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Lara Dunston, Travel and Food Writer

Lara Dunston

Travel and Food Writer

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Cool Travel Guide to London

March 14, 2013 by Lara Dunston

Rules Restaurant, London.

Rules Restaurant, London.

Outstanding museums and art galleries, great bookstores and music shops, and brilliant eating – as long as you know where to find it – London has long been a place I’ve loved for a cultural and culinary escape, so here’s my Cool Travel Guide to London.

SEE
I know I’m back in London when I have blisters on my feet. It happens every time I return to the city. I hate the Tube, I don’t mind the buses, but I really just love to walk, and London is a very walkable city. One of my favourite walks is along the waterside promenade that skirts the Thames. I like to begin at Borough Market (ideally after lunch), then stroll along the river by the Millennium Bridge, the Tate Modern, the South Bank Centre, the London Eye – from where there great views of Westminster across the water – and, depending on where I’m staying, continue even farther. The views of the city skyline are stunning from the south side of the river. Once you’re done, head into the Tate Modern for some stunning art.

DO
If you love eating and shopping, as well as seeing the city, then do Context’s London for Foodies tour, which takes you on a walking tour of central London, calling into gourmet shops and specialty food purveyors on the way. When my husband and I did the walk, our self-confessed foodie Phillipa Owen took us to delicious shops such as The Ginger Pig, La Fromagerie, Fish Works, Rococco Chocolates, Biggles Gourmet Sausages, the fragrant Algerian Coffee Stores, Italian deli Lina’s Stores, and Borough Market, where we finished the tour with cheese tasting at Neal’s Yard Dairy and espressos at Monmouth Coffee. Context also offer lots of other tours, on everything from art to history.

EAT
Whenever I travel I love to eat at restaurants that present the best renditions of or reinterpret their local or regional specialties. Fergus Henderson’s St John is the place for advocates of ‘nose to tail’ eating, that is, if you’re going to slaughter an animal, you should be eating as much of it as possible. Last time we were there we had chitterlings (intestines) and dandelion salad with capers, gherkins and caramelised shallots; roast bone marrow and parsley salad with sea salt; snail, sausage and chickpea stew; and ox heart and lentils. Appropriately located at Borough Market, Roast specialises in classical British cuisine based on seasonal produce. Think dishes like pea and ham soup with smoked ham hock; cold roast Welsh black beef fillet; spit roast Goosnargh chicken with lemon and thyme; and pot roast featherblade of beef with mashed potatoes and creamed horseradish. London’s oldest restaurant, Rules (pictured above), established in 1798, grow its game on their own farm, Lartington Estate, where they raise a rare and ancient breed of Belted Gallowy Beef purely on grass and hay. If they’re on the menu, try the brown Windsor soup with Welsh rarebit, and the roast loin of organic Berkshire Pork with sage and pine nut stuffing, buttered leaks and crackling. (See more of our London restaurant reviews here.)

DRINK
I’m a big fan of cocktail bars and have been dying to get to sipping spots in London like the jazzy Nightjar, the speakeasy Evans & Peel, and quirky Callooh Callay (from a Lewis Carroll rhyme), but every time my husband and I head to London we invariably end up heading to the local pubs. There’s something about British pubs that make me want to settle in with a pint and never leave – and the older the pub the better. I like The Mayflower (117 Rotherhithe Street), dating to the 18th century with wood panelling and old oak beams and brilliant Thames views from the upstairs room; The Victorian-era Princess Louise (208 High Holborn), near the British Museum (where you’ll often me when I’m in London), which has more wood panelling and beautiful old lamps; and the Dog & Duck (18 Bateman Street), which has a rich literary history; and the cosy Queen’s Head (15 Denman Street) in Bloomsbury.

SLEEP
My husband and I will always rent apartments if we’re staying in a city for a week or longer, otherwise, we prefer boutique hotels. For booking London hotels I like to use www.londontown.com and I’ll always look for properties that are small, stylish or have some character, and are well located – and that doesn’t have to be slap-bang in the centre but could simply be on a good transport route. I love properties like the Zetter Townhouse, Blakes, and the Halkin Hotel, where you’ll find David Thompson’s Nahm restaurant.

