ELEVATING THE EXPERIENCE

London, England has become the epicentre of bringing food and wine together.

LONDON IS, IN MY OPINION, RESTAURANT EPICENTRE OF GLOBE. THE THE

You could easily spend multiple lifetimes traversing the diversity, quality and innumerable styles being served up in every type of eatery imaginable, in every price range from budget conscious to the three-comma club.

For wine lovers, London is a dream. Outstanding restaurant wine programs, intriguing wine-by-the-glass selections and accessibility (note, I’m writing this pre-Brexit) to almost any wine grown on the planet provide endless opportunities for the curious novice or serious oenophile.

Drinking great-quality wine in London is easy. At true wine bars like Terroirs and Noble Rot, the food is delicious and well prepared, but the wine sets the stage and plays the starring role. At Terroirs (terroirswinebar.com), near Trafalgar Square, the selection of predominantly small plates is perfectly prepared to “complement your drinking.” And your drinking is centred around “wines that most sympathetically reflect the place from which they originate, the nature of the vintage and the personality of the grower.” All this in a casual, friendly, unpretentious, yet informative manner that is intended to welcome all, not just those in the know, into the real wine world of wine growers versus the manufactured homogeneity that so many in our industry rationalize and give credibility to. Terroirs should be everyone’s neighbourhood wine bar.

Noble Rot (noblerot.co.uk/wine-bar), from the owners of the energetic and interesting magazine of the same name, has an adventurous but approachable wine list with a deceptively simple and well-executed menu in a warmly elegant yet vibrant room. What’s not for a wine enthusiast to love?

London is also home to the quintessential wine bar 67 Pall Mall (67pallmall. co.uk). A private members’ club (full disclosure, I am a member) created “by wine lovers for wine lovers,” the Club offers an extensive wine list of well-priced offerings with a reasonable markup intended to sell wine versus collect the bottles as museum pieces. The high-end is relatively accessible and selections, including more than 800 wines by the glass, are carefully curated by the knowledgeable wine team led by Master Sommelier Ronan Sayburn and head sommelier Terry Kandylis, winner of the 2016 UK Sommelier of the Year. Weekly — almost daily — wine tastings, master classes and winemakers’ dinners, and the ability for members to store some of their personal wine collection in the Club’s temperature-controlled cellars, provide a home for wine lovers that may be unparallelled.

In addition to all the great wine-centric restaurants and wine bars, where London has excelled relative to the rest of the world is with respect to ethnic restaurants with stellar wine programs. These restaurants are further assisting in dispelling the myth, which too many people still hold, that Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern and