I went to Kwik Fit the other day for some repairs and the bloke behind the counter said, ‘Do you know how much it costs us to buy in your replacement brakes? And don’t talk to me about the price of tyres. We can barely afford to pay our staff properly so I hope you’re going to leave a big tip. My mechanics have all got families to support you know’. And then I went and bought some new socks at Primark and, because I know the person at the till doesn’t earn much, I gave them £10 extra on top of the bill. And then I found out that BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn only earns £10.69m compared to AstraZeneca’s CEO Sir Pascal Soriot who is on £15.32m, so I sold my house and sent him the proceeds. I was just taking Giles Coren’s principle of ‘doing the right thing’ by restaurant staff and tipping them, and applying it logically across all businesses.
Tipping has, rather tediously, been in the news once again, partly because of the new Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act coming into force this year and partly because of Rod Stewart dropping a cool £10k tip during a Hogmanay stay at Gleneagles Hotel. That has triggered a series of opinion pieces, including the above-mentioned one by Coren, this by Charlotte Ivers and this one by Tony Turnbull.
Before I go any further with this, I want to point out that I have never ever withheld service charge in a restaurant. I don’t resent paying a service charge or leaving a tip. I’m extremely relieved when it’s automatically added to the bill so there is no messing about with calculating how much I should pay, if I should leave cash or add it on the debit card payment. I also love the fact that there is a new generation of handheld terminals that will offer you the option of leaving 10, 15 or 20 per cent extra on the bill in restaurants that don’t have an automatically applied service charge. Anything to make life easier.
Because I’ve written about restaurants for the trade press for the last 20 years, I understand a bit about the financial side of the hospitality industry, although tipping and service charge has always been a very complex area. A key issue however is that voluntary/discretionary service charges that are distributed through a tronc system are not liable for employer or employee National Insurance which basically means more money in the pocket of the restaurateur and the employee (or less debt building up. I’m sure I’ll get nasty comments if I dare suggest anyone is actually making any money in restaurants these days - chefs will be texting me from the beach in Barbados or from the back of their new Rolls Royce if I’m not careful. Yeah, you know who I mean). If service charges and tipping were done away with and menu prices reflected the true cost of doing business, they would have to increase prices so much (to account for the extra National Insurance payments for one thing) that it could well put potential punters off.
And, by the way, that is the only reason that service charges are always described on menus as ‘discretionary’. If they are not, they are deemed by HMRC to be mandatory and therefore liable for National Insurance, whether they are distributed through a tronc or not. Legally, you don’t have to pay the 12.5%, or 15% or, if you dine at Sola in Soho, 20% charge, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the restaurant owner isn’t sending you the message ‘Well gosh, it’s up to you, only pay it if you think we deserve it’, they really, really want you to cough up and will want you to have a damn good reason if you do decide to withhold it. If you want to try and get your head around all the rules about service charges, gratuities and tips, then you can read the HMRC guidance here. It’s thrilling, as you can imagine.
In France, a 15 per cent service charge is included in the menu price, ‘service compris’, but I’m assuming there are different tax arrangements for French restaurateurs. Also, according to one source, restaurants in Paris are 24 per cent more expensive than in London, so UK restaurateurs might have a point about menus with included service charge.
However, why should I, or the average punter, care less about a restaurateur’s business model or tax arrangements? I don’t give a flying fuck how Marks and Spencer arrives at the cost of a pair of Y-fronts, I’ll buy them if I think they are worth the money or I’ll go elsewhere if I can get something as good for less money. I take the same approach to eating out, except I do that pretty much every week and I only buy Y-fronts about once a decade.
I don’t really understand how we’ve ended up in this position where, for some reason, restaurants are seen as special cases in need of love and understanding from their customer base. I nearly spat my tea out when I saw a London restaurateur complaining on X about the new Employment Act saying, ‘The problem is the general public have no idea how hard it is to make a restaurant profitable. From April it will be mandatory for all service charges and tips to go to the staff.’
