There is one particular performance that is fast becoming as habitual as the passport triple-check: researching your destination on TripAdvisor. We’ve all done it – of course, it is virtually impossible to avoid it, the world’s biggest travel website. Operating in over 45 languages, the site has published more than 190 million reviews, with 115 new contributions (or reviews) each day. Search any hotel, restaurant or landmark on Google and TripAdvisor will be the first option that the net throws out. And in theory, TripAdvisor is great: it’s digital democracy in action. Tourists can upload photographs of their food or hotel room, alongside a star rating and a (supposedly) short paragraph about their experience. We like to think that TripAdvisor improves the general experience: standards are maintained for fear of a bad review (although, funnily enough, in 2014, a couple was fined £100 by a Blackpool hotel that they had described as a ‘rotten stinking hovel’ in a review on the site).

On a recent trip to Rome, I learned about the perils of TripAdvisor the hard way. Looking for a cafe for lunch, I dumbly searched the internet and lo! Google pointed me in the direction of a cafe but a stone’s throw away that had rave reviews on TripAdvisor: 1,126 of them in fact, 77% of which rated the restaurant as ‘excellent.’ It will, I presume, come as no surprise at this point to learn that the eatery was anything but excellent. It was, instead, San Francisco-meets-Shoreditch with a patron straight out of central casting. The place was dead, save but for one American youth, shaking his head as the remnants of his sandwich slid down has chops, repeating ‘this place is UN-REAL.’

Now, TripAdvisor surely works up to a point: if an establishment is filthy, or a landmark spoiled, the unassuming customer is duly warned and can make his decision based upon this. But where TripAdvisor fails is that it cannot possibly know what your heart desires at that particular moment, and guarantee that you’ll be delivered of it. Similarly, any restaurant, hotel or site on TripAdvisor has by nature been discovered and therefore is slightly spoiled.

Take Maccheroni on the Piazza delle Coppelle (a short walk away from the Pantheon): tucked behind one of The Eternal City’s biggest attractions, it serves a completely delicious carbonara (and in my case, gnocchi with pear and gorgonzola), but its rating on TripAdvisor falls below that of the San Franciscan sarni joint described above. There is no better place for a bowl of pasta in Rome – but there are no tablecloths and paper napkins, so it falls short of an ‘excellent’ rating. The same goes for the Pizzeria Ai Marmi in Trastevere – good food (straightforward delicious pizza slices), no frills, poor ratings. Another victim of the internet is Giggetto al Portico d’Ottavia in the Jewish quarter: nowhere in Rome can you eat better Roman artichokes whilst you sit among the ruins – but TripAdvisor’s lackeys don’t seem to think so.

My advice, for what it’s worth, is to avoid TripAdvisor. Especially when in Rome.

WHAT TO DO

Marrakech lies in the shadows of the Atlas mountains, where it houses French, Arab and Berber cultures, making it feel both romantic and bohemian. It is unusual in that three cultures and histories are all so prominent and yet so amalgamated at the same time. Weather-wise, Marrakech has something that we lack in Britain: the sunshine. The best time of year to go is spring or autumn, when temperatures allow for meandering through the souks (always hire a tour guide to direct you) as well as sun-worship. In terms of things to see, Marrakech has enough to whet the appetite of a culture vulture, but not so much that Museum Leg kicks in. The Bahia Palace, Saadian Tombs, Majorelle Gardens are all worth seeing and can be ticked off fairly quickly.

WHERE TO STAY

The city is not lacking in luxurious options for accommodation. The Four Seasons is situated away from the hustle and bustle of the city, in amongst verdant gardens of palm trees abundant in songbirds. The hotel successfully straddles the balance of being both family friendly and family unfriendly (ie, you don’t have to hang around with your children if you don’t particularly want to) meaning that you are at liberty to enjoy the excellent sports and spa facilities. Incidentally, the spa is open to all guests with the possibility of booking extra treatments and favour products that are said to be favoured by the current King Mohammed VI. Room rates start at £290 per night excluding taxes.

WHERE TO EAT

Tourists flock to the Jemaa el-Fnaa Square for street food which is very cheap (about £8 per person for a substantial meal) and quite good – an authentic experience, so to speak. Probably best for the first night while you settle in to the surroundings. For a less authentic but rather more gourmet experience, try Al Fassia. It’s located a ten minute car journey from the centre with fantastically faux-sumptuous ugly decor but the food is properly delicious. As well as the obvious (and sensible) choices of tagines, the pastilla au pigeon is an unusual delicacy (a meat pie which is then doused in sugar) and a very delicious one. Alcohol is hard to come by and overpriced – best avoided unless you’re really thirsty (it happens to the best of us).

Light, haystacks, colour, the Impressionist movement: all of the above come to mind sooner than construction, when one considers Monet. And The National Gallery’s attempt at disrupting the popular understanding of Monet is key here: for that ambition is probably the greatest success of the exhibition.

The show, which started this month and runs until the end of July, is a grand display, featuring 75 paintings from his earlier career in the mid-1860s through to the public display of his Venice paintings in 1912.

There are also some real gems, including a completely charming 1878 painting entitled ‘The Steps’ which depicts a romantic French courtyard (interestingly, one of the only paintings in which enclosed space is represented in the exhibition – more below) and ‘Snow Effect’ at Giverny (1893) which demonstrates the artist’s unparalleled talent for creating atmosphere in his works.

However, the exhibition’s conviction that Monet was absorbed by ‘scientific constructs’ of architecture is largely unsupported. Throughout the display, Monet appears more absorbed by nature and, as a secondary consideration, architecture alongside it. But it is difficult to be convinced by the notion that he was any more interested in architecture than he was in, say, animals or marketplaces. To the contrary, an overwhelmingly large proportion of the paintings feature water: beaches, canals, ponds and rivers, but his intrigue in reflections is overlooked.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some corkers on display, or that the exhibition is futile. ‘Monet & Architecture’ closes with a comparative display of Monet’s study of The Houses of Parliament (Sunset, Stormy Sky and Fog Effect) and here his talent is, ironically, eye-watering and induces a great patriotism of London and its magnificent Palace of Westminster. Similarly, his studies of Venice (San Giorgio Maggiore and The Doge’s Palace) are formidable. Through these studies, we arguably see Monet at his best (in this exhibition at any rate).

