the Stars have troubling secrets and tragic pasts, and none of them is very likeable. Thanks to her Twitter friendship with Carrie Fisher (!), Agatha gets a job as the personal assistant to Havana (Julianne Moore), an ageing, narcissistic starlet who is facing numerous demons of her own. Most notably is that she is haunted by the ghost of her dead mother (Sarah Gadon), who won a Golden Globe and then died young in a fire — Havana's involvement in the fire remains unclear, especially given the hints that there may have been some abuse at the hands of her mother and step-father.

Havana's shrink, Dr Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), does his best to treat her in his own unique, hands-on way, but he is having some family troubles of his own: his precocious, child-actor son Benjie (Evan Bird) has just got out of rehab at the tender age of 13 and, having reached the awkward not-that-cute-anymore age, is struggling to get the roles he is used to. He, like everyone else in the film, is an entitled little arsehole and treats everyone, from his mother (Olivia Williams) to the tween girls with whom he hangs out, like crap.

The characters circle around one another, as we learn more about them and how they got to where they are, until the film's chilling climax. Wasikowska really steals the show here, with her unsettling portrayal of a troubled young woman, but Moore is also excellent and obviously had a lot of fun filming her role. Maps to the Stars isn't an easy film to watch and the story it tells of Hollywood and the people who occupy that world is disturbing and uncompromising. It reminded me in some way of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which remains one of my favourite films, with its dark themes and confused realities. Cronenberg's film is oddly compulsive — just don't go into it expecting a nice cheerful Saturday afternoon movie.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Pattern Coffee House (CLOSED)

UPDATE (November 2017): Pattern Coffee has now closed permanently.

Since the closure of the short-lived Brewhouse on York, I've been hoping that King's Cross would once again support a friendly independent café serving great coffee. Drink, Shop & Dash is great but doesn't have much room for sitting and lingering, and I love Caravan, but it gets pretty busy and they only do some of their hand-brewed drinks if you're drinking-in.

Enter Pattern Coffee House, which opened a few months ago a few blocks north of Drink, Shop & Dash on Caledonian Road. I was attracted, funnily enough, by the patterned interior walls, but only got round to visiting last week. The first things you notice when you enter are the eponymous patterns. The colourful geometric wall is my favourite, but there are designs to suit all tastes, including some vintage sewing patterns and upcycled Hendrick's bottles bearing the wifi code.

It was a fairly quiet lunchtime, so I ordered a macchiato and chatted to the friendly owner while I waited for me coffee. She has been doing everything for the past few months, which is no mean feat given that Pattern is open from 8 am until 7 pm during the week, but you can tell it's a labour of love.

My macchiato was very good: rich and smooth and with no more than a dab of foam on top. The coffee is from Bristol-based Extract Coffee Roasters, which I haven't tried before. For now, the coffee menu includes only espresso-based drinks, but if things go well, they could be adding some hand-brew options (which aren't very practical when you only have one barista and a big queue), as well as some single-origin coffees. In the meantime, you can also opt for a smoothie or a shake, and there are a few breakfast options, cakes and pastries. It's just around the corner from my office so I know where I'll be going when I haven't had time for breakfast at home.

I really enjoyed my visit to Pattern and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great coffee with a chilled-out vibe in the King's Cross area. The café is slightly out of the way but only five minutes' walk from King's Cross station and a much, much more pleasurable experience than any of the coffee joints in the station.

Pattern Coffee House. 82 Caledonian Road, London,  N1 9DN (Tube: King's Cross).

Bubble Trouble

What could be more Shoreditch than sitting in a hot tub on the rooftop of a grubby building on a grey autumnal Monday night watching a screening of Anchorman? Not much, to be honest, but Hot Tub Cinema was great fun. I've wanted to go for a while, but there are always so many unique things to do in London that it takes a while to work through the wishlist. The Anchorman screening was part of a Best of the Noughties Hot Tub Cinema series. I hadn't seen the film before and it probably wouldn't have been my first choice, but it worked pretty well.

