Anissa's Blog

This morning I walked up to Hoxton Street to buy some fresh herbs from my Turkish shop — they are cheaper and more plentiful than at Waitrose. On the way back, I decided to check the jerk chicken stand on the other side to see if it was any good but it looked too dirty.…

Not so long ago, Villa Necchi was used as a setting for one of the most boring and pointless films I have ever watched with an equally stupid title: I am Love. The film may have been awful but the villa is fabulous, built by the two Necchi sisters (and the husband of one) whose fortune…

Every now and then I have a perfect lunch and this is what happened today thanks to my friend Jerome and my brand new meat grinder. Jerome (who is head chef at Mosimann’s) gave me some fabulous lamb (from the top of the leg, which he calls single muscle) for me to make kibbeh nayeh. As for the meat…

Here we go again, belly dance time. This month I hesitated between a seriously vintage one and Kitty, one of my favourites. Then I settled on Kitty. I just love how she is shamelessly seductive with the singer without being vulgar. No mean feat for a belly dancer. I am definitely hiring one for my next…

The first time I tasted Helena Rizzo’s food was at Paladar Cozinha do Brasil. She was demonstrating her super sophisticated version of feijoada and I was so intrigued by the droplets of concentrated feijoada she had created by boiling the beans with the meat then sieving them to have a very smooth, very soft purée which she dropped…