However, it is safe to say that associations of Monet and water lilies have been popularised for a reason: the artist’s real fascination was with nature, and not man’s intervention in the form of architecture.

Monet & Architecture runs until the 29th July at the National Gallery

But that is not to say that it should be overlooked.

In theory, Art and Power explores Charles II’s attempts to assert his majesty through art. And displayed here are some works that nod towards that theory, with John Michael Wright’s vast portrait of the King taking centre stage. In practice, the exhibition is more of a journey through Charles II’s trials and tribulations and, of course, his ultimate triumph over the beastly Oliver Cromwell, who serves as the villain throughout.

The viewer is propelled into the drama, as the exhibition opens with the 1649 Act for Abolishing the Kingly Office – fairly self-explanatory but there is something marvellously frightening about seeing the print of the Act itself and imaging the chaos and uncertainty that it threw the country into. We are then – at this point becoming increasingly indignant – shown Edward Bower’s depiction of Charles I at his trial, where of course he was accused of being a ‘tyrant, traitor, murderer and enemy against the Commonwealth.’ And so this continues through to Charles II’s great escape (as portrayed by Willem van de Velde the Younger) and so on and so forth until we are smacked in the face by kilos and kilos of gold and silver, in the form of the regalia that Charles II commissioned for his coronation.

Following this event, Samuel Peyps wrote in his diary that “I may now shut my eyes against any other objects, or for the future trouble myself to see things of state and shewe, as being sure never to see the like again in this world,” and whilst Art and Power offers only a fraction of this – without of course the hysteria and hell of the puritanism – one can see that living under Charles II must have been jolly good fun.

As well as the endless regalia, there are more touching, personal items, such as the bible that he took with him in exile – embroidered within an inch of its life and this probably gives us a better indication of Charles II the man than the endless portraits of courtiers who were hanging around at the time. Similarly, Art and Power offers interesting facts (such as information on Charles II’s ‘touching ceremonies’) which make the display accessible to adult and child alike.

It is a crying shame that Charles II: Art and Power should run alongside Charles I: King and Collector. Comparisons are of course odious, but the proximity of these two displays – geographically and historically – encourages such activity. That aside, the exhibition dedicated to Charles II is a totally different offering: it isn’t really about the art, but instead about monarchy, state, merrymaking, pomp and circumstance. It’s about triumph over puritanism and the deliciousness of luxury, decoration and celebration. And in today’s pessimistic world of populism, poverty and celebrity politicians, it’s jolly good fun to be reminded of the joys of revelry.

‘She has done for thirty years,’ the maitre d’ added bashfully. Naturally, in a state of unalloyed awe, I opted for the table next to hers.

The restaurant, tucked away in between Piccadilly and St James’s, is one of the most well-known places to dine in London. Never mind the thirty year disciple, Le Caprice is a favoured haunt of the great and the good, of royalty – both real (Princess Margaret was a regular and Lady Di claimed it was her favourite restaurant) and rock (Mick Jagger is rumoured to frequent Le Caprice on a regular basis), and every other foodie in between.

Despite the celebrity, there is a surprising lack of ceremony about the restaurant. This is refreshing – the staff successfully strike the delicate balance of being both courteous and attentive without inducing claustrophobia – a rare feat in today’s customer-is-always-right culture. The decor is neither here nor there (the place is dark) but is probably geared towards Art Deco and there’s an inexhaustible piano player plinking away in the corner.

Why, then, the hype? What makes Le Caprice worthy of a journey every Monday evening for thirty years?

The answer, of course, is the food. Le Caprice’s menu is uncomplicated, comprised of about ten straightforward and beloved dishes: fried fish with pea purée, chips and tartare; rib eye steak with fries and Béarnaise,  duck breast with smoked beets etc. I opted for calves’ liver with sage and bacon (the best liver I have eaten in recent memory) and my companion chose monkfish and prawn curry – also delicious and unfussy. Pudding consisted of chocolate tart and steamed treacle sponge respectively.

Heaven.

It is rare in life that an exhibition is so proud, so brilliant, and so informative. All too often, displays of collections seek to communicate with the audience by employing fluffed up language or complicated and tactics, but there is none of that here. King and Collector is so truly magnificent that critique is not required. The masterpieces speak for themselves – and indeed for the white king.

The first layer of the exhibition is comprised of Big Names: there are Titians, Van Dycks, Hans Holbein the Youngers, Mantegnas and Corregios galore. Then there are the Big Names as depicted by the Big Names – van Dyck’s portrait of Charles I’s wife, Henrietta Maria; Van Dyck’s impression of the Earl of Arundel; Reubens’ painting of the Duke of Buckingham etc. etc.

Subjects are familial (of course), biblical (Adam and Eve naturally make an appearance, as do the Virgin and Child, as well as some lesser known representations, such as Hans Vredeman de Vries’ painting of Christ in the House of Martha and Mary), mythological (a colossal Reubens of Minerva protecting Peace from Mars) and historical. Through these we start to understand the collector as a man with a thirst for aesthetic beauty and visual splendour.

We see less of Charles the husband – but that’s OK, because presumably he didn’t occupy his own time worrying about spousal sensitivities and suchlike. However, Queen Consort Henrietta Maria absorbs much of the focus here – the exhibition claims that she played an active role in shaping her husband’s collection and although the supporting evidence isn’t quite clear, one doesn’t really care because there is so much to be excited by. We learn that ‘Charles was intent on reflecting his magnificence by creating a collection that would rival those of European courts’ and perhaps this is where Henrietta Maria came in. She certainly owned a fantastic collection herself, some of which we are privy to, including a rather touching Gentileschi, The Finding of Moses, which shows women flapping around the baby much as they would have upon the discovery of the child, in Henrietta Maria’s court, and as they do today.

