People may have scoffed at a gaggle of underdressed girls wiggling their glutes and calling it Girl Power, but twelve years after invoking ladies to "slam their bodies down and wind them all around", Emma Bunton has finally done Emmeline Pankhurst proud: she's bankrolling her husband's latest project, a new London-based restaurant. Pressed for details, the old Spice confessed: "We don't know where or when yet". We propose the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras,......

Here’s a chance to win a copy of Charles Campion’s London Restaurant Guide 2009 (which we think is particularly useful for finding the right place to dine in London). Simply click here to take a quick survey . Complete the super quick 'n' easy survey by 5pm on Wednesday 24 September 2008. Then, we’ll randomly select a winner. Good Luck!......

Foodie wordsmith Charles Campion’s London Restaurant Guide 2009 is now available from Profile Books. This ‘09 edition is his biggest to date, featuring reviews of more than 400 London eateries. After our first skim of this handily-sized guide, we reckon Campion’s take of the London restaurant scene is as good as any (and considerably better than most). The writing’s pithy yet friendly and the listings are thorough and well organized. The tag lines accompanying......

Online travel agent lastminute.com has launched a new tool which allows folks to search for and make bookings at local restaurants from their mobile. London restos available for booking include Harvey Nichols, The Ritz, Le Gavroche and Bank Restaurants. There’s more info on the lastminute.com blog, including a fun 'n' goofy how-to video.......

Ugh, splitting the bill. At worst it’s like showing your parents around the touristy bits of town — expensive, unfun, leaving everyone involved with the feeling that they’ve been shafted. Inevitably someone skips the starter; someone else orders two sides; somebody's off the sauce; puddings either divide opinion or are themselves divided by two or more diners. Simple game theory points to one way to sort this out. Before the meal, everyone should agree......

Our economy is being crunched by a credit conundrum, and the pennies in your pocket are being squeezed to within an inch of their copper lives - a loaf of bread now costs approximately £1,600 plus VAT, and financial planners are offering guidance on weighty investment decisions, like whether to purchase one- or two-ply toilet paper. Things are tight. So are the good times over? Not if you're a City banker. Despite melodramatic predictions......

2012 Games won't benefit locals, claims think tank Take that, Monaco - London now has the world's priciest homes Our Amy's up for three Ivor Novello gongs Lie detector software proves a nice little money-saver for south London council Russian heavyweights to square off at the High Court Which? reveals candidates for London Restaurant of the Year Image courtesy of Orhan* via the Londonist flickr group.......

"Eat with the elite." That’s what the folks behind the upcoming London Restaurant Week want us to do from the 14th of April through the 27th (which would actually make it more like London Restaurant Weeks but whatever). Snooty catch phrases and poor calendar reading skills aside, London Restaurant Week sounds like a brilliant opportunity to dine at many of London’s most celebrated eateries for cheap. During this foodie fortnight (can Londonist trademark that?)......

A not-so-subtle hint in our recent post about The Good Food Guide publishing a London edition 40 years after putting out their last London guide led to an actual hardcopy of the book appearing at Londonist Central HQ a few days later. Appreciative of such concrete feedback, we took some time to peruse the guide and to consider our thoughts about it before ultimately coming to the conclusion that it’s a pretty good resource......

Here at Londonist we love to indulge in all sorts of devilishly scrumptious treats. However, we know healthy, conscientious eating is the key to a happy life. It’s hard to be a saint in the city, especially when trying to eat healthily and conscientiously. That’s why we truly appreciate Vegan London for providing “perhaps the most up-to-date information on the best vegetarian restaurants in London that are suitable for vegans,” along with “details on......

Five London restaurants have newly received fabled Michelin stars in the latest edition of Michelin’s guide to good eating. No restaurants were awarded two or three stars, the marks of truly exceptional restaurants. So where should you take your date for a dinner that really captures the zeitgeist of London fine dining? The new star-boasters are Hibiscus, La Trompette, Quilon, Rhodes W1 and Wild Honey. We’re sure these restaurant are immensely chuffed but, at......

Londonist likes lists. In fact, without lists, we’d have trouble even remembering to put the Londonist rubbish out at night, or to pay the Londonist milkman. Lists of fave ‘this’ and best-selling ‘that’s are quite amusing, and of course are to be expected at the end of one year or the start of another. Lists of predictions however, be it in terms of fashion, home-furnishings, blogging trends (ooh-er) or food, are a hoot, written either......

The Rainbow is long gone, the Hammersmith Palais now lingers only in the memory and even that good old grubby beer stained shit-hole that is the loveable Astoria is under threat. Gigs are selling out in minutes, replacing restaurants and cinemas as the preferred venue for gormless gobblers to converse after work, and yet the property developers keep their beady eyes focused on every venue lease going. How are we going to find the......

Unless there were leaves on the line, not enough station staff, delays at Paris holding everything up or industrial action on either side of the Channel, the first Eurostar train should be pulling into its new station at St Pancras this morning. We've had a sneak preview of what it's like and have been terribly excited about it so far, and at last, today, we get to see it in its full glory. We......

Maybe it’s because we are Londoners, but Londonist is mightily proud of London in nearly every sense. Even when things get muxed up, or bad stuff happens, the capital shoulders the problem and just gets on with its largely tickety-boo urban grind. Take bugs and rodents for example. They are pretty much part of life in any old-ish city, and it is a well known urban-not-so-mythical-myth that we are never more than a few feet......

