Vicky Spratt

How do you feel about maximalism? If the answer is that you are bad, incredibly bougie, like truffle pasta, enjoy eating your meals in pristine candlelit rooms, and love visiting marble toilets that are bigger than your London bedroom, then you’ve come to the right place.  Il Borro, on Berkley Street, has taken over what was once the site of Nobu. Il Borro means ‘the gorge’ in Italian and is also a real place in Tuscany: a medieval hamlet at the source of the Arno River which (for the history heads) has been inhabited for more than a thousand years by the Etruscans, the Medici family and Alessandro dal Borro, Field Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire, known as the ‘Terror of the Turks’.  The food and drink is all sourced from this part of Tuscany, which is known for both its deep gorges – or borri – and the produce that it spawns: wine, chestnuts, durum wheat, wild boar. Today, the 750-hectare organic Il Borro estate is owned by the Ferragmo family and the Mayfair restaurant is a minimal cream-hued outpost for their farm-to-table vision. Hearty Italian cooking but make it glamorous, this is exactly what you’d expect from the West End: women with immaculate blow dries, first dates and people who appear to be having business dinners fill the restaurant.   Hearty Italian cooking but make it glamorous Like nearby Murano (Angela Harnett) this is modern Italian dining. To begin, butter-like carpaccio di manzo (raw, thinly sliced beef tenderloin) arrives with rocket leaves, Parmesan a

When was the last time you were truly speechless? It happens to me rarely, but believe me when I say that I left Al Mare – the flagship all-day-dining Italian restaurant at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge reeling.  Look, I hadn’t been to Knightsbridge for years, Okay? I wasn’t sure if Harrods was still there and I didn’t particularly care. The area is, I thought, a vacuous haven for property investors and their empty second homes. So why did I bother going in the first place? Al Mare (literally ‘to the sea’ in Italian) promised culinary theatre which would change the way I thought about Italian food. And Al Mare did not disappoint. Here, your initials are stamped on the ice served in your cocktail (a classic Campari Americano to start). Skilled waiters arrive at your table with a trolley and quick hands as they seamlessly carve up your branzino al sale (a whole sea-salt-crusted wild sea bass served with crushed potato and salmoriglio). Head mixologist Enrico comes over, tells you to close your eyes and spritzes your final cocktail (a refreshing mix of gin, yuzu and grapefruit) with a basil infusion ‘made with the herbs from his family garden in Italy’. My pal and I ate and drank almost everything on the menu. This was the most flavoursome classic Italian fare with the lightest possible touch – punchy but never stodgy and filling but never sickening.  My brain felt tricked, it felt excited and it wanted more Our sommelier, the wildly knowledgeable Melody, r

You don’t need me to tell you that fewer and fewer young adults are becoming homeowners. At the age of 27, those born in the late 1980s had a homeownership rate of 25 percent, compared with 43 percent for those born ten years earlier. This is, in part, because house prices have risen to record levels and banks generally want a 10 percent deposit before they’ll dish out a mortgage. Given that the average home in London currently costs £648, 942, 10 percent is hardly a small whack. If you’re renting privately and handing over, on average, more than a third of your monthly income to a landlord, saving this much is a Herculean task. That’s where Help to Buy and Shared Ownership come in.  So, they’re an attempt to help young people actually be able to buy? That’s right. Help to Buy and Shared Ownership are solutions from different governments to the same problem: mainly attempting to boost younger people’s chances of getting a foot on a property ladder that, as they live and breathe, is being pulled up before their very eyes. However, as the crisis worsens, we know that older people need help too and there is no age limit on either scheme. Help to Buy is only available to first-time buyers but Shared Ownership is not. Are they essentially the same thing? No. Help to Buy and Shared Ownership operate differently. What they have in common, though, is that they require a lower deposit than a regular mortgage does. With Help to Buy, you only need to pay a 5 percent deposit of the prop

Rumour has it that Dante based his concentric circles of torment on London’s property market. Housing expert Vicky Spratt explains how to do a big move without it becoming hellish. 1. It might not feel like it, but now is a good time to haggle Trying to move can make you frustrated and jaded. But, right now, there is less demand for housing in many but not all (see: Newham, Bexley and Greenwich) parts of the capital than there has been for years. In fact, house prices are actually falling as people leave London because of the pandemic. So it’s important to remember that you have more power than you think. Hold your ground. Haggle. Negotiate. And, if something sounds like it isn’t right, if you feel like you’re being fleeced or told half a story – whether that’s about moving-in dates or how much you’re about to be charged for something – then question it.  2. Beware of ‘wear and tear’  Too many landlords seem to think of tenants’ deposits as a little bonus. I have heard story after story of tenants being automatically charged for professional cleaning when they move out of a rented home. Your landlord can charge you for genuine costs to restore the property to its original condition, but this excludes ‘reasonable wear and tear’. In my experience, landlords and letting agents interpret what’s ‘reasonable’ very elastically, so quote Shelter’s definition at them and push back. If you’re not getting anywhere, the best way to challenge these deductions is through your deposit prote