We rocked up at this season's venue — Rockwell House, near Shoreditch High Street — just after 6.30, and after we had signed in and picked up our wristbands, we headed upstairs to change. There are a couple of large-ish tents on the building's rooftop in which to change; the facilities aren't exactly plush, but then Hot Tub Cinema isn't exactly spa day. You can leave your bags in the cloakroom and because most UK money isn't especially waterproof, you can exchange your cash for booze tokens and they will even loan you a handy wrist-wallet for the princely sum of 1 token.

Up on the rooftop, the hot tubs were all laid out under a canopy, but the weather on Monday night was pretty clement. Besides, who cares if it rains when you're in a hot tub? We had a little while before the film started so we bought some drinks at the bar (beers and most cocktails are around 2-4 tokens (£4-8). My dark and stormy slipped down very nicely as we admired the view over the rooftops and skyscrapers of Shoreditch.

You don't have to rent a whole tub if your group is smaller than six (standard tub) or eight (deluxe tub), but it's definitely more fun and probably more pleasant if you are with friends. It worked out at about £32 each for the six of us, and our tub was in a pretty good location with views of both of the two screens. Soon it was time to get into the hot tub and start the movie—we were told to keep the bubbles off during the movie (I think this is because each tub has only a limited amount of generator power, so if you use yours too quickly, it gets cold). They displayed subtitles on the screens, which was handy because it got quite raucous (the Wittertainment Code of Conduct was definitely not being adhered to).

After the movie ended, the screens switched over to '90s music video mode, letting everyone sing and dance to the likes of Haddaway, Peter Andre and Britney. Oh, yes. It was a shame it was only a Monday, although many of the other people there didn't seem to care that they had another four days of work until the weekend (or maybe they were students). I brought my new waterproof camera, which was fun to play with, although the darkness and the steam made for some tricksy photography.

Hot Tub Cinema has finished its current run, but it will be back, I'm sure. Follow them on Facebook or Twitter to find out where and when. I'd definitely consider going again — maybe not to see this movie though...

"Being at Oxford, It's Like Being Invited to 100 Parties at Once"

When Lone Scherfig's new film The Riot Club opens, it's all very Brideshead Revisited, as two new first-year students arrive for their first day at Oxford University. Alistair (Sam Clafin) shows up with his pushy parents who try to bully the college porters into giving him the room his older brother occupied previously — a fancy suite in the college's honey-stoned central quad — rather than the "rabbit hutch" in one of the college's newer buildings to which he has been assigned. The porters protest but the room's intended inhabitant, Miles (Max Irons), agrees to switch. The Brideshead analogy soon falls away because both Alistair and Miles are posh. So are all the male students in Laura Wade's screenplay, which she adapted from her acclaimed stage play, Posh.

Alistair and Miles soon fall into a bitter rivalry, although it isn't made clear exactly why: possibly because the latter went to Westminster not Harrow, possibly because of Miles's burgeoning relationship with Lauren (Holliday Grainger) — northern and definitely not posh — and possibly because Alistair is something of a sociopath. Before too long, both boys are tapped to join the Riot Club, a Bullingdon Club-like society with centuries of history and famous for its exclusivity and debauchery. The club has always had exactly ten members, and Alistair and Miles complete the equation. To signify their entry into the club, the other Riot Club members thoroughly trash the rooms of the two new initiates. Miles is slightly hesitant (because he's a Nice, Thoughtful, Liberal Posh Guy, OK?), especially when Lauren makes it clear that she is far from impressed, but he loves being a part of the club and feeling special.

Everything comes to a head at the Riot Club's annual dinner, which takes place in a sleepy village pub several counties away from Oxford; previous Riot Club events have been so destructive and, well, awful that finding a venue proved tricky and, for obvious reasons, they booked their private room under the pretence of being the Young Entrepreneurs Club. The pub's owner, Michael (Michael Jibson), his daughter Rachel (Jessica Brown Findlay), and the other staff members work hard to try to ensure that the boys have a good time — at the expense of the pub's regular clientèle, who start to complain about the noise and the slow service.