Such is the enjoyment of King and Collector that one can’t help but feel put out at the discovery of only four of the Mortlake tapestries on display – much like the King himself, the audience becomes greedy for more as the exhibition goes on.

Art is here depicted as an essential form, a visual necessity, and the ultimate symbol of power and magnificence. Of course, Charles I eventually learned that no power is completely impenetrable: ‘I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.’ But it is truly glorious to glimpse at a moment in time when the Crown was absolute, and the right of the kings was divine.

The painting has confused and challenged audiences since it was painted in 1434. Is the woman pregnant? Are the man and the woman shown married? Why is the man holding up his hand in that priestly fashion? What’s with the oranges on the window-sill? Is “disguised symbolism” really A Thing, or a reactive understanding of a work? Etc. Etc. Once you see it you instantly realise you already know it, but The Arnolfini Portrait doesn’t, for most, conjure up an image in the mind’s eye of the (surprisingly) small painting of an Italian merchant couple and their dog at home in Bruges.

Bizarrely, The Arnolfini Portrait isn’t the first painting on offer in the contained but considered exhibition, showing until April 2018. It is, however, breathtaking in its precision and its almost luminous quality, and it is clearly celebrated as the most significant piece in the exhibition, for every other painting shown is linked back to Eyck’s double portrait.

As with all exhibitions, curators display works that make new links between various works and the effects or influences that certain artists had on one another. Reflections is no exception. Susan Foister (Deputy Director of Early Netherlandish, German and British Paintings at the National Gallery) and Alison Smith (Lead Curator of British Art to 1900 at Tate) have undoubtedly succeeded in displaying works and linking them to one another in a slightly unexpected fashion. Take, for example, the room dedicated to The Lady of Shallott: five works are shown including the well-known favourites such as John William Waterhouse’s oil depiction but also the less established representations, Elizabeth Siddal’s sketch, for example. It is pretty, and enjoyable, and reminds the viewer of Tennyson’s poem, but the connection back to Van Eyck is slightly lost in the quagmire. Presumably the link is the mirror in the poem, although this isn’t entirely obvious.

However, the obvious doesn’t sit well with everyone (some prefer to scrutinise the various hidden meanings or representations – if only I could), and for that reason, Reflections is proving popular, and deservedly so. It is interesting to see how artists incorporated mirrors, light and reflections in their works – perhaps an element of portraiture that one often looks past. It is unusual to view such a diverse collection of works: because the unifying theme is mirrors, the audience gains an insight through the keyhole of homes throughout the ages. There are also some particularly enjoyable treats on display, such as Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ Fair Rosamund and Queen Eleanor, whereby the latter confronts her husband’s mistress before killing her.

Reflections is fun, it’s historical, and it’s a jolly good means to beat the January blues.

There are many, many more irritating elements: creative menus, for example, or the contemporary obsession with using seasonal ingredients. (The latter has had an obscure influence on menus as of late – when did pureed beetroot become acceptable for anyone beyond the age of two?) And then of course – and I fear the following may render me callous and cruel in the your eyes – the fact that Doing Good has somehow become married to the whole ‘experience:’ it is essential that your chicken, like the Saudi princes, has been held in luxurious surroundings and that your beetroot was grown in a field only a short bicycle ride away (food miles) before it reached the restaurant in order to be bastardised by liquidation. Everything has become so hello birds, hello sky, that the concept of sitting down and eating delicious food and then carrying on with the day until the next mealtime has been cast into the distant past.

Enter The Other Naughty Piglet. The restaurant, in London Victoria, sits on the second floor, mezzanine-style, of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Other Palace Theatre. There is a distinctive village hall feel about the space, particularly since the loos are shared with the theatre (sorry to mention them but it adds to the general oddity). Completely bizarrely, after walking through the theatre lobby, guests walk up a stonking great eyesore of a marble staircase that is so misplaced, it’s as if it survived the blitz and the restaurant was built around it because it could not and would not be moved. The Other Naughty Piglet is the sister restaurant of the equally coyly named Naughty Piglets in Brixton, set up by a husband-wife duo Adam Byatt (former head chef at Clapham’s Trinity restaurant) and Margaux Aubry, which has received rave reviews from those patient enough to look beyond its ridiculous name.

Everything about The Other Naughty Piglet is, on paper, ticking the boxes of a Nauseating Fine Dining Experience as listed above. The menus confess that they are both ‘creative’ and ‘seasonal’ – actually, worse still, the menus claim to ‘evolve with the seasons,’ which doesn’t bode well for them if the current rates of global warming continue. The choices are served on ‘sharing platters’ – so do not darken the doors with someone with whom you are on less than very friendly terms. The form is tapas-meets-tasting-menu, as each option is brought out, one after the other, and presented with rather a lot of description.

All that said, the food is completely exquisite. Burrata, black olives and basil, for example, turned out to be a surprisingly delicious and unusual pairing of tastes and textures (the burrata sat on a crunchy olive tapenade). The (home-made, natch) black pudding with soy pickled mushrooms, chestnuts and celeriac was one of the most delicious things I have eaten in recent times, the beef short rib was so tender that it practically melted. The honeycomb ice-cream, chocolate mousse and salted caramel was a disassembled crunchie bar that rendered all other puddings perfectly pointless. The menu and the concept is try-hard, but the food is considered, and cooked absolutely brilliantly. So if you can stomach the hello birds, hello sky ‘vibes,’ you’ll find The Other Naughty Piglet to be a fine dining experience after all.

The Other Naughty Piglet is now open. Find out more here 

Dali has been picked up. Made fashionable. Popularised. His 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory has fallen prey to reproduction in the form of memes almost as many times as The Scream by Munch. Pictures of Fueled by Fears and Fascinations with Donald Trump’s mug usurping Dali’s painted mask and the White House looming ominously in the background have been circulating the internet since the president’s inauguration last year.

And yet, the Royal Academy’s current exhibition that pivots around Dali and his contemporary Marcel Duchamp’s friendship has received relatively little airtime. Which is disappointing, because the Dali// Duchamp display is rather brilliant: curious, determined and a veritable feast for the eyes.

