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Food

Lucio

October 27, 2015

Lucio is a Chelsea favourite among locals and celebrities. We’ve been there a few times, but this time I took pictures! The specials are always delicious and the staff extremely friendly.

One of the highlights for me are the photos that decorate the walls. Lucio is friends with Terry O’Neill and has his iconic photos all over the restaurant. Makes me feel glamorous and think of myself in that era, indulging on pasta in a bid to gain weight for bigger boobs. Ahh, those were the days.

This time around I had the pumpkin soup with ham. It was really delicious, with a hint of bacon flavor. Refreshingly for my waistline, it also didn’t have any cream.

For my main, I had the fillet steak, which was cooked to perfection. The red onions had some tang to them, which went great with the potatoes.

Now that we got the food bit over with, time to get to the real reason I wanted to go there and write a blog. They probably have the best chocolate fondant in London. I know that’s a huge statement to make, but I’ve had a lot. Like, if it’s on the menu at any restaurant, I’ll order it. And as a testament to how amazing it is at Lucio’s, my husband and I have gone here just for dessert. Like I mentioned before, the staff ate awesome. The owner and his son chat to us all the time and they made a special exception one night when I NEEDED to have some chocolate.

It’s not a cheap evening out though, so if you are looking for just straight up cheap and cheerful Italian, Riccardo’s is across the street and slightly less.

What to wear: The dress varies from cocktail to jeans. Lucio has an impressive collection of American rodeo belt buckles. Make sure you ask him about them!

Who you’ll see: Apparently celebrities frequent Lucios often. I’ve never seen one or didn’t recognize them. Fun fact: Lucio’s has a second exit, which has been used before when a man took his mistress there for dinner and his wife walked in.

Lucios

257-259 Fulham Road, London, SW7 6HY

0207 823 3007

www.luciorestaurant.com

Food

Dirty Bones

October 19, 2015

Stephanie

Dirty Bones is f&*king glorious. Let me add a small caveat to that statement: I was (conservative estimate) 8 drinks in by the time I got there.

I hope when I die my heaven is dirty bones except that I don’t get morbidly obese from eating it every day for every meal. But if I’m honest I hope heaven is also me giving like, -7 f&*ks about what I look like.

We were there for a private party in the back and my (genius) friend decided to have it 90s themed. My husband beat me to the ordering but started strong with chicken wings and the Dirty Dog. I don’t like to eat meat off bones because it makes me feel like a cave man, but considering how fast they went, I’m sure the wings were delicious. The hot dog… well, it’s going into my top 5. There were crispy shallots and two different kinds of pork. TWO. Crispy bacon, which is the only way to have it, and pulled pork.

We were still hungry so I went big and ordered the Yankee Dog, the Mac Daddy and the Dirty Fries, because you know what? I don’t go half way down a rabbit hole.

The Mac Daddy has mac and cheese on it (enough said) and I almost bit my husband’s finger off for the last bite of the Yankee Dog. Like I said before, this place is f&*king glorious. I gained at least 12 lbs eating here but cool with it because IT WAS DECLICIOUS.

I also had more drinks. This is an actual conversation with the bartender:

Me: 70% of me wants to order an interesting cocktail from you but the other 30% of me is a skinny bitch and wants a vodka soda.

Bartender: I like the 30% of you.

Bringing me food in the state I was in was like feeding a pack of hungry dogs. The staff were really nice and super accommodating. As soon as I lose the weight I put on, I’m going back to start this vicious cycle again.

Dirty Bones (Kensington)

20 Kensington Church Street, London, W8 4EP

www.dirty-bones.com

Food

The Orange

October 16, 2015

Stephanie

It was a Thursday night so my friend Michelle and I decided to go scuba diving in white wine. We started at The Orange, a gastro pub and hotel on Pimlico road. I’d been there before this summer but didn’t eat. I did, however, almost get my phone stolen by dodgy guys who came into the pub and tried to sell us birthday cards. After failing to blag our way into the dining room, we sat in the pub area at a small round table with great food lighting and ordered our dinner. Upon initial perusal of their new menu, my initial reaction was that this food was a bit stuffy for a pub. The special was a burger, which in my opinion should be a staple.

