Soup Is Almost Always Hot on Instagram

Welcome to a special festive edition of Insta Stories, chronicling a whole host of seasonal goings-on within the London restaurant scene through the often-problematic medium of Instagram. This week’s filter is a mile-high club (sandwich).

Candid cookery of the week

It’s always interesting to see what chefs cook on their own time and for their own enjoyment. Simplicity is often king, perhaps with a bit of classical refinement and a touch of luxury to boot. Stuff like this, basically:

Supersized celebration of the week

*Staring at a magnum, speaking in an extremely Crocodile Dundee voice*: “That’s not a large-format bottle…”

Envy-inducing holiday snaps of the week

Of course, not everyone spends the festive season hunkered down in knitwear, bingeing atrocious TV-programming, and absent-mindedly alternating bites of Ferrero Rocher and truffled brie. Some flee English shores altogether, and honestly, nobody is remotely jealous of them.

Hangover cure of the week/year

Scotch woodcock, kipper, Dr Henderson. Sorted.

Backlash of the week

January is the perfect time of year for the wellness industrial complex to prey upon neuroses, guilting people into ill-advised (and likely ineffective) diets. The sudden uptick in advertising around the subject of ‘Veganuary’ also suggests that what started as a grassroots attempt to get people to eat less meat is slowly being co-opted by companies less concerned by animal, personal, or environmental welfare, and more concerned with making a quick buck. In the face of such pressures, the old mantra of each to their own is due a revival.

Icon of the week

Sit down, mince pies. Now that December 25 has been and gone, and the true Twelve Days of Christmas have passed, it’s time for Christianity’s most niche celebration of itinerant royalty: Epiphany! In the U.K., this commemoration of the arrival of the magi is generally met with the blankest of shrugs, but in continental Europe it’s still celebrated as a major moment in the religious calendar, with a whole array of different customs. Most visibly, for London-based Instagram users at least, this includes the French Galette des Rois. With Hélène Darroze’s annual knees-up at The Connaught not scheduled for another two weeks, don’t expect burnished pastry disks to drop out of the feed any time soon.

Dish of the week

Soup — when confined in the pliable folds of a Din Tai Fung xiaolongbao — is so hot right now it could probably do with cooling down a bit before anyone tries to eat it. But what if 2019 — declared the year of soup but months ago — offers a further twist on this new craze? What if the original soup dumpling… is a bowl?

Shot of the week

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche, indeed.