The exhibition itself over-intellectualises its purpose (it claims to ‘explore the artistic, philosophical and personal links’ between the ‘two artistic giants’), throwing surrealism, eroticism, retinal versus modern painting and paranoiac-critical theory (if you please) down our throats. Ignoring this flowery jargon, Dali/ Duchamp succeeds in placing two extremely renowned artists side-by-side and therefore offering their wares in a way that they have not been offered up to the public before. It therefore encourages the audience to consider the pictures through a new lens.

On paper, or indeed on canvas, Dali and Duchamp have little in common (curators Dawn Ades and William Jeffett may disagree). What they saw, and how they viewed the world, appears to contrast – but what they do have in common is that they both saw the world from highly unique and lurid viewpoints. It must be this high-definition optic or understanding that drew them together as friends: they met around 1930 and remained friends until Duchamp’s death in 1968.

That isn’t to belittle the links made between the two – they are both searching and observant. But these links, or bonds, don’t carry as much weight as the exhibition assumes. The result is a friendly and interesting exhibition that is punctuated by some truly marvellous works of art. Less popularised Dalis including Still Life – Fast Moving – which is almost stultifying in its vulgarity – adorn the walls, as well as correspondence between the two artists and smaller, subtler works that give the viewer a cheerful insight into their relationship. One such example is Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q, a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on a postcard that the artist has vandalised with a mustache. The name of the piece is a play on words, sounding like “elle a chaud au cul”, (she’s firey down below). Similarly, Duchamp’s transgender alterego (although it can’t have been called that at the time), Rrose Sélavy makes an appearance.

This mischievousness gives insight into the unusual characters of the two artists. Of course, there’s the opportunity to over-intellectualise (or indeed to under-intellectualise) Duchamp’s relationship with the role of gender identification in surrealism, or some such drivel, but I’d simply take it for what it is: very good.

£16.50 (without donation £15). Concessions available. Friends of the RA, and under 16s when with a fee-paying adult, go free. Off-peak tickets may be available online for times when the galleries are less busy.

There is of course risk in attempting to explore the free aforementioned variables – exhibitions more often consider either the artist’s technique, or the artist’s sitters, or line the masterpieces up chronologically, rather than the three together. However, Cezanne’s Portraits handles the triumvirate in an orderly, and sensible fashion, which leaves the viewer confident that (s)he has really learned something by the time (s)he gets to the exit.

In the same fashion, it is clever how the exhibition pulls together the variety of Cezanne’s sitters from leading thinkers, writers and critics (his friends Gustav Geffroy, Emile Zola and Paul Alexis), to his family (wife Hortense Fiquet and son Paul) and passers by who caught his eye (‘Woman with a Cafetiere,’ ‘Old Woman with a Rosary,’ ‘Man With Crossed Arms’), displaying them all on equal footing (tres francais aussi). Hortense is the exception: Cezanne’s wife absorbs more of the exhibition’s attention than the other sitters which, we are told, is accurate to the artist’s reality: of the 200 portraits painted by the artist during his career, 29 were of his wife. We here see how Cezanne used portraiture to develop his style and his method.

Of course, Cezanne’s use of building form with paint was probably what inspired both Matisse and Picasso to call him ‘the father of us all’ and it is this cross that Cezanne has to bear. Cezanne’s Portraits tears him away from this fashionable reputation, instead scrutinising the artist as a master in his own right.

At the risk of sounding like some art pseud, all poignant exhibitions should, I believe, leave space between the audience and the object displayed. Cezanne’s Portraits proffers lots of information, but leaves the viewer with breathing space to consider the artist’s work and this is arguably due to the artist himself. Cezanne refused to take commissions for portraits and he did not sell a single portrait in his lifetime. These portraits, it would seem, were painted for the purpose of observation, analysis and artistic development – not to please or to sell or to show off. This again emphasised by the presentation of Cezanne’s three self-portraits, more particularly in the comparative study of the two Self Portrait with Bowler Hats, hung adjacently.

Cezanne Portraits is therefore a real testament to curator John Elderfield’s talents – not that he is short of accolades: Elderfield (of MoMA) has masterminded vast retrospectives devoted to Henri Matisse, Kurt Schwitters and Willem de Koonig. Here he works together with Mary Morton and Xavier Rey. It is a real treat to have such a remarkable exhibition here in London and well worth visiting before it heads to Washington in the New Year.

Of course, nothing can be more comforting than a restaurant that provides friendly faces and good food. A restaurant that has sat in the same building for decades. Preferably with a maitre d’ who greets you like an old chum, and remembers your favourite  dish every time you frequent it.

Over recent years, The Ivy restaurant has changed gear. In fact, feathers were ruffled last month when restaurant tycoon Richard Caring sold the building that housed the iconic restaurant and its “super-exclusive” members’ club for a reported £40 million, to supposedly fund his impending divorce. (Anything with a super-exclusive members’ club is usually hurtling towards ghastliness, but that’s besides the point.)

Originally a not-so-humble Italian cafe in the heart of London’s West End, the restaurant (which opened exactly one-hundred years ago) soon became the favoured hotspot for the great and the good of the media world, always bursting at the seams with theatre luvvies toying with their lobster and the glitterarti guzzling champagne. It was – and still is – a place to be seen, where the food is delicious, the service is slick and tables are hard to come by.

And like many Good Ideas, the powers that be saw that The Ivy was good and Caring sought to replicate its success. And so The Ivy’s siblings were born. Various ivies sprouting The Ivy Kensington Brasserie, The Ivy Cafe Marylebone, The Ivy Market Grill etc etc. And now, the Ivy City Garden. Hidden away in Bishopsgate Gardens, the Ivy’s latest franchise is almost impossible to get to – but that hasn’t stopped it drawing in the crowds.

Architecturally discombobulating (there is a garden in the middle of the restaurant that surely sought inspiration from the Eden Project), the decor is rather odd but equally wonderful. A summer water fountain adjacent to three fireplaces is not a familiar sight, but there is a fundamentally cosy atmosphere which allows for the weirdness to fade into insignificance.