TIPS
Phoning: buy a SIM card upon arrival; they’re cheap and sold everywhere from pharmacies to local supermarkets, and are handy for making restaurant reservations and calling cabs. Getting around: buy an Oyster card and if you’re going to be in London for a week whack £20 on it – it can be used on the bus and tube and will save you loads of time queuing for tickets at train stations; pick up a Tube Map at the same time and figure out where the nearest station is to your accommodation – navigating the underground is overwhelming at first but becomes easier the more you do it, just try to avoid peak hour travel when it’s uncomfortably crowded.

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Brief Bio

Lara Dunston is a Cambodia based Travel & Food Writer and has regular gigs with: The Guardian, CNN, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, The Independent, Telegraph, National Geographic Traveler / Traveller, Get Lost, Wanderlust, Travel+Leisure SEA, DestinAsian, AFAR. Read more here.

Related Websites

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GRANTOURISMO TRAVELS

Our full service digital media agency:
GRANTOURISMO MEDIA

Our Cambodian retreats site:
SIEM REAP RETREATS

Partner Phtography Site:
TERENCE CARTER PHOTOGRAPHY

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How are you all doing? We’re back in beautiful S How are you all doing? We’re back in beautiful Siem Reap after a whirlwind trip to the Cambodian capital to get Terence an emergency passport and take the opportunity to start updating our Phnom Penh guides. But I still want to share some Phnom Penh pics with you, in case you’re planning a Cambodia trip. And you should! A post on that subject going up soon on Grantourismo.  We spent a full day cleaning the apartment, which flooded while we were away – seems they had wild storms in Siem Reap with horizontal rain! Good thing I wasn’t here as it would have triggered memories of the nightmare of an apartment we moved into after the pandemic began, which flooded *every* time it rained.  I made a beeline for the markets to buy some beautiful produce and have been busy recipe testing, cooking and writing, while Terence, in between shooting dishes for me, has been occupied with the new Grantourismo design.  You may only notice small design tweaks, as the main point was to move it to a new theme to speed things up, as it’s a big site, being 12 years old with thousands of posts. I’ll let you know when it’s done so you can test it for us x  Pictured: the famous stall at Psar Chas or Old Market in Siem Reap, which specializes in all things preserved and fermented, from prahok (fermented fish paste) and juicy Siem Reap sausages to smoked fish and buffalo jerky, a fantastic drinking snack.  #SiemReap #market #OldMarket #PsarChas #foodstall #cambodianfood #khmerfood #localfood #localproduce #fermentedfoods #preservedfoods #fermentedfish #prahok #buffalojerky #sausages #fishpaste #shrimppaste #foodwriter #foodblogger #travelwriter #travelblogger #culinarytravel #foodtravel #marketlover
Hello @foodpanda_hongkong Glad you liked our phot Hello @foodpanda_hongkong 
Glad you liked our photo, but you do not have the rights to use it. You’re stealing our livelihood when you steal our content. Remove it now. @foodpandaglobal is owned by the billion dollar company @deliveryhero — you should be paying for images instead of stealing them from us and other small publishers and photographers. Or creating your own content.
We do.
It’s reassuring that in a city that’s changed It’s reassuring that in a city that’s changed so dramatically in recent years — so many buildings have been demolished to make way for lofty apartment blocks and towering hotels, completely changing the character of some Phnom Penh neighbourhoods — to find a heritage building that’s received little more than a coat of paint. (It used to be a pale lemon colour.)  The home of UNESCO’s Cambodia offices, the 19th century villa has long been one of my favourite French colonial buildings in Phnom Penh. Whenever I stroll by I imagine it as a breezy bar and restaurant, open for architecture- and history-lovers to soak up the atmosphere, rather than private offices closed to the public. But at least it’s still standing.  #phnompenh #travelwriter #travelwriterslife #lifeofatraveller #travel #travelgram #traveladdict #travelling #travelblogger #heritage #architecture #colonial #indochine #french #frenchcolonial #villa #mansion #colonialarchitecture #frenchcolonialarchitecture #facade #balconies #balustrade #cambodia #cambodianarchitecture