Two things: firstly, why on earth should the general public need to know how hard it is for you to make a profit? You want to try earning a living as a food writer mate, and secondly, the general public will be pretty bloody surprised that the hard earned cash they handed over in the form of service charges and tips doesn’t already go in full to staff. Yes, I know it’s complicated, but that’s for you to sort out. I just want to come to your restaurant, enjoy a meal and pay whatever it costs to do so, if I can afford it and think it’s good value (what represents good value from a restaurant is probably best left for another newsletter). Current economic challenges notwithstanding, that can’t be too difficult to serve up, can it?
The Reviews
William Sitwell, The Telegraph
Llama Inn, London (5 stars)
William Sitwell has gone up in my estimation. Five stars for Llama Inn is correct, you are through to the next round. I worried for the Llama Inn because it serves Peruvian food. Despite it being an ancient cuisine that can be traced back at least a thousand years to the Incas, Peruvian is so last decade darling. I don’t know about you, but us in-the-know-foodies are too busy shovelling fufu down our necks to even consider a sliver of cured fish. That might account for the recent closure of the last remaining branch of Peruvian restaurant Ceviche, founded by Martin Morales in 2012. Morales left the business in 2019 and is now CEO of education charity the Institute of Imagination; hospitality’s loss is education’s gain.
A decade ago, I was lucky enough to accompany Morales on one of his regular trips to Lima where he was born. You can read about it here. It was one of the most full-on food trips I’ve ever been on and I literally could not keep up with the relentlessly energetic Morales. After a full day and night of eating our way around the city, and Lima is a big city, I would crash into bed knackered while former DJ Morales would head to a night club. He would then be up before me, sending work emails over breakfast and looking indecently fresh and ready to hit another dozen or so restaurant and bars.
While I was disappointed not to see the giant Amazonian sea snail or fried guinea pig I’d tried in Lima on Llama Inn’s menu, everything I ate there was very good, even if it wasn’t West African. Sitwell apparently concurs. In an enthusiastic yet slight review, Sitwell hits some of the menu’s highpoints including charred cabbage anticucho which is says are ‘street food made posh – the cabbage scattered with toasted quinoa with a mild Japanese miso and that chancaca sauce. A wild mix of sauces, perhaps, but a triumphant one. Maintaining some crunch still, and caressed with that nutty seasoning, I never thought eating cabbage could prove to be this fun.’ I thought pretty much the same thing, and posted ‘It's not often cabbage stops you in your tracks’ on my Instagram post about my lunch there.
Scallop and dragon fruit with yuzo kosho tigers milk converted the formerly agnostic Sitwell to ceviche who says, ‘It was sensational; melting scallops, that milky soup, a rising chilli heat and the crunch of the crisps. If this is true ceviche, I’m a convert.’ But then the review peters out with a brief mention of the ‘well-versed’ service and a weak Paddington joke.
That means either Sitwell didn’t order from the second half of the menu, or did and didn’t think it worth mentioning. Having tried the excellent quinoa and the whole sea bass, plus a couple of decent desserts, I can’t believe it was the latter. Maybe it’s because he spent the first two paragraphs explaining why his mate Adam was late for lunch (God, I mean, who cares?) he ran out of room on the page. Or maybe because his mate Adam was late they ran out of time for main courses. Either way, it’s not bloody good enough, is it?
Best line: ‘after a glass of wonderfully dry and lively Spanish verdejo (Abadía de Aribayo), my brain locked on to the printed news that this wine was “on tap” and I quickly realised that my interest in Peruvian culinary terms was fugacious’. Top marks for the use of the word ‘fugacious’ which I don’t recall ever seeing in a restaurant review.
Worst line: N/A
Did the review make me want to book a table?: Completed it mate.
Grace Dent, The Guardian
Bébé Bob, London
‘They have steak places and fish places and I thought, well, down where I work, every other order is for chicken, so it looks to me as though I ought to have plenty of customers and then I wouldn’t have to fool with all those a la carte prices or menus or leftovers or anything like that. Everyone gets a chicken and waffle dinner, and vegetables if they want, but all at the same price.’
