Instagram’s Christmas-Signal of Choice Is the Mince Pie

Welcome back to Insta Stories, a column examining the London restaurant scene through the often-problematic medium of Instagram. This week’s filter is flat champagne.

News of the week

It’s basically Christmas — the time of year where news goes to die. Here’s something worth reading about.

Contrasting fortunes of the week

After its staggering Insta-debut last week, things have remained rosy for beloved xiaolongbao icon Din Tai Fung this time round, as influencers, foodies, and common-or-garden ouraphiliacs (that’s queue fetishists) continued the love-in. For Imperial Treasure — the season’s other big-ticket import from east Asia — things haven’t been quite so cheery, with eyebrows being raised to Roger Moore heights over the ambitious pricing and so-so execution. Then again, it’s no big deal: it just needs to introduce a mandatory, Din Tai Fung-style four-hour wait time, sit back, and watch the punters flow in.

Festive icon of the week

Santa can do one. For the next fortnight, at any rate: for the time being it’s all about the mince pie. As foretold last week, Instagram has been overrun with images of the much-loved (and also much-maligned) treat, ranging from pinnacles of the form, to mediocre supermarket examples, to idiosyncratic riffs on the classic. It’s almost enough to inspire a yearning for a guide to the best mince pies in London.

Celebrity shout-out of the week

Now that her masterful and important cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat has been turned into an equally masterful and important Netflix show of the same name, Samin Nosrat is one of the hottest culinary properties on the planet. So for her to big up Honey and Co’s proprietary ashure mix is one hell of an endorsement — and yet more evidence of how the Fitzrovia mini-chain is slowly taking over the world, one celebrity fan at a time.

Celebrity shout-out of the week, part two

Oh, yeah, someone called Nigella said some nice stuff too.

Account of the week

Multiple highlights from Gordon Ramsay’s account this week, absolutely none of which address the critical question of why its handle is @gordongram and not @gordongramsay. Perhaps the least festive Christmas decorations of all time at the Royal Hospital Road flagship; the salacious promise of something called a “beef welly experience”; candid footage of the megastar chef in the midst of some backbreaking labour at one of his low-key pizzerias. Don’t bother forking out for expensive presents — this Christmas, give the gift of @gordongram.

Dishes of the week

A.K.A., “incontrovertible evidence that a pig has died” of the week

Shot of the week

Stop it, Nigel.