The other factor – and perhaps the most important one – that distracts the Ivy City Garden’s visitors from the Eden-project-cum-country-house interior is the food which is, in no uncertain terms, completely delicious. I opted for burrata with peach, olives, smoked almonds and pesto salad, followed by dover sole with beurre noisette. The burrata was death-row quality, and the fish delicious and safe. My companion decided upon tuna carpaccio  with watermelon and miso mayonnaise – not in keeping with the supposed English brasserie theme but refreshing and unusual and summery. He then chose the chicken milanese with black truffle mayonnaise – as delicious as a chicken milanese can be. The Ivy’s latest venture may be off the beaten track, and unnecessarily chintzed up, but the food was unreservedly delicious, and the latter forgives almost any sin.

The snobberies against the north of England, and so-called northerners themselves, are infinite. The stereotypical northerner is often illustrated as a boisterous, loud, sports-loving lout, who never ventures far from either his local football stadium or his pie and gravy.

Efforts have been made to unite the north of England with the south of England. In June 2014, George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, launched the Northern Powerhouse Initiative, which was relaunched as a think tank two years later. The initiative aims to hold the government to account on devolution for the north and to influence strategy and politics in such a way that maximises the north’s resources. Communities secretary Sajid Javid has said ‘this government realises the huge untapped potential of our great northern towns and cities.’

So here I am waxing lyrical, promising I recognise this beastly division, slightly confessing to snobbish stereotypes typical to southerners. Why? This week I found myself in Manchester. The city, usually (I’m told) brimming with students, was relatively quiet now term has broken up and the Isabellas and Harrys have returned to the home counties (or south-east Asia) for their holibobs. I stayed in the marvellous King Street Townhouse hotel, which has a swimming pool on the roof overlooking the Manchester skyline and, by jove, it’s impressive. Alfred Waterhouse was not messing around when he turned his attentions to the Town Hall which is majestic and powerful and almost haunting in its splendour.

Then to Manchester Art Gallery which is currently exhibiting The Edwardians – a small but highly informative collection of works carrying the audience through the social, rural and urban existence of our Edwardian ancestors. The exhibition, which has received relatively little press coverage, is everything that you want an exhibition to be: not too big, interesting and educational. Pivotal to The Edwardians exhibition is Adolphe Valette, who moved to Manchester to study at the Manchester School of Art in 1905. Valette romanticised Manchester in his impressionist-style works that depict a grey-washed city with purpose and hope. We learn of the nostalgia that percolated Edwardian society and are shown how Edwardian artists desperately clung to the comfort of the past in their changing and increasingly industrial society.

Much like ours today. There is solace in the knowledge that times are always changing, and people are always fearful, and our desire to clutch the straws of the past are not dissimilar to the instincts of our ancestors, who did the same. The Edwardians is worth a trip, if only for that sober reminder.

King Street Townhouse, Booth Street, Manchester M2, http://www.eclectichotels.co.uk/king-street-townhouse/

Rooms start at £144 per night

Pics: https://we.tl/XCJy6IcuWF

The Edwardians, now showing until December 2017,

Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester M2, http://manchesterartgallery.org

From the late Latin word ‘incontrā,’ meaning ‘in front of’ (in + contra), ‘encounter’ – strictly speaking – has a more confrontational meaning than we associate it with today. Encontrer, in French, literally means ‘to confront.’ Long before an encounter was romanticised as a stolen moment or a silent understanding, it was used to describe a hostile meeting or a confrontation.

Today, however, with many possible meanings, an encounter is not necessarily something combative, in fact, far from it. Where there was once hostility, the word is instead shrouded in mystery. The real romance in the word ‘encounter,’ I think, is that it is more often than not understood to be a moment between two people. An encounter is therefore largely misunderstood between any one else, other than the two people involved. History, narration and explanation can seek to illustrate an encounter, but really it is never quite known by anybody other than the two people involved.

It is this enigma, this riddle, this secret, this abyss of uncertainty that the National Portrait Gallery is attempting to bring to life in its latest exhibition, The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt. The exhibition shows sketches that, according to the gallery, appear to capture a moment of connection, an encounter between artist and sitter.

The cynic in me cannot help but question the extent to which these sketches capture an encounter between artist and sitter any more than any other renowned portraits. It is likely that the pictures exhibited here are perceived to encapsulate encounters because they are sketches – they are therefore more rushed; it is as if the artist is hurriedly working against time to document a precious moment.

There are a large number of unidentified artists exhibited here which demonstrates Curatorial Director Dr Tarnya Cooper’s desire to create a sense of an encounter and to charge a moment with mystery and emotion, rather than simply to display swanky sketches. However, the crowd-pleasers are also out in force, with the greats such as Hans Holbein the Younger, Rembrandt and da Vinci, decorating the walls of the exhibition, which opened this week and will continue until October.

It is a small exhibition, taking up only two tiny rooms, and as such it feels as if the exhibition comes to a rather abrupt end. I was left feeling that the sense of an encounter could be stretched more, or explored further. And this is largely because what is on display (the majority of which has been lent to the gallery by The Queen from her private collection) is rather lovely. The sketches are neat and simple and easy to look at. Whether or not they capture an encounter, they display some of history’s most skillful sketches, and that makes this exhibition worth visiting in itself. The level to which you are charmed and captivated by the suggested encounter is entirely up to you.

I never thought, until this moment, that Cole and I had much in common. In fact, I still think that we have very few areas of shared interest. And while I (obviously) abhor Cole’s infidelities, in the most straightforward of senses (ie food), I know what he means. Oysters or caviar or lobster or truffles or saffron are all well and good – and boy, are they good – but one doesn’t want to plunge headfirst into such gargantuan forms of gastronomic luxury all-day, every day. Sometimes, you just want a McDonald’s. Well, not quite. In fact, very very rarely. But sometimes, you do want something that isn’t going to either bankrupt you or lull you into a food-induced coma for the foreseeable.

Of course, it isn’t fashionable to desire food that’s considered marginally less-desirable. And all too often price dictates our perceptions of quality. Fortunately, low prices do not repel the crowds at Brasserie Zedel: a fine establishment, hiding near Piccadilly Circus. To its disfavour, it’s yet another jewel in the Corbin and King crown, but there’s not much point complaining about this fact since the Corbin-King tentacles now tickle virtually every street corner in the capital. I admit defeat.