That’s hardboiled crime writer and gourmand James M. Cain pretty much outlining Bébé Bob’s business model for them in his 1941 novel Mildred Pierce, one of the best books about the restaurant business ever written. It’s fortunate Bébé Bob’s owners didn’t look to Cain’s novel Serenade for inspiration which includes the definitive recipe for iguana and egg soup made with communion wine. First, boil your jguana alive…ok, let’s not go there.
To be honest, the most interesting sounding thing about the restaurant is its decor, which Dent describes as ‘plush, cherry-red carpets, the velvet chairs, the marble tabletops, the mahogany panelling and the beige leather banquettes. Basically, it gives off “chicest dining option on a swanky 1960s cruise ship complete with a swarm of seagulls chasing you from Civitavecchia to Cartagena” vibes. What else is there to say, it’s roast (as apposed to dear old Mildred’s fried) chicken. The idea of going out to eat that in a restaurant on any day other than Sunday will either appeal to you or it won’t. Dent’s ambivalent summing up: ‘Bébé Bob is a chicken-and-chips joint that thinks it is “it”, and I shan’t tell them otherwise’ didn’t sway me much either way.
Best line: ‘Bébé Bob may well be accused of having a lot of swagger for what is essentially a roast dinner restaurant round the back of Regent Street, yet, via smoke and mirrors, the whole thing hangs together rather well’
Worst line: ‘Bébé Bob serves either Vendée chicken from Pays de la Loire or Landaise chicken from Gascony, both the kind of plump, painstakingly reared bird that weary food experts advise us all to eat, rather than £6 supermarket chooks with gammy legs and cysts. Vendée chickens have no such woes – these are VIP chickens, VICs, if you will.’ The word ‘cyst’ should never appear within five miles of any piece of writing relating to food and it’s consumption.
Will the review make you want to book a table?: I can roast a chicken, thanks.
Charlotte Ivers, Sunday Times
The Spence at Gleneagles Townhouse, Edinburgh (2 stars)
After her recent lukewarm 3 star review of The Wolseley City, Ivers is, like a dog to its own vomit, returning to her theme of how restaurant groups aren’t as good as stand alone ones. ‘Some names mean something, and the challenge every custodian of such a name faces is how to cash in without diminishing that,’ avers Ivers (see, I can do convoluted word play too, I just choose not to). So how do we think Gleneagles have fared according to Ivers? Care to guess? I suppose the two stars are a dead give away aren’t they?
The surroundings sound spectacular, ‘It’s a beautiful building that used to be a branch of Bank of Scotland back when that meant vaulted ceilings, marble pillars and a domed roof’, the food less so, ‘truffle gnocchi for the main, although I’m not sure I taste the truffle. I’m not sure I taste the gnocchi either. Instead I find myself plugging through clumsy dumplings of mashed potato, slightly dry on the outside as if they’ve been left on the counter to wait for the dishwasher.’ What did she expect?
BTW - I was confused by Ivers’ assertion that Gleneagles Townhouse is a private members club. It is in fact a hotel with a restaurant and bar that is open to the general public. Anyone can book a room and drink and eat there. It does offer private membership and has some areas reserved for members only, but even some of those are accessible to hotel guests.
Best line: ‘They taste like beige, like emptiness’
Worst line: ‘The crispy pig … Well, have you tried Wotsits? The crispy pig is pork-flavoured Wotsits. That’s probably a bit generous — Wotsits have quite a lot of taste to them’ - Wotsit all about, Charlotte?
Did the review make me want to book a table?: No can do. I’m too busy trying to find a restaurant that isn’t part of a group for Charlotte Ivers to review.
Tim Hayward, The Financial Times
Dear Jackie, London
‘1970s Bournemouth is the aesthetic equivalent of the Vietnam war, in that it’s entirely incomprehensible if you weren’t there,’ says Hayward who it turns out grew up in the town. It’s pertinent because the owner of Dear Jackie is also from Bournemouth and its ‘clifftop hotels and restaurants where the more rakish achievers of postwar Britain held court. Where toilet rolls were decorously concealed under crinolined dolls and every sea-view suite had a minibar made of Formica and gold foil, glued together by aspiration’.