I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace of posting af I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace of posting after so long away from social media 😂 We just got too busy and something had to give...  A few of you asked where the pizza shot was from @pizza4pscambodia in Phnom Penh, so here you go... half salami and chorizo, and Parma ham and house-made burrata, which is luscious and creamy.  Someone else asked what is Japanese pizza exactly... it’s not okonomiyaki, which I know a lot of US food sites call ‘Japanese pizza’, even though it’s not, it’s a battered pancake.  Firstly, the actual type of pizza is Neapolitan-style, the original pizza invented in Napoli (Naples) in Italy — thin soft base spread with tomato sauce, baked quickly in a pizza oven on super high heat, with a puffy, slightly chewy crust, and a base that becomes a bit wet in the centre.  However, whereas Neapolitan pizza has very strict rules, otherwise, it’s not Neapolitan, Pizza4Ps’ pizzas are ‘Neapolitan-style’, as they get very creative with their toppings, using Japanese ingredients such as seaweed. It’s this — and Japanese owners — that makes it Japanese pizza, a style that began in Japan post-World War 2, when an Italian-American war vet is said to have started the first pizzeria, making the Napoli style, not American styles, of pizza.  A couple of you also asked to see the dramatically different Phnom Penh skyline. The changes are breathtaking if you haven’t been to the Cambodian capital in a few years. I’ll share that pic shortly.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #pizzaoven #pizzalover #japanesepizza #neapolitanpizza #neapolitanstylepizza
That’s our pizza going into the oven at @pizza4p That’s our pizza going into the oven at @pizza4pscambodia yesterday, the Phnom Penh outpost of the Japanese-owned restaurant group. It started out with one hugely popular restaurant in Vietnam some years ago, hidden down a lane in Saigon’s Japantown, and now has restos scattered up and down the country.  Pizza4Ps’ Japanese pizza has a thin base and thick crust, and while it’s more Italian than the American-style so popular in Cambodia, it tends to be wetter than Italian pizza, especially if you order their pizza with a ball of heavenly house-made burrata, which the waitress slices into at your table, spreading the luscious creamy cheese over the pizza. So good!  There are also no rules when it comes to the toppings, so while we had to try our favourites from the mother restaurants — Parma ham and burrata, and their own chorizo and salami — we took note of their Cambodia inspired creations. These include a a very pretty nom banh chok pizza spread with a freshly pounded Khmer herb and spice paste and sprinkled with edible flowers, and a whole page of salmon dishes. Cambodians are crazy about salmon.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #pizzaoven #pizzalover #japanesepizza #restaurantdesign #restaurantinterior
One thing I have not missed as a travel writer dur One thing I have not missed as a travel writer during the pandemic has been the fast pace of these updating trips. No matter how hard we work to try to squeeze everything in, something always gets left out, as we run out of time each day. And we’ve been doing this for decades, it doesn’t get easier; we haven’t figured out a magic formula.  One place I was determined not to miss trying was the new-ish @pizza4pscambodia — the first Cambodia branch of a Japanese owned Vietnamese based restaurant group specialising in Japanese pizza. I was so pleased we got to enjoy a quick lunch there yesterday, even if we weren’t able to sample their 4Ps craft beers (liquor sales were banned for two days during the local govt elections) and even if the service wasn’t as good as it is in Vietnam.  Apart from the style of pizza, three things really distinguish @pizza4ps — they work with local farmers to source the best quality local organic produce and you can really taste it; they produce their beautiful cheeses and charcuterie in house when they can’t source it locally (their creamy burrata and mozzarella are sublime); and they are a zero waste restaurant. I’ll tell you more in the next post.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #japanesepizza #restaurantdesign #restaurantinterior

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ALL MEDIA (WORDS AND IMAGES) COPYRIGHT © 2007–2022 LARA DUNSTON AND TERENCE CARTER | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DESIGNED IN APARTMENT RENTALS, HOTELS AND RESORTS AROUND THE WORLD BY GRANTOURISMO MEDIA. ASSEMBLED IN SOUTH-EAST-ASIA.

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