Vitamin cocktails and mango soup: fashion food hits London
LULU GUINNESS DESIGNER TEA
The Metropolitan Hotel, home of the original London Nobu, is delivering its fashion week offering in typical high style. Enter the Lulu Guinness designed “afternoon de-light treat” – a tea composed of edible accessories made from healthy ingredients. Expect low-fat lip, oversized rose and clutch-shaped cupcakes and cookies in anticipation of Guinness’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection. It must be the only tea in town where you can eat without guilt: sweet and savoury cupcakes with creme fraiche, flour substitutes, fresh fruit purees and olive oil instead of butter – and no-bread sandwiches too, of course. To drink, there are fruit infusions and an “ultimate iced tea” that comes either with or without booze. Until 26 Sep, £24 per person. To reserve call 020 7447 4757. Address: 19 Old Park Lane, W1K 1LB, www.metropolitan.london.como.bz.
DESIGNER RECIPES AT HARVEY NICHOLS
Throughout September, Harvey Nichols will be offering dishes of the most fashionable nature – recipes straight from designers themselves. The American Fashion Cookbook, which the recipes come from, has over 100 recipes from top designers. Highlights include Tory Burch’s “Andalusia Gazpacho”, Zac Posen’s “Great Grandma Jennie’s butterscotch wafers” and Donna Karan’s “Green Juice”. If it’s good enough for them… Throughout September. Book costs £30; for more details see www.harveynichols.com.
PRET A PORTEA AT THE BERKELEY
Pret a Portea has made waves for being the consummate fashion tea. The Berkeley was the first to make cakes inspired by designers’ best pieces – and it still does it with irresistible panache. The tea changes regularly to reflect what’s happening in fashion – right now, treats include a Balmain almond macaroon jacket filled with white chocolate and pistachio ganache; a Herve Leger orange bikini vanilla biscuit with criss-cross banding and a Christian Louboutin coconut cream sponge cake shoe topped with metallic frill. You get the idea. £35 per person, to book, call 020 7201 1619. The Berkeley is on Wilton Place, SW1X 7RL.
FASHION FUEL AT BUDDHA BAR
Positioned conveniently close to the LFW headquarters at Somerset House, the extravagant Asian-style restaurant and bar is in prime position to capitalise on all those hungry models drifting about the place. They’re sure to love its Fashion Fuel menu, which offers super-healthy foods perfect for those who need to fit into couture corsets – and the calories are listed next to each dish. Just reading the menu makes you feel thin and clean: options include salmon sashimi (115 calories), beef tataki (120 calories), poached salmon (290 calories) and mango soup (295 calories). Two courses £19; three courses £24. Until 27 Sep at the Buddha Bar, 8 Victoria Embankment, WC2R 2AB, tel: 020 3371 7777, www.buddhabar–london.com.
SKINNY COCKTAILS AT JUJU
Sugar-laden cocktails are hardly ideal for catwalk models, so to please the fat-conscious but certainly thirsty girls in town this week, the new Juju champagne and cocktail bar on the King’s Road has launched a menu of “LFW skinny cocktails” – full of nutrients (calcium, fibre, vitamins A, B and C and more) and low in unrefined sugar. There’s the “sake mojito” – sake, fresh mint, lime and honey; the “senza iced tea” with vanilla vodka, senza tea, strawberries, raspberries, lime and lo-cal sweetener; and the Posmo, with pomegranite, tequila, lime, ginger and agave sweetener. 316-318 King’s Road, SW3 5UH, tel: 020 7351 5998.