I ordered the calamari to start and was super relieved to see that it came with just the rings. I don’t like to associate calamari with what it actually is. To me, it’s essentially round French fries with protein. It was very very crispy, actually I’d say it was crunchy and the rings weren’t rubbery. Overall, pretty good.

My friend had the pumpkin soup, which she said was delicious and looked fantastic.

For our main, we moved to another table because we had some friends joining. By this time we were almost a bottle deep in the wine (which they didn’t open at the table… ew). I ordered the burger with sweet potato fries because they both had bacon on them. The burger was mediocre. It was cooked well, but a bit dry and the brioche bun fell apart easily. The bacon was just barely cooked and too chewy for my taste. On the upside, there was a nice spicy tomato relish on the burger.

The sweet potato fries were excellent, but it took the waiter a really long time to bring the bacon aioli they came with. Unfortunately, this meant the sweet potato fries started to get soggy by the time it arrived.

Our friends joined and ate most of my fries and wanted to order another. It was 9:59 and apparently one kitchen had closed. She could, however, get an entire pizza. That just didn’t make sense to me. She ordered the pizza anyway and they seemed to enjoy it.

Verdict: Overall the orange was a good way to begin our night but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat there again.

What to wear: I was dressed as a chic and expensive 1960s prostitute. Everyone else was in jeans.

What you’ll see: Good looking men with cute dogs who are ‘waiting for their girlfriends’.

The Orange

37-39 Pimlico Rd, London SW1W 8NE

www.theorange.co.uk

Food

The Palomar Restaurant

October 14, 2015

Stephanie

If I was facing the death penalty, I would choose the Challah bread at The Palomar for my last meal. Although, I’d probably be on death row for bludgeoning someone to death for jumping the queue at their Soho location.

The first time I went it was a random invite from a friend and her boyfriend. The clever bunny books restaurants several months in advance for 4 people and then the week of, finds another couple to go with and my fiancé and I won the lottery this time!

The four of us were squashed into a corner table normally reserved for two people and handed menus. I was super intimidated at first because I didn’t know most things on the menu. Thankfully our friends had been there before, and to other restaurants by the same chef group in Jerusalem and assured me the food was incredible. She wasn’t wrong.

My contribution for ordering for the table was the Chicken two ways because it was breaded and fried, and as I said before, that’s pretty much how I judge all food.

It was delicious! The Challah Bread is to literally die for. You can’t go wrong with just about anything you order and take a chance on the chef specials. We did and there were absolutely no regrets!

Reservations are understandably difficult. However, if you go very early, you stand a good chance of getting a seat at the bar. I did that with my vegetarian friend while she was pregnant and the seats were confortable enough for her and she loved the food. It’s also fun to watch the kitchen work in front of you. They have a pretty good sense of humor.

The Palomar

34 Rupert Street

London W1D 6DN

www.thepalomar.co.uk

Food

The Ivy Chelsea Garden

October 12, 2015

Stephanie

The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a beautiful rose that popped up in a former plot of manure. It’s so different from the bar/restaurant/blackout location that used to be there, I was skeptical. How could something so awesome exist where so many horrendous smells and bad decisions had come from?

Apparently before you get married you need to take every opportunity to drink out of penis straws.

Anyway, The Ivy Chelsea Garden can be a hard reservation to get. Usually I’m pretty over places like that, but one evening I called randomly and they did have space for two at 8. I went with my hilarious friend Michelle the week before my wedding and she brought me these completely appropriate props to have dinner with. We sat out in the garden and it was a bit chilly so the staff brought us blankets along with our menus.

To say the menu is comprehensive is an understatement. It was super hard to choose because they had everything from mushroom on toast to tuna carpaccio and that was just the starters.

I’ve been called The Cheese Monster by a French guy I know, so it’s no surprise I ordered the seasonal roasted cauliflower soup with crumbled Stilton. It was magical and renewed my obsession with soup in general.

For my main, I went with the Chicken Milanese because A) I like breaded anything, B) I love fried eggs, C) When I see the world truffle I am blind to anything else. But believe it or not, this STILL didn’t narrow my choices because there are no fewer than 4 truffle items on the all day menu: Truffle Arancini, truffle and parmesan fries, chicken Milanese and truffled chicken brioche sandwich. This food literally ticked ALL OF THE BOXES IN THE WORLD.

