Mother's Day has a habit of making breakfast feel like a bigger deal than usual. Not in a silver-service, everyone-up-at-dawn sort of way, but in a manner that suggests toast alone will not quite cut it. Our recipe round-up leans into exactly that mood: food that feels generous without being exhausting, and celebratory without tipping into restaurant-brunch parody. There are Jamie Oliver's crisp-edged hash browns with poached eggs, Tom Kerridge's softly spiced shakshuka and Tess Daly's vegetable-packed frittata, plus sweeter things too, from fluffy pancakes to French toast with vanilla-glazed peaches. Then, because no family occasion is complete without someone suggesting pudding before noon, Mary Berry's gooey brownies and Nadiya Hussain's espresso chocolate cake are there for those who believe Mother's Day should come with a serious sugar hit.
This week, I went to Simpson's in the Strand, where Jeremy King has reopened one of London's grandest old dining rooms and is betting, quite boldly, that carving trolleys, roast beef and a little Edwardian ceremony can still work in 2026. The silver trolley remains the star, rolled between tables with the sort of unhurried confidence modern dining rooms rarely have time for. There are Yorkshire puddings, glossy gravy and old-school British dishes delivered with an almost stubborn faith in ritual. The question hanging over the whole thing is whether a restaurant so steeped in history can still feel alive in a city obsessed with whatever opened five minutes ago. The answer, I think, is more interesting than simple nostalgia.
Elsewhere, the restaurant world is wrestling with a very different question: whether the era of the "angry chef" is finally running out of road. Fresh allegations about the culture inside René Redzepi's Noma have reignited a long-running debate about the mythology of volatile kitchen geniuses – the Marco Pierre Whites and Gordon Ramsays who once defined fine dining. But as younger chefs push for healthier workplaces and diners grow less willing to romanticise cruelty in the name of brilliance, the industry may be entering a very different chapter.
That tension between old ideas and changing appetites runs through much of this week's coverage. Take cottage cheese, for instance: the Seventies diet-food cliche now reborn as TikTok's latest protein fixation. Sales are soaring, dairy producers are expanding, and social media has somehow managed to turn curds into content. But behind the hot honey toast and whipped cottage cheese bowls lies a more sensible question: is it actually healthy? In this case, the answer is reassuringly unsexy. It is high in protein, rich in calcium and comparatively affordable, which is more than can be said for half the "wellness" products currently being pushed at us in sleek pastel tubs.
And finally, with the light lingering longer and dinner beginning to feel less wintry, there is chicken. Not the heavy, roast-it-for-hours sort, but spring chicken in the broader sense: brighter, sharper recipes full of spice, citrus and char. Think Ottolenghi's blackened thighs with clementine dressing, Sabrina Ghayour's harissa-roasted chicken and Ixta Belfrage's riotous pairing of chicken, pineapple and 'nduja. In other words, food for the moment when winter starts loosening its grip and everyone feels just hopeful enough to believe spring may actually be on its way.
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Can Jeremy King make Simpsons in the Strand great again? |
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Nearly 200 years after it opened on the Strand, Simpson's is back and Jeremy King is betting that old-school carving trolleys and a bit of Edwardian grandeur work its magic again in modern London. Hannah Twiggs gets a first look inside a historic new opening
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The silver carving trolley is the star of Simpson's in the Strand.
In the Grand Divan dining room, waiters in tall toques wheel it between tables before slicing roast beef directly onto plates, a ritual that has defined the restaurant for more than a century. Yorkshire puddings arrive, gravy pours and the whole performance unfolds with a calm precision that feels closer to Edwardian London than modern Soho.
That is exactly the point.
The food leans into that sense of ceremony too. Venison tartare appears topped with a quail's egg and crisp melba toast – dark, iron-rich meat cut finely enough to feel almost silky. Elsewhere, another silver trolley trundles through the room for the "cold table", bearing duck rillettes, cold roast topside of beef and slices of Wimbledon Smokehouse salmon with lemon and mustard, the sort of quietly indulgent spread that feels lifted from another age of London dining.
Then there are the pies. On my visit, the pie of the day is an ox cheek pudding, the suet pale and tender, the meat inside stewed slowly until it gives way at the touch of a fork, collapsing into a deep, glossy gravy with mushrooms. Served with purple sprouting broccoli and a defiantly rich cauliflower cheese, it's the sort of meal that reminds you what these old dining rooms once did best: generous, comforting British food delivered with a calm, almost ceremonial confidence. If you have ever been convinced that roast dinners are always better at home, this is the meal that might make you think twice...
Read the full article here
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