Hitler notwithstanding, testicles customarily gather in pairs. Yet London only has one - the glass bollock near Tower Bridge known as City Hall. The less said about its daily ejaculations, the better. This gonadic deficiency will soon be redressed, thanks to a new scheme from Hamiltons Architects and Development Securities. They’ve received planning permission for this bulbous office block in Hammersmith. The ten-storey scheme will squat next to the Hammersmith and City station, and......

Londoners officially have the biggest debts in the UK according to a survey by credit agency, Callcredit. We're borrowing "above average levels despite the credit crunch". Hardly surprising, is it? We live in the most expensive city in the world with the most expensive restaurants, property and diamond encrusted skulls. Salaries just can't keep up with the cost of living in London. Heck, we're so skint we're even trying to get a refund on our......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Hummus Bros Soho Location 88 Wardour Street W1F 0TJ 020 7734 1311 11am-10pm (Monday-Wednesday) 11am-11pm (Thursday-Friday) 12pm-11pm (Saturday) 12pm-10pm (Sunday) Map Holborn Location 37-63 Southampton Row WC1B 4DA 020 7404 7079 11am-10pm (Monday-Friday) Map Expect to Pay: under £7 Rating: 4 out of 10 Londonist is all about restaurants honing in on one thing and doing it right: creampuffs......

For anyone who wants to imagine they are abroad in sunnier climates while London turns damply autumnal, the flavours of Spain are coming to London for a week in Taste Spain. Being quite a sophisticated city in terms of culinary acuity, Londoners know there is more to the cuisine than paella and sangria, so the programme of events and things on offer are of very high quality. We're impressed. And hungry. What's happening? Well.........

For a publisher based on Broadway, New York, The Little Bookroom seems obsessed with the pockets of oddness that permeate our city. A few years back, they published City Secrets London, a bumper book of anecdotes about the capital. Their latest guide The Traditional Shops and Restaurants of London does exactly what it says on the tin. Literally, given the vintage canister that forms the jacket design. The 300-page book is about the size......

North Kent Police are planning to plant some evidence in the near future, and are looking for suggestions as to what/who to put in the frame. To celebrate the completion of a new and very expensive police station (complete with a shopping mall and restaurants apparently)(Copper Coffee? Cop Shop? Ye Olde Bill? this could be fun) at Northfleet (which is near enough to London to make us interested), some bright spark has suggested burying......

Months of research and workshops run by writer Justin Young and director Suzanne Gorman have created Moonwalking In Chinatown, an extraordinary walkabout performance which leads audiences through Chinatown in the dusk behind bobbing paper lanterns and a variety of actors and stewards. Four overlapping stories for four simultaneous groups, each led by a different coloured lantern, have to weave through the early evening Soho crowds. The range of characters and multiple storylines and also......

Finding venues for Friday and Saturday's fixtures was a piece of cake compared to this! But no nation should be left out - what with the world being in union and all that. Fiji v Canada Sunday 16, 13.00 UK time from the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. Canadians! Seek the Maple Leaf. Drink Molson. Forget hockey. Fijians - listen up. We have important news for you and your Polynesian rivals below. Meet us one paragraph down.........

It was pointed out to us, when we posted last week about rugby pubs, that somewhere else had done it better by team. Well yes, they had, but they'd got a bit lazy after the home teams and our closest European friends and bunched the rest of the world together. We know that London is the most diverse city in the world so we've made it our mission to find you, whichever rugby nation......

Last month when we carried the news about London having entered a “golden age for the London restaurant-goer,” we didn’t realize said restaurant-goer would require access to the Bank of England’s gold reserves just to enjoy this apparent new age in dining out. But it looks like that might be the case now that London has “leapfrogged Tokyo and Paris” to become the world’s most expensive city for dining out. Of course, with London......

When Lisa Connell hit the local press last month we were impressed by her spirited determination and charitable entrepreneurship in the face of personal adversity. We caught up with her this weekend to find out how the fundraising's going, whether there's been any naughty business yet and just where should you take Barnet's finest once you've bid her up? So, how’s the dating going? Well its still in the early stages. I’ve managed to......

Londonist was awfully tickled to learn of the launch of London’s very own ‘Starmap’. From this day forward, for the price of £5.95, eager tourists and starry-eyed Londoners will be able to follow in the footsteps of their fave ‘A’ list celebrities. Not only can they stalk them at home, but they can hang out, paparazzi style at the right bars and restaurants to star spot, and even re-enact bestest bits from London movies on......

Worrying news for one of our country’s top gourmet icons. Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in Chelsea, called simply Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, has lost some of its brownie points, according to the latest edition of ‘Harden’s London Restaurants’. Love-him-or-hate-him-Ramsay has been undisputed king of the London restaurant scene for nearly ten years. Take a large measure of chefly talent, whisk it with lashings of colourful personality, and then cook up with a generous helping of......

London is experiencing a restaurant boom. Over the past year, 158 new outlets compared to 89 closures were recorded by Harden's for its upcoming 2008 London Restaurants guide. That’s 16 new restaurants more than the former record set in 2005, opening at an annual rate of three times what it was in the early Nineties. Harden’s co-editor, Peter Harden, is so enthused by the increase he’s dubbed this point in time a “golden age......

Head East out of London, about as far East as you can go without falling in the water, and you will hit the sprawling conurbation known mostly as Southend-on-Sea. Most of us have been there at some stage. Whether it’s to feed the slot machines and dig holes in the beach, or to go a-cruisin’ and a-clubbin’, it has for nearly two centuries been a playground for East Londoners. And it is furthermore one......