Dear Jackie, named after the owner’s mum, is like that, according to Hayward, ‘hosed with gilt, mirrors, tchotchkes, wall-fabric and cut crystal, varnished with romance and spritzed in candlelight.’ Similarly to Bébé Bob, the room sounds more interesting than the food which includes bagna cauda with seasonal crudités, vitello tonnato and orecchiette puttanesca which Hayward says was ‘gratifyingly excellent’ proving that food doesn’t have to be interesting to taste good.
I do have an anecdote about Bournemouth, Italian food and my family, albeit set in the 80s rather than the 70s that would in theory fit in here quite nicely, but on careful consideration, I’ve decided not to relate it. For one, it would require a second mention of vomit, and once per newsletter is enough, and secondly, my family history is, well, a bit complicated. Better to let sleeping lasagnes lie.
Best line: ‘Monkfish have swum off our menus a bit since the glory days at the beginning of the century. Chefs and diners alike seem overwhelmed by a lump of fish the size and texture of a fiddler’s forearm’
Worst line: ‘Nothing telegraphs the absence of inappropriate intentions like a hot prophylactic gargle of raw garlic and anchovies’
Did the review make me want to book a table?: If I ever get over the whole Bournemouth thing, I’m there.
Giles Coren, The Times
Canton Blue, London (Cooking 5/10)
Having finished his gig as co-presenter of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby and now no longer reliant on five star hotels for part of his income, Coren well and truly sticks the boot in while reviewing this upmarket Chinese at the recently opened Peninsula London. He claims that, ‘You’ll have more actual “fun” going for a colonoscopy’ than any of the restaurants at the new Raffles hotel, and compares the Lanesborough to a ‘Travelodge in the middle of the Hanger Lane gyratory’.
He is slightly kinder about Canton Blue, which he describes as ‘gorgeous: superflash, dark blue, sexily lit’ with service that is ‘exemplary, the waiters are kind and friendly’. The food, not so much: ‘siu mai are thick and bland, the spring rolls oily and plain, the ham and radish pastries too sugared and floury, and the deep-fried glutinous rice dumplings monotonous and oversweet’. The bill was £173.65 for two with no booze.
No one who would eat in Canton Blue has ever read a Giles Coren restaurant review. Or any restaurant review. No one who reads Giles Coren’s reviews, or any restaurant reviews would ever eat in Canton Blue. So what’s the fucking point.
Best line: ‘Outside, the pavement tables of the Peninsula Boutique and Café are thronged with typical locals in traditional Belgravia garb — designer tracksuit, short beard, sunglasses and box-fresh trainers for him, hijab and ten-grand handbag for her — enjoying the £7 hot chocolates with a strawberry vape (but really just smoking on a roundabout, like tramps)’
Worst line: N/A
Did the review make me want to book a table?: Too busy, I’ve got a date with a tramp on a roundabout.
Tom Parker Bowles, Mail on Sunday
Garum, London
TPB says that he was alerted to this Roman-style restaurant in Bayswater by his friend Bill ‘who raved about its carbonara’. I can’t be sure, but my guess is Bill is probably the highly esteemed food writer Bill Knott. I know TPB has to get by on a paltry 450 words, but if a fellow food writer has supplied you with the idea for your column, the least you could do is use a few of your allocation to give them a proper namecheck.
I mean, TPB fritters away his first 36 words on a quote from LA restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. Everyone loves Jonathan Gold of course (if you haven’t seen it, I would highly recommend the documentary ‘City of Gold’) so much so that some people have based an entire newsletter/career on attempting to be the UK equivalent. Quoting Gold makes TPB look cool (ahem), but Gold is dead and Bill Knott is very much alive, at least the last time I saw him he was. Does he have to wait until he’s kicked the bucket to get his due recognition?