Soon, though, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be just your average display of drunken disorderliness, and the hedonism, the violence and the sense of entitlement spiral rapidly out of control. The dinner is The Riot Club's centrepiece — and indeed, Posh focuses only on the events of that night — and it's a brilliant, if scary, set piece. Although the ensemble cast, which also includes Sam Reid and the very busy Ben Schnetzer (last seen in Pride), put in good performances, it is Clafin who really shines as the brooding, unlikeable and slightly unhinged Alistair. I always like watching Max Irons, but the character of Miles felt rather more wishy-washy than the complexity I assume Scherfig was aiming for.

The Riot Club was entertaining enough and pretty hard to watch at times, but by the end, I'm not sure that it added up to very much. The politics and the bite of the play seemed to have been cut, leaving in its place some rather caricatured tales of spoiled rich boys behaving badly, which reminded me at times of the ridiculous and short-lived TV show Trinity. I think the film suffered because it is neither tongue-in-cheek enough to succeed at camp, OTT satire nor serious enough to make interesting social or political points — such as how the power and influence that the members of the real-life version of the Riot Club have gone on to have. If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes-with-the-Oxbridge-elite story, I would recommend Christopher Yates's novel Black Chalk, which is less stereotypical, more original and much scarier.

In Cannes, Life's a Beach

I've travelled to some awesome places this year and have really enjoyed all of my adventures. Sometimes, though, you just want to go somewhere for a few days with good food and a good beach. Luckily, Cannes has both in spades, and even more luckily, my parents have a flat there, so I jetted off there last week with a couple of friends for a long weekend. There are interesting things to do in and around Cannes, but all we really wanted to do was eat delicious food, hang out on the beach, drink gin and play cards, so we didn't really venture more than about a five-minute walk from the apartment all weekend.

September is a great time to go to the South of France, because some of the crowds have dissipated, but it's still very hot and sunny. Well, on Friday morning it was rainy and cloudy for about an hour, but soon that tiny patch of blue sky took over, and we hurried down to the beach.

When the food in the local shops is so good, you don't really need to eat out. We picked up a rotisserie chicken from the local traiteur, Chez Pierre, for a princely sum of €12, added some perfectly ripe avocados, fresh bread and a few gin and tonics, and we had the perfect picnic. Pierre's chickens are delicious: so juicy and with the perfect crispy skin. The best bit was dipping the baguette into the leftover juices at the end. On Saturday night, we switched gears and bought some fillet steaks from Pierre — they were about €12 for each 250g steak. Add a bottle of Champagne and some salad and that's dinner.

The breakfast offerings and sweet treats are pretty damn good too. Our local boulangerie is called Césarine and they do the best pastries and cakes. I enjoyed my shark-shaped croissant, but the trilogy of desserts we shared was amazing. I ordered the chocolate praline mousse cake, which was awesome, although I did also covet the neon-pink raspberry offering.

On Saturday night, we went to the Quirly ice-cream shop on the Croisette, where there are far too many flavours to make choosing easy. In the end, I went for the lavender-honey ice cream, which was a bit different, but very tasty. We ate in on the Croisette, listening to a saxophonist busk and watching all of the Yacht Festival party-goers, and then went for cocktails at one of the slightly less pretentious bars.

Other than that, we just played a bit of paddle-ball, tried to burn off all of the calories with periodic swims along the Croisette and rediscovered the underwater camera. Every time I take underwater photos, I hope I will look like a mermaid, but somehow I usually end up resembling a drowned rat. A great ending to a fun-packed — if not action-packed — weekend in the sunshine.

"What's the Welsh for Lesbian?"

I got the chance to attend a preview screening of Matthew Warchus's new film Pride on Sunday, and it was great: moving, thoughtful and funny. If you can imagine a hybrid of Brassed Off and Gus Van Sant's Milk, Pride would probably be it. Armed with a superb cast, Warchus tells is the uplifting story of a fascinating part of 1980s British history about which I knew very little.

