The Salty, Spicy Gilda Is the Only Snack Worth Your Time This Summer

Welcome back to Insta Stories, a column examining the London restaurant scene through the often-problematic medium of Instagram. This week’s filter is almost like a metaphor for something.

Blossoming news of the week

Everyone knew Flor — the new Borough Market project from the team behind Lyle’s — was going to be big, but few, surely, can have expected an unfurling as dramatic as this. There were the usual influencers, of course, but also industry insiders, beloved cookbook authors, and besotted restaurant critics. To quote a well-known authority on the New York club scene, this place really does have everything: abundant natural light, gorgeous pastry, cute tableware, signature dishes, Insta-popular carbs. There’s hot, and then there’s this: an opening so incandescent that restaurants nearby are benefitting from its aura.

Festivity of the week

It is intensely, idiosyncratically gnarly of the French to select an occasion on which a hundred-plus people died in brutal combat as their national day of celebration. A few centuries on, though, this minor detail has been lost in the wash, and participants focus instead on the other noble French tradition: getting wasted on champagne and eating ridiculously rich food. Santé!

Seasonal confirmation of the week

In case the blue skies, balmy evenings, and reassuring sounds of leather on willow haven’t made it perfectly clear, let the bevy of glorious fresh fruit currently blessing the feed act as definitive proof: it is definitely high summer.

Galaxy brain of the week

British Army: take note.

Accolade of the week

Andy Hayler incoming.

Burgeoning trend of the week

In gastronomic paradises like San Sebastián, the limited-run dish is a relatively commonplace occurrence: dishes like La Viña’s cheesecake or Bar Nestor’s tortilla have arguably built their renown purely on the basis of being such scarce commodities — treasures to be hunted down by rabid food pilgrims. The practice has slowly spread to London, with Farringdon’s Quality Wines recently one-upping its coveted handful of raw Ionian prawns with a unicorn-rare one-serving-a-day cherry clafoutis. Is this the start of something?

Snack of the week

Quality Wines has also fast become known for the, uh, quality of its house gilda — a delightful mini-skewer combining an anchovy, an olive, and a pickled guindilla chilli. It’s an intensely flavourful, brinily refreshing mouthful that pairs perfectly with pretty much anything alcoholic and cold: perfect pre-dinner fodder, in other words, in our increasingly Iberian climate.

Quiet night in at the library comma not of the week

Bon Appetit ..... Bitch!!!!!

Dish of the week

Just some typical pub food sitting on the pass, no big deal.

Shot of the week

Liberté, Egalité, Insanité.