Brasserie Zedel is, if you like, the cheaper little sibling to its suave and spenny elders, the Delaunay and the Wolseley. As if to reinforce the point that the restaurant is more “of the people” than its counterparts, the dining room is absolutely vast, the colour scheme is an off-putting fleshy pink, and the acoustics are so horrific that I left genuinely concerned that I was suffering from premature deafness. You’re also underground, so for the two days of summer (which my visit coincided with), the artificial lighting feels like a let-down, but it works well for the other 363 days of the year. But who wants to listen to their companions bore on, anyway?

For here, at Zedel, it is all about the food. Nothing is more expensive than £25.75 (rib-eye steak) although you can opt for a Poulet Roti et sa Garniture for two people, at £16.75 per person. There is a beautifully French and thoroughly good £9.75 menu of carottes rapées followed by Steak Haché which instantly transports you back to France and is about an eighth of a price of an Easyjet ticket to the la metropole. The Saturday daily special is, I promise you, the best lunch in London – Lapin à la moutarde – and it is one of the world’s great tragedies that it’s only available on a Saturday. Why? Green salad with radishes (£3), confit de canard £16), tarte au citron (£4.50), ile flottante (£4.75) – the menu is more French than the concept of revolution itself.

Brasserie Zedel may be cheap, and noisy, and slightly chaotic, but the food is completely delicious every single time. The menu is still in French – a trend that is dying faster than the gentleman’s tie – and who cares if you can’t hear what your companion is saying? With food this good, you don’t need to.

Brasserie Zedel, 20 Sherwood St, Soho, London W1F 7ED. Phone: 020 7734 4888

There is something of The Titanic about The Ned, London’s newest and most talked about hotspot, which looms in the distinctly cold spot of the City of London. Soho House’s latest colony is, in no uncertain terms, an absolute whopper. There are eight restaurants, 250 bedrooms, a gym, a barber, an expansive spa with every oily treatment imaginable and a private members’ club on a roof balcony, complete with a swimming pool where you can splish and splosh with total strangers overlooking St Paul’s. The opening party attracted every A, B, C … all the way through to Z-lister in the city, each and every one of them eager to mince around this colossal establishment. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them were still there, weeks later, wandering aimlessly through the endless corridors.

The building is undeniably majestic – it was designed by Edwin Lutyens, casually known to the Soho House Group as “Ned”. But here’s the thing. It’s gargantuan. It’s in the City – presumably an unpopular destination for nocturnal party animals. There’s a lot of hype, in fact, excitement verging on hysteria. The Ned, is therefore, a PR dream.

 The Ned, in short, is also an orchestra of chaos. Arriving in the spectacular lobby, we were greeted by representatives of The Ned, armed with iPads, serving an unidentified purpose. It was tricky to identify the representatives, as they were all dressed in trendy leisure wear which therefore meant that they unintentionally masqueraded as hotel guests wandering around the lobby using the free WiFi.

The other people meandering around the lobby using the free WiFi – that is to say, hoi poloi, you and I – were there in their hundreds. The Ned’s PR team should merrily reward themselves for all of their hard work because the lobby was overflowing with people – none of whom seemed to be from The City, as you might suspect. There was an instantaneous cruise ship feeling about The Ned. And cruise ships, although in theory ghastly, are Fun places, where people go with the sole purpose of Having Fun. And so it is with The Ned. Londoners, and indeed tourists, are flocking in their thousands, just To Have Fun. To try it. To see what the hype is about.

In the centre of this orchestra of chaos was some form of stage, either suspended from the ceiling or erected – it was hard to tell – from which a “self-produced alternative R and B artist” (who looked like the love child of Boy George and Victoria Beckham) was belting out unidentifiable tunes enthusiastically. And the crowd was absolutely loving it. They were going to The Ned and they were going to Have Fun. Not hell, nor high water, nor screeching music was going to stand in their way.

I chose Millie’s Cafe – an English brasserie. The menu is straightforward – oysters, burgers, salads and suchlike. The best choice was my companion’s asparagus: deliciously fresh and perfectly cooked (surprisingly, seeing as it must have been cooked in a galley kitchen miles away). The rump steak had flavour but wasn’t as tender as one would hope. The service was extremely friendly (most staff members have been poached from London’s other trendy spots such as Chiltern Firehouse) but utterly confused. The captain of the ship was Bruno, the only person in the establishment who attempted to steer The Titanic through the chaos and disorder to calmer waters. Unfortunately The Ned was too tumultuous despite his efforts. But what it was, was jolly good fun. And you have the added bonus of no sea-sickness.

So, after a tumultuous week, I thought to myself, what could be better than a delicious French supper, to quell my woes in this time of uncertainty? And there, winking at me in the heart of St James’s, is Boulestin, a relatively new revival of original, which was located in Covent Garden from the 1920s to the late 1990s. What, indeed, could be better for any of us than traditional French food after an exhausting week of British politics? Oh to chomp on some canard and drink to the la Republique and their revolution.

Boulestin looks like it wants you to think it is an institution, with the low-hanging wooden bar and the comforting black and white tiled floor. This is possibly to fend off the ever looming threats of the Corbin-King restaurants that are cropping up all over the city. In fact, the Wolseley is a short walk away from Boulestin. One therefore wants to like Boulestin more: it is miniscule in comparison and, of course, it is independent. Furthermore, there is a charming courtyard at the back of the restaurant, lit by Victorian gas lights where you can dine in the two days of summer and smoke throughout the year.

Its namesake, Marcel Boulestin, was a chef and restaurateur, often credited for the proliferation of French food in non-French countries – an unquestionably worthy deed. Boulestin claims to ‘reimagine’ its namesake’s restaurants, based on the books that he wrote. But alas, alack, woe and misery – I fear that Boulestin may be spinning six feet under, along with Camden. For surely, nowhere in the lexicon of the French kitchen, is a quinoa grain to be found. Particularly not alongside a pomegranate seed.