It is 1984 and a group of London-based gay and lesbian activists, led by Mark (Ben Schnetzer), want to do more to help other oppressed groups: specifically, the striking miners. They manage to raise a fair bit of cash, but the miners' union isn't interested in taking their 'gay' money, prompting them to pick a Welsh village almost at random and call up the local miners' lodge pledging their support. Gethin (Andrew 'Moriarty' Scott), in whose bookshop the Lesbian & Gays Support Miners (LGSM) group usually convenes, is from Wales (hence the choice of the village) but estranged from his family, who never forgave him for coming out.

Following up on a garbled phone message left at the Welsh village, Dai (Paddy Considine), who runs the local union lodge, shows up in London to meet the LGSM group. He is surprised at first to find that the L in the group's name doesn't stand for London but he is game, and even plucks up the courage to interrupt the entertainment at a big gay club to thank its patrons for their support of the Welsh miners.

The LGSM gang then travel up to the village to try to help out. Unsurprisingly, as the two 'tribes' emeet, there is quite the culture clash ("How can that be a village — it doesn't have any vowels," one of them asks as they enter Onllwyn). Many of the villagers, including Maureen (Lisa Palfrey) and some of the lads, aren't happy about the arrival of their guests, but others are more open-minded, most notably Hefina (Imelda Staunton), Cliff (Bill Nighy) and Sian (Jessica Gunning). And once the lads have seen the effect of Jonathan (Dominic West)'s dance moves on the ladies, they form a line to take dance lessons from the posh and most flamboyant member of LGSM.

There are a lot of characters in Pride and a lot of ground covered. Another member of the group, Joe (George McKay), is barely out of the closet and still lives with his parents in suburbia. He is recruited into LGSM by accident, but his character's story arc becomes quite central to the plot. Meanwhile, the threat and fear of AIDS dominates some of the others' thoughts. Some characters are based on real people: Jonathan, for example, is based on Jonathan Blake, one of the first people in the UK to be diagnosed as HIV-positive. Sian, meanwhile, is Sian James, who goes on to be an MP for Swansea.

Although Pride is a serious film, it is also funny. A lot of the humour stems from the "goodness me" reactions of the Welsh villagers to their new friends, and suffice to say, everyone learns a lot from one another. You probably won't be able to erase from your mind the image of Staunton waving around a pink dildo. The film could easily fall into the trap of being too earnest, but it doesn't, and this is primarily down to the great performances. West, who looks like he's borrowed a wig from George Michael in his Wham! days, is brilliant and a far cry from the more serious roles I've seen him play. Staunton steals a lot of scenes too as the straight-talking, take-no-prisoners bossyboots who soon becomes the biggest defender of the LGSM. And of course Considine, Nighy and Scott are all good. There are so many strong performances in this ensemble cast, it's a little tricky to keep track.

Suffice to say that Pride is a fun, engaging film that will make you feel good, while also learning something.

A Place in the Sun: Sun Café Review

Saturday was another one of those London weekend days where my friends and I just ended up wandering between places to eat and drink. The day started, as usual, in Maltby Street for gin bloody marys and "little pink cocktails" (AKA the Hummingbird Martini) at Little Bird. Much, much later, we found ourselves in a new pizza restaurant called Sun Café in the Camberwell–Peckham borderlands. I didn't have my camera with me, and my iPhone died during the meal, so the photos aren't the best, but you get the idea.

Some of my friends now live in Camberwell, and they tend to be my best source of new openings in their neighbourhood. Sun Café is on the corner of Havil Street and the bustling Peckham Road. It's also just across the road from Theatre Peckham so there's a lot going on nearby. The restaurant was pretty quiet on Saturday night — it's still pretty new — but because it was a nice evening, we chose to sit at one of the tables in the spacious courtyard at the back rather than in the spacious, well-designed interior. The courtyard has a built-in arch at the back, which would be great for live music.

