Luncheteria

Solange has two questions. Here's the first:

"Sunday the 19th is the big day for the big lunch, I have not organised one in our street and I wondered if you had heard of lunches happening in the Maze Hill area?"

In short, I don't.

I hadn't even heard of the Big Lunch; it sounds like a good old fashioned street party to me, without the excuse of a coronation or a silver jubilee. Jelly, ice cream, bunting and Union flags. I tried typing my postcode into the website, then the postcodes of several of my friends over Greenwich and found a couple - one in GMV and one in Westcombe Hill. My suggestion is to type your postcode into the address - and see what comes up.

Solange's second question is

"I keep reading that there is a new form of "restaurants" in people's own home, I am not sure what they are called. Have you heard of any in Greenwich?"

Well, in Cuba they're called Paladares and they can be fabulous, if a little unpredictable. La Guarida in Havana is the best of all - extraordinary food presented in extraordinary fashion in an extraordinary venue; one of the most incredible meals of my life, though another such arrangement, way out in the countryside, was a memorable in slightly odder ways.

In several cities in the Midlands, there have been some amazing curry restaurants in people's houses since the 1980s and I heard a radio article recently about some people running restaurants in their houses as a one-off for a festival (I believe they were well-heeled people doing it for charity, though from the article it sounded much as though they were really doing it to show off their culinary skills to their neighbours...) but if there's a Paladare culture in Greenwich I don't know about it. I rather like the idea, though. I suspect the health & safety brigade would close it down if they knew about it.