Henry Jeffreys

1 week ago | henryjeffreys.substack.com | Henry Jeffreys

When you have an hour to kill in Paris before interviewing the former first lady of France, where do you go? The city’s first British brasserie, of course. I’d been in touch with owner Oliver Woodhead on Instagram for some time, we have a friend in common called Miles Morland who is an investor in L’Entente and who featured on Drinking Culture a couple of weeks ago. Woodhead first came to Paris in 1998 and has never moved back to England, working in fashion before moving into restaurants.

1 week ago | henryjeffreys.substack.com | Henry Jeffreys

Parisian waiters have a global reputation for rudeness. The snooty maître d' turning his nose up at amiable Iowans is a stock character as rich as the red-trousered wine merchant or literary grande dame. And yet on numerous visits to the capital over the last 15 years my wife and I have never come across such a creature. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most of the time we've had eager young waiters with impeccable English who want to talk about London. Not even a sniff of a curled upper lip.

1 week ago | henryjeffreys.substack.com | Henry Jeffreys

It’s been an exciting week for English wine. The London Wine Fair put on a Battle of the Bubbles pitting champagne against the rest of the world and the top two places were taken by English wine. These sort of things have been going on for a long time now, since the great Judgement of Parsons Green back in 2013 but I think this new one is significant for two reasons. Firstly, the price of the wines. This wasn’t Moet vs Hambledon.

3 weeks ago | henryjeffreys.substack.com | Henry Jeffreys

My first real exposure to Lebanon, its wines and its winemakers was in 2010, at a smart Lebanese restaurant on London’s Jermyn Street. I’d been invited to have lunch with some Lebanese winemakers who were in town. I was trying to reinvent myself as a wine writer following a mediocre career in publishing. I didn’t know much about wine at the time, even less than I do now, but I was a fan of Chateau Musar, and I rarely give-up the chance to have a boozy lunch.

3 weeks ago | thecritic.co.uk | Henry Jeffreys

Abandoning classic styles shows a lack of confidence This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. All regular attendees of wine tastings will have their own shorthand, even if it’s just a system of ticks or stars. I have various abbreviations that come in useful, such as NW (natural wine), TP (touch pooey — very useful for assessing natural wines), and GWR (good with rillettes).