The menu is therefore adventurous, probably an attempt to differentiate Boulestin from other similar models. I chose a burrata and tomato tart, which turned out to be a posh pizza that was a bit heavy on the tapenade; my companion went for grilled octopus with rhubarb. The octopus was smokey and meaty – a rare and delicious treat. For the main course, I chose poussin cooked three ways, my companion opted for the blackened Iberico pork with broad beans and marjoram jus. The poussin was good, I can’t deny it, but it would have been better if it had been cooked one way, well. This, it seems is a common theme at Boulestin – over-shooting, so to speak. The food was perfectly good, the house white – a picpoul – perfectly drinkable. The dining experience (another uninspired British phrase) was overshadowed by a maitre d’ who didn’t seem to hold his hardworking waitresses in high esteem.

There’s a lot to be said for Boulestin. The menu is ambitious, and as such, it’s definitely worth trying. But we didn’t stay for pudding.

So far, so insignificant. Except for the sauce – the mention of which I just casually glided past. The sauce is the sauce of gods. It is one of the world’s best kept secrets – so well kept, in fact, that you probably haven’t even heard of it. But hearing it leads to tasting it, and tasting it will, I vow, lead to a lifetime of happiness.

For the Entrecote’s Secret Sauce is one of the most exquisite tastes known to mankind. Rich, buttery and unusual, it is unquestionably one of the best combination of flavours on the planet today.

Not only is the Secret Sauce one of the greatest secrets in culinary history, but it is also the subject of much debate, rendering the delicacy something of a myth or a legend. No one, except for the keeper of the keys (the Godillot family who own the enterprise, and have done since its conception in Paris in 1959) knows what the sauce is made of. But this hasn’t stopped people guessing. French newspaper Le Monde reported that chicken livers, fresh thyme, thyme flowers, full cream, white Dijon mustard and salt and pepper are behind the concoction. French restaurant critic Jean-Claude Ribaut attempted to dissect the ingredients under some sort of complicated chemical analysis that made no sense and ruined the magic. Wild guesses have been made involving anchovies and herbs and condiments and vegetables – but all to no avail.  I once came across a man who’d conducted a love affair with one of the waitresses in a fruitless quest to solve the mystery.

Therefore travelling back to my childhood, to the impenetrably blissful days of long lunches at the Entrecote, has been more difficult than one might think. (I make this spoiled pronouncement with self-awareness, gratitude, lucky me, etc etc.)

Until now. For the Hélène Godillot, of the Godillot Empire, is overseeing the expansion of the enterprise across London, with franchises in the capital’s Soho, Marylebone, Canary Wharf and the City. These aren’t new restaurants – the first opened in 2005 – but they will revolutionise your lunch or dinner. Sadly, the Entrecote (important: real name Relais de Venise) seems to have been rendered somewhat insignificant in the ever-expanding red meat market, the Hawksmoors and the Gauchos have got the monopoly.

Which is no bad thing. Because real foodies, who want to eat fast and eat well, can still do so without having to confront over-friendly servers who have a propensity to pontificate about the 48,000 different cuts of meat before producing a delicious but unremarkable chunk of steak. You won’t get that at the Relais de Venise! Oh no! Here you instead have three choices – rare, medium, or well-done.

The Relais de Venise is unutterably delicious. The fact that the Secret Sauce has made it across the channel is reason enough for a national day of celebration. It pains me to write it, but the atmosphere of the British franchise isn’t quite the same as the French counterpart (no hideous tartan wallpaper, the waitresses are friendly rather than sexily stern) but the food itself is completely sublime. And the sauce is just as delicious, just as secret, as ever it was in Toulouse thirty years ago.

The exhibition is intimate and therefore unintimidating, rejecting the all-too familiar trap of boastful display that so many of the smaller galleries tend to fall into. Spread across two floors, Abstraction Explored displays Caziel’s more significant artworks from (unsurprisingly) the 1950s.

There is something truly comforting about Abstraction Explored, despite the fact it is abstract and therefore, to some, inherently confusing (see last week’s review of Howard Hogkin’s Absent Friends, currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery). This is perhaps due to the lack of any explanation or text offering on the Whitford Gallery’s part. The viewer is therefore at liberty – truly, at liberty – to come to his own conclusions. The pictures, entitled “Composition”, present an aesthetic that is entirely without bias, which is a complete and utter relief. It is exciting to peruse in an environment so void of judgement, and a rare treat to do so.

The works of Caziel (real name Kazimierz Józef Zielenkiewicz) are here both ordered and chaotic. Mostly black but punctuated with bright primary colours and bold shapes, they are unassuming and visually pleasing. Abstraction Explored documents Caziel’s early dalliance with abstraction, a form he later fully embraced before his death in 1988. The artist’s influences are instantly recognisable (Picasso, Cezanne and Braque), again reinforcing the familiar nature of the exhibition. I cannot imagine that anyone – young or old, knowledgable or uninformed – could stand before one of Caziel’s works exhibited here and not be touched in some way.

Just as fascinating is the artist’s life. Born in Poland in 1906, Caziel and his family fled to Moscow during WW1 and then pushed further across Siberia after the 1917 Revolution and Russian Civil War. Impoverished and hungry, young Caziel earned money cleaning art schools and posing as a model, before returning to Poland in 1922. He studied at Warsaw Fine Art Academy and, his talents recognised, went to France armed with a national bursary in 1937. During the Second World War, Caziel hid in Aix-en-Provence, before travelling back to Paris in 1947.

Many of the works exhibited in Abstraction Explored were painted during his time in Paris, where Caziel befriended some of Europe’s greatest modern artists, including Le Corbusier and Brancusi but it was his friendship with Picasso that was especially important in the development of his work. It was during this time that Caziel found love – falling for Scottish artist Catherine Sinclair, who he later married. Caziel’s life is one of romance and adventure, soon to be documented by his daughter Clementina, who is developing a treatment for a drama series based on her father’s life. I boisterously tracked Clementina down upon stumbling across Whitford Fine Art. “It is wonderful to see these paintings exhibited at Whitford Fine Art with whom we have had a 20 year relationship and to see the public’s reaction to his work,” Clementina told me.