Please forgive the half eaten photo. We were scuba deep on two bottles of wine.

Now, I was still on my wedding diet so that cancelled out the fried rice balls. However, I was having soup, so no need to go overboard on the health factor either which cancelled out the chicken sandwich (it came with salad on salad with no fries). In the interest of full disclosure, I ordered the other two truffle things: Chicken Milanese and the truffle parmesan fries. I was two pounds over my goal weight for my wedding and this was worth it. The Chicken Milanese was pretty good, although I felt they went a little heavy with whatever the white sauce all over the chicken was. Truffle fries were, as always, delicious and the tomato salad was, as always, not as delicious as truffle fries.

To counteract the fries we had the tomato side salad and to counteract that we had this piece of deliciousness!

The chocolate bombe!

People were very friendly, although the service lacked when it came to pouring our wine and bringing the bill, the two most important things in the world! The table next to us INSISTED we came and sat with them for a few minutes which we did mostly because it seemed like such a novel idea popular in the 70s along with swinging parties.

Considering how much food we ate (and drank ALL the wines), the bill wasn’t too bad at £65/person. If you can book in advance I would recommend it, but it’s worth a try to call for cancellations. It’s also become a bit easier to get in now that the summer and the hype has died down.

I can’t wait for The Ivy Kensington Brasserie on High Street Kensington to open! All of the wine and stumbling distance to Bodo’s Scholss!

The Ivy Chelsea Garden

195-197 King’s Road, London, SW3 5ED

www.theivychelseagarden.com

Food

The Good Life Eatery

October 8, 2015

Stephanie

1 Comments

First off, it should be called the F%$king Great Life Eatery because that’s how good the eggs benedict is. I went to meet my friend right before my wedding for a catch up breakfast and my only requirement was healthy. In my world, healthy is any food that doesn’t contain cookies or cake, so our options were pretty open. I’d been dying to go to The Good Life Eatery for a while but heard there were lines and I couldn’t be bothered to fight a yummy mummy after her yoga class with an insatiable need to get her chia seed on.

It was raining, elbows were thrown but eventually I got somewhere near the front of the line and ordered their skinny royale. If I’m honest I expected it to taste like cardboard because that’s how most health food tastes to me. I picked the real bread (gluten free is code word for filled with plastic and shit I can’t pronounce) and we sat at the counter near the doorway, which my friend was passively aggressively guarding with her life.

Imagine my surprise when this plate of deliciousness showed up.

I don’t know what’s skinny about it because this was probably one of the best eggs benedict/royale I have ever had in my entire life. If it will put less junk in my trunk I vote we permanently change the standard recipe to this (eggs, smoked salmon, yogurt and saffron sauce mmmmmmm).

Although they have a vast selection, I didn’t have a smoothie. I’m just not into avocado, vanilla and almond milk mixed together. I’d like to keep my yummy benedict down thankyouverymuch.

Then I went back a few weeks later with another set of girl friends for our first (of hopefully many) breakfast club at noon (One of us had yoga. It obviously wasn’t me). Imagine my horror when I was told that they don’t serve eggs after 11:30am because eggs aren’t for the afternoon. Whoever decided this is missing out on LIFE. Anyway, after the shock wore off I ordered their chicken club which was also delicious, but not to the epic level their royale was.

I was also hung-over as f%$k so I asked the staff if they had anything that would cure it and they pointed me in the direction of a delicious juice called Melrose sunset. The food arrived promptly and we chatted as a weirdo sat at the spare seat at our table and devoured a huge and incredible looking piece of red velvet cake.

I highly recommend The Goof Life Eatery but politely request that you contact me before you go so you can save me a place in line.

The Good Life Eatery

www.goodlifeeatery.com

59 Sloane Avenue

London SW3 3DH UK

Stephanie Wahlstrom

Hey! Cute top! Flattery gets you everywhere, right? Seriously, though, I like what you've got going on over there. Anyway, my name is Stephanie and I am a Canadian writer living in London. I like to eat, travel and make people laugh. The Accidental Socialite is the name of my debut novel and this blog where you'll find tales of my mishaps and far too many references to bacon. Enjoy!