London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good evening to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Monday, May 19th, 2025.
And on the menu for you tonight, something pretty special. You’re going to meet Ffiona, who runs my favourite restaurant in London. The restaurant is called Ffiona’s. That’s the Welsh spelling of Ffiona. Double Ffiona. It’s a wonderful little place on Kensington Church Street in, yes, Kensington. Four of us touched down at Ffiona’s last Saturday for one of the two best meals I’ve had this year. And guess what, the other best meal was also at Ffiona’s. Anyway, I pitched up a bit early, microphone in hand, sat down with Ffiona and got her to tell me a little bit about herself and the early days of the restaurant. She’s not just a great restauranteur, she’s a really fine gal. And a real character. A great interview. As you’re about to find out.
But before I get Ffiona around front of house and in front of the mic, I thought I might just put in a personal word for the restaurant. I’m going to set out for you here four touchstones. Two of them I briefly mention in the interview. I led the interview by bringing up Le Hangar, my favourite restaurant in Paris. We’ve been to Paris a lot. Le Hangar is the culinary pole star of our trips to Paris. For us, no trip to Paris would be complete without an evening at Le Hangar. It’s the only Parisian restaurant we go to every single time we’re in Paris. And as I mentioned in the interview, if the shoe were on the other foot – if I lived in Paris and made five or six trips a year to London – Ffiona’s would be the only restaurant in London we would go to every single trip. That’s one measure of just how special it is. The Second touchstone was our American friends Tom and Desiree. We took them to Ffiona’s earlier this year. They liked it so much they came back the very next night.
A third touchstone. Dining-wise we pushed the boat out this past weekend. Saturday night at Ffiona’s. Friday night we were at a very formal dinner – the whole shebang, dinner jacket, black tie – at the Hall of City of London Livery Company. The food – and needless to say the presentation – was very good. And it was very expensive. About three times what our nosh at Ffiona’s cost us the next night. And you want a verdict. As splendid as the haute cuisine was at that very formal bash in the City, Ffiona’s was better. At a third of the cost.
Fourth touchstone. We took our American pal Tom to Ffiona’s on Saturday night. Tom’s a very bright spark – Harvard professor – a bon vivant, something of an aesthetician – and he writes like a dream. Well, he was swept off by the experience. Wrote the most wonderful review. Which I’m going to read here. So you don’t just have to take it from me. Here’s another opinion.
Here’s what Tom says, here’s his review.
A friend of mine told me he had a new favorite restaurant, Ffiona’s, so we went there for dinner last night. Holy Moses: I hardly know where to begin my praise for this concealed London treasure! Let’s start with the ambience. It’s cozy, a mixture of Old World Bohemian and New: a cross between an 18th-century staging inn in the Cotswolds and a hole-in-the-wall tavern in New York’s Greenwich Village, circa 1965. The hearty pine tables, chalkboard specials and the sheet music pasted onto the ceiling envelope patrons with Bohemian affection, especially when Ffiona herself pulls up a chair to greet patrons and answer any questions. But it was the savory, perfectly-cooked victuals that emerged from her kitchen that stole the show: homemade vegetable soup; delicate aubergine fritters; toothsome Chicken Kiev (the mouth-watering house specialty); medium rare, tender Maigret Duck flamed with Calvados; heavenly lemon, ginger and mascarpone cheesecake; astonishing apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. Tears of joy would well in Jacques Pepin’s eyes. But who is behind this brilliant blend of atmosphere and ambrosia? Ffiona Read, the remarkable Welsh owner (thus the doubles f’s in her forename), has, with her sister Althea, devoted two and a half, often difficult decades to making the restaurant Michelinesque. Before their beloved master chef, the late Jose da Silva, passed away, he trained Althea, who has taken up his mantle, adding her own culinary brilliance. At Ffiona’s, however, it’s not just about the food – instead, it’s all in the family – and we were lucky enough to be part of that family last night.
Well, that’s how Tom felt about the food and the experience.
Here’s the lady who makes it happen. This is the first part of a two parter. Just for fun, I also recorded her sit down with us, when she took us through the menu. Just to give you a taste of what the experience is like. I’ll run that second little piece in a few days.
Here’s Ffiona.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com –
home of London Walks,
London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do
to attract and keep the best guides in London –
you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating:
the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative –
is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor
(and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)…
well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar
and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note…
come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.