Unassuming and touching, Caziel’s Abstraction Explored is unquestionably worth a detour. It was Caziel’s belief that paintings should bring joy, and those exhibited here certainly do.

Caziel: Abstraction Explored – works from the 50s is currently exhibiting at Whitford Fine Art until 2nd June 2017. Prices: £3,800-£36,000.

First up: Three Comrades by Erica Maria Remarque (best known for his 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front). The plot is cushioned by a trio of struggling mechanics, battling on in amongst the turmoil and the hardship of The Great Depression, but centres on one of these three – Robert Lohkamp (played thoughtfully by Alexander Khovanskiy), an enthusiastic drinker, disenchanted by his bleak surroundings. Luckily, Robert is soon propelled from his perpetual state of gloom and intoxication upon meeting the dainty and graceful Patrice (Chulpan Khamatova).

This is a tale of the power of love and the labyrinth of passions that come with it, from agonising jealousy to fruitless hope.

The plot itself is secondary to the sheer spectacle of the production (seamlessly produced by Oliver King and Lee Menzies). The sets are both elaborate and considered – the contextual bleakness cleverly balanced against extravagant scenery that swings in and out of sight throughout. The interplay of music, lights and costume is powerful here – all three working both together and apart to consistently surprise the audience and reinforce the horrors of the time. This innovative and powerful production makes theatre feel alive, as theatre is supposed to. And whether or not you feel up to three hours of following subtitles (or indeed listening to the Russian script), there is something so truly marvellous about the electric energy of a true spectacle, shown here in spades.

It is easy, then, to forget the cultural weight of this performance. The Sovremennik Theatre (Russia’s oldest theatre company) was founded in the 1956 during the Khrushchev Thaw. In keeping with the times, the Sovremennik sought to present an art form that was true to the nature of humanity, that presented voices and viewpoints with integrity; unpoisoned by political bias or interference. Up until the 1990s, the Soveremennik Theatre was banned from touring internationally, so its arrival in the cultural heart of the UK capital is poignant in itself.

Galina Volchek co-founded the Sovremennik and has pioneered its success ever since, becoming its artistic director in 1972 and leading the Theatre for the past five decades. A disciple of the Stanislavasky Method (which supports acting using the art of experience, as opposed to employing only technical training), Volcheck here directs Three Comrades and her adherence to the Sovremennik Theatre’s values is unwavering.

Despite the history, the politics, and the raw emotion, there is also frivolity, largely in the form of bosoms, balloons and butchery. A decorative chorus of hookers and endless extras carry the spectacle throughout. Interestingly, the female role who is most loaded with personality – indeed, perhaps the only humanised female character – is Patrice, who is dressed head-to-toe in beige throughout, juxtaposing the louche and colourful but largely interchangeable female chorus.

At times tricky to follow, and at times slightly drawn-out, the Sovremennik Theatre’s season in London is not to be missed – if, for nothing else, then for its spectacle. Three Comrades is unquestionably spectacular.

The Sovremennik Theatre’s productions of Three Comrades, Two for the Seesaw and The Three Sisters are on at the Piccadilly Theatre until May 13th.

Hodgkin’s subjects – or friends – include artist Robyn Denny and his wife, sculptor Joe Tilson and spouse, artists Anthony Hill, Gillian Wise and Stephen Buckley. In a way, though, their names and features are irrelevant because in his abstraction, Hodgkin recreates their identities according to his vision.

The exhibition, we are told, explores memory and expression of emotion in Hodgkin’s portraits, spanning from the 1950s to his final paintings, completed just a few months before his death last month. We are also warned that Hodgkin “refers to people without resorting to the creation of a literal likeness”, which seems to be the most sensical offering available. Hodgkin’s work is in fact wildly abstract, and the figures are often virtually impossible to discern amongst the bright colours and geometric patterns.

Hodgkin’s style becomes more familiar as the exhibition progresses. Organised chronologically, it firstly feels a bit like an optical illusion. To begin with, Hodgkin’s absent friends appear so absent that you’re not quite sure if they ever existed in the first place, but as one meanders through, it becomes easier to identify the abstract forms, and the challenge turns out to be quite fun. Whilst a collection of works so very abstract initially feels both daunting and foreign, the fact that Absent Friends becomes more communicative is clever, and unique. Often the last few rooms of an exhibition feel like an afterthought, but not here.

That said, the first room is an anomaly (it should be treated as such), and undoubtedly the most comfortable, capturing Hodgkin’s early work. The exhibition then throws the viewer headlong into the abstract: paintings such as Memoirs echo Picasso and the sketches here offer more insight into what Hodgkin really saw, at the most basic or literal level.

Clearly Hodgkin viewed people with scepticism, and it is obvious that he rejected aesthetic realities when painting, but Absent Friends again and again tells the viewer what it thinks Hodgkin saw, rather than allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusions. This, at times, feels intrusive, particularly with the insertion of (what could be considered to be) rather frightening arty parlance: “constructivism” fills me with confusion, and phrases such as “metaphorical equivalence of marks and feelings” make me feel positively queasy. In fact, I’d recommend visiting Absent Friends without reading the accompanying text – there is a tsunami of explanation that terrifies and infantalises the viewer.

What is particularly interesting and comparatively ignored is Hodgkin’s propensity to paint on wooden frames. His work at times spills over onto the frame and beyond. This, again, is a rejection of accepted “norms” but probably gives us more of an insight into how much Hodgkin wanted to defy the constraints of realism than his depiction of the friends themselves. In painting on the frames, Hodgkin’s peculiarities are – ironically – revealed in a subtler way than the exhibition allows for in its narrative.

The paintings are bold, colourful and cheerful. Whilst they begin unsettling, they become more familiar. The National Portrait Gallery has probably tried to spoon-feed the viewer to avoid any discomfort – they would have done better not to. The paintings, in fact, speak for themselves.

Howard Hodgkin: Absent Friends is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 18th June 2017.