Although there are a few salads — including the pun fans' favourite, You Feta Believe It — pizza is the main deal here. They have six well-priced regular pizzas and a pizza of the week. The special pizza last week was a bolognese pizza with green mozzarella (made using the colour, but not the flavour, of celery). I was very tempted, but I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to pizzas, especially in a new restaurant where the Margherita represents an excellent baseline to measure the restaurant's pizza quality.

To start, we shared some olives (£3) and a mini marinara pizza (£4), and got some drinks in. The cocktail menu is short but carefully curated; everything sounded creative and delicious. I ordered a Monsoon (£6.50), in which the coriander made a fab twist on the standard Dark & Stormy. It slipped down way too easy, but the strong, fresh smell of the coriander also gave me the impression that I wasn't being entirely unhealthy. They also do juices, a few wines and Prosecco (£5 for a glass or £22 for a bottle).

Between the four of us, we sampled three Margheritas (£7.50 each) and one Sorrentina (£8), which featured parmesan mousse, homemade pesto and parma ham. The pizzas were huge, but had quite a thin base and with the chewy, puffy crust that I always enjoy. The base also tasted a little like sourdough, but I'm not 100% sure about that; either way, the pizza was really good and we had to get a doggy bag for the extras. I say we but actually, I ate pretty much all of mine because I really like good pizza and because I'm greedy!

Afterwards, we went for a nightcap at The Pigeon Hole, which I've visited before for coffee, but not at night. A nice little Old Fashioned in surroundings that are like being in the living room of a very cool, stylish friend was a great way to finish the night.

As for Sun Café, I hope it does well. The food and drink were great and very reasonably priced. There isn't a huge amount of competition at present, but it may even be the best pizza I've had in south-east London. Praise indeed.

Sun Café. 29 Peckham Road, London, SE5 8UA (Tube: Denmark Hill or Peckham Rye Overground). Facebook. Twitter.

"This Rotten Town, It Soils Everybody"

When Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City came out nearly a decade ago, I was the only girl among my group of university friends who went to see it. It was violent, sure, but the violence is so stylised, and, in any case, I will watch pretty much anything that stars Clive Owen. I don't remember much more about the movie, but I gave it a 9/10 rating on IMDb so I must have enjoyed it. Sadly, the long-awaited sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, didn't quite live up to the high standards of its predecessor, mainly because the characters were making the same old mistakes and the plot didn't really go anywhere. Also, there was no Clive Owen: his character Dwight was portrayed by Josh Brolin instead, as Owen was too busy filming The Knick.

Two of the anti-heroes from the first film — Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Dwight (Brolin) — are joined by a third, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Johnny, for the sequel, but they don't share much screen time as they roam the streets of Sin City, getting into fights, delivering their own versions of justice, lusting after their favourite dame. Marv still has a thing for Nancy (Jessica Alba), while Dwight is pursuing the beautiful but manipulative Ava (Eva Green), who seems to care little for her husband who she says beats her. Meanwhile, Johnny has some serious daddy issues — the illegitimate son of Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), Johnny decides the best way to win the approval of his father is to beat him at poker. He succeeds, winning poker-chips piled high like the Sin City skyscrapers, but then soon wishes he hadn't as Roark's goons send him into a world of pain and regret.

The film flicks between these three stories. Sometimes, they intersect. Neither Marv nor Dwight seems to grow or to learn from the previous film, but at least new characters Johnny and Ava add some interest to the story. Ava, it turns out, is the eponymous dame: a real belle dame sans merci if ever there was one. Eva Green is playing the role she does best: the stunning beauty, who drips with honey and then, seconds later, spits bile. Ava has a killer instinct and is the opposite of a damsel in distress, as most of the male characters learn to their cost.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is as visually striking as the first film and has some great performances, especially from Green and Gordon-Levitt. It's violent and OTT, but that's kind of the point. It's also quite funny in places, and nice to see the kick-ass Old Town girls kicking the asses of the many heart-broken dudes who populate the film. All of this adds up to nothing very substantial. Although the real protagonist is Sin City itself, there are too many characters for us to be able to connect very well with any of them. You almost wonder why they brought back Marv and Dwight at all. It is a perfectly adequate movie, but nine years after the first Sin City was released, I'm just not sure I know why they bothered.