All of that is beside the point ( and completely bloody irrelevant if TPB was referring to it was some random Bill. It’s not exactly an unusual name is it? God, I might have made a complete idiot of myself. It’s all entertainment though). Garum is all about ‘fried food and punchy, salty flavours’ including ‘deep-fried rice croquettes, stuffed with rich ragù and oozing cheese’ that are ‘crisp, greaseless and splendidly stodgy, a testament to the fryer’s art’ and rigatoni alla carbonara that is ‘properly al dente, slick with just-cooked yolk, all sharp, salty ovine punch. This dish is unrelenting, and unrelentingly lovely, a great Roman bruiser that you simply cannot stop eating’.
And so it goes on. It’s a bit of a mad ramble really but, having looked at the restaurant’s website and filled in all the blanks about what the it’s actually like, I really fancy giving it a try. And that’s all you really need from a review isn’t it?
Best line: ‘I must have walked past Garum a hundred times without even giving it a second glance, assuming it came from the Bella Pasta school of over-salted slop’
Worst line: ‘He compared it to some place we once ate in Rome. The name escapes me, although the memory doesn’t.’ If you can look up a Johnathan Gold quote, you can ring up Bill and check where it was you ate in Rome, can’t you? And it was almost certainly Roscioli, every food writer goes there, even me.
Did the review make me want to book a table?: Kind of. Good Roman grub is worth a special trip, but Bayswater is not exactly my favourite part of London.
Jay Rayner, The Observer
The Hunan Man, London
I once ate chitterlings, basically pig’s bum, for lunch with Fergus Henderson at St John. I liked them, and they were particularly nice with English mustard, but to be honest, it’s better as an anecdote than a food memory. I think we’re all over the Anthony Bourdain ‘eating the still-beating heart of a cobra’ macho dining thing, so Jay Rayner ‘drooling’ over ‘pig intestines offered three ways’ and ‘Dry Wok Duck Braised in Beer, complete with head and bill’ all seems a bit old hat, at least from a West meets East point of view. But if your looking for what sounds like authentic regional Chinese food (the ‘parade of shiny, glossy, fragrant things draws on the traditions not just of Hunan, but also Sichuan and, albeit briefly, Guangdong provinces’) then this place sounds like it will fit the wok fried duck’s bill perfectly. Did you see what I did there. I am available for hire to write this sort of potentially award winning stuff you know.
Best line: ‘Crab is offered various ways, including with golden dunes of crushed and deep-fried garlic which, in the picture, tumble down upon it as if in a sandstorm, until only a claw peeks out, much like the Statue of Liberty’s torch at the end of the original Planet of the Apes.’ I love a Planet of the Apes reference. You might remember mine from a recent newsletter.
Worst line: N/A
Will the review make you want to book a table?: I don’t think I’m man enough to appreciate it.
David Ellis, Evening Standard
Mambow, London (4 Stars)
Apparently, the higher the zone number in London you are willing to travel to, the better restaurant critic you are. Outside of London, the distance is only a factor in terms of credibility if it’s miles north of London. If you’re just knocking off a quick review while you’re in your second home in Somerset or the Cotswolds, it doesn’t count. Ellis admits that his journey to Zone 2 to sample chef Abby Lee’s ‘modern Malaysian, with the Chinese influence prominent’ is a rubbish effort, even though it took him a whole hour to get there, and that he ‘is working on it’. All I can say is, good. Everyone is watching like a hawk and really cares. Until I read a review of Den’s Nosh Burger Van in Havering-atte-Bower (Zone 6) I just won’t sleep.
Ellis endured a 50 minute wait between some introductory achar and a starter of kam heong mussels ‘soybean-bound sauce, accented with shrimp and given heat with curry leaves’, as well as cramped sounding conditions. Nevertheless, otak-otak fish cake, sardines ‘under a shagpile of rempah paste’ and curried spatchcocked chicken were all ‘adored’. Worth the journey, even if it was only to Zone 2 (pah!).
Best line: ‘kam heong mussels . . . ., the shells proffering upwards like cupped hands’
Worst line: N/A
Did the review make me want to book a table?: I too adore Malaysian food but I’m too old even to go to Zone 2. I’ll wait until Abby Lee gives in and opens in the West End.