Aim for the Stars: Harrods Presents Stelle di Stelle

I was having a bit of a hectic week at work when I got an email that cheered me up no end: my friend invited me to join her for dinner at the Stelle di Stelle fine dining pop-up in Harrods on Tuesday night (she got tickets through work). Stelle di Stelle will, over the next five months, feature chefs from five different Italian restaurants with a total of 13 Michelin stars between them. Each chef has put together a four-course menu that highlights some of their signature dishes. The dinner sitting costs £160 — or £180 including a matching wine with each course. Stelle di Stelle, then, is an extremely decadent treat and I felt very lucky to have been given a complimentary ticket. [My ticket was given to me in a personal capacity and I wasn't there as a blogger; I just wanted to share my experience. As ever, my opinions are entirely my own.]

For the first month, the featured chef is Carlo Cracco from the Milanese Ristorante Cracco. We were dining the later sitting (8.30 pm), and after working up an appetite in the Harrods Food Hall, I was seriously hungry. The restaurant space itself is traditional and elegant: white tablecloths and exposed brick walls. We took our seats, chose the matched-wines option and waited as the food began to arrive. The September menu is available online here.

First, we were treated to some Grana Padano cheese and prosciutto di Parma, served with a glass of sparkling wine. I love Grana Padano and could probably have eaten more than the small serving, but it was probably for the best that I saved room for some of the other delicacies.

Next up was a 'deconstructed Caprese': a sorbet-like scoop of tomato pulp, served with basil and tiny chunks of mozzarella. It looked beautiful in its martini glass, and was accompanied by a glass of sparkling rosé. I'm a sucker for Caprese salads and this was a tasty and creative twist.

Dish number three was a Cracco speciality: the chef's marinated egg yolk. It looked a little like a regular fried egg, but the yolk had been marinated in sugar–salt solution for five hours, which gave it a unique, firm texture: quite unlike all the other eggs I've ever eaten! It came with a few tiny slices of courgette, which I don't normally like, but which was perfectly al dente. This course and the next were paired with a delicious 2011 Gavi di Gavi white. I don't like some white wines, but this was crisp and smooth, and I was glad we got two glasses. The next course was a langoustine risotto with pine nuts and green tomatoes. It was the most beautiful pink colour and the flavours were subtle and comforting.

The last savoury course included a veal fillet, capers, licorice, red onion and celery. I was worried that I might start to get full at this point, but the portions were, er, well-proportioned and so I was able to keep on enjoying my food. The veal was cooked perfectly, and the flavours in this dish worked very well together. As it was only a Tuesday, I started to get behind on the wine-drinking at this point, and although I didn't manage much of my Barbera, I did like it a lot.

Finally, it was pudding time: my favourite time. The featured dessert was a white chocolate panna cotta with a parsley sorbet and salted caramel. Yes, parsley. Yes, it does sound weird but the pepperiness of the parsley made a great contrast with the sweetness of the chocolate and the salty-sweetness of the caramel. Plus, it looked strikingly pretty on my plate. The matched drink for this course was a beer, which I didn't drink. It seemed like a bit of an odd pairing, but by this point I don't think I could have handled the sweetness of a dessert wine either. Just when we thought it was all over, they brought out some petits fours, a small glass of grappa and some coffee.

All in all, we had a great evening, with delicious and superbly presented food and drink, and Stelle Di Stelle would be a fantastic place to celebrate a special meal and to sample the work of a chef whose food is is not normally available in London. The price makes it a real splurge, but if you like fine Italian dining, you won't be disappointed.

Harrods Presents Stelle di Stelle (open until 31 January 2015). 87-135 Brompton Road, London, SW1X 7XL (Tube: Knightsbridge). Website. Twitter.