Smashed #24

The UKs restaurant scene digested

Photo by James Barker on Unsplash

The Reviews

Tim Hayward, The Financial Times 
The Devonshire, Soho

Did you know they give out awards to restaurant critics? That makes about as much sense as Crufts giving a rosette to ‘The Labrador That Most Enjoys Eating Their Own Shit’. They do it because they enjoy it. They’ve already won at life (on their terms at least). They’re not going to stop doing it unless they bite someone and have to be put down, and when do you last hear of a restaurant critic being put to sleep? The last thing they need is a pat on the back for enjoying their privilege.

Tellingly, there are no published criteria for the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards Restaurant Writer (F&MF&DARW) category and no citation for this year’s winner Tim Hayward (who has also been shortlisted in no less than three categories in the Guild of Food Writers Awards) . I mean, what could they say? ‘This year’s worthy winner has tirelessly dragged himself, week after week to some of the most exclusive restaurants in London to get pissed with his mates for free. In addition, he has selflessly knocked out 1000 words of smart-arse copy for an inflated fee and never once complained.’ So what does make Tim Hayward worthy of an award? Let’s take a look at his latest review and find out.

Hayward has somehow uncovered a little known London pub called (checks notes) The Devonshire. It is ‘the biggest opening since the pandemic’ which ‘must say something about us as an audience that we’re so attracted by the comforting familiarity of a boozer’. Award winning stuff? I can’t tell yet, let’s delve further into Hayward’s oeuvre (don’t worry, I am officially sanctioned by Substack to oeuvre delve).

‘The white crab salad was a clever inversion’. That’s how Hayward starts his next paragraph You’re intrigued aren’t you? Whatever can he mean? We must read on (is this how you win awards? Maybe. Just, maybe). The clever inversion turns out to be the leaves are on top of the crabmeat and not vice versa. It’s certainly an inversion but Hayward fails to explain what’s actually clever about it and how it affects the eating experience or flavour. Maybe not so award winning then. But, look, there’s a funny joke about an apple on the horizon. ‘I congratulate them on finding the only Granny Smith in the UK with skin that wasn’t tougher than a stab vest.’ Hello F&MF&DARW.

But then he goes and spoils it all by not doing his due diligence on the malt vinegar front. Yes, he pulls out the oh-so-clever construction “vinaigrette tiède anglaise” to describe the dressing for the already famous scallops, bacon, malt vinegar dish but fails to identify the reason why the vinegar makes such an impact. Hayward appears to be under the impression that it’s the same stuff that ‘pubs and chip shops run on . . . like knock-off red diesel’ when it is in fact Artisan Malt Vinegar made with from Maris Otter malt and Cornish spring water that’s naturally fermented, oak-matured and bottled live, unfiltered and unpasteurised. You can buy some here. Honestly, it’s fantastic (they don’t sponsor this newsletter by the way, you might think that given that I already mentioned their product in Smashed #6. That’s not an affiliate link either, I’m just a fan).

The malt vinegar faux pas is soon forgotten as Hayward re-enacts Agincourt, pitting English brawn against French pâtisserie. This is the sort of gastronomic jingoism FT readers (and F&MF&DARW judges?) want: ‘Architecturally precise toast batons, the brawn fluffed up and applied with more care than an influencer’s lip-filler, then a tight mosaic of cuboid pickles, polychromic, bright and jewel like. Jolie laide. Ugly and beautiful. Pigheadedly elegant.’ Bravo, the crowd are on their feet, the award is getting closer by the word.

But then, oh no, he’s wrong about choron! He correctly identifies it as ‘hollandaise with tomato in it’ but also claims that ‘nobody’s done choron since before the Profumo affair’. I agree it’s not that common but ‘grilled lobster with garlic butter and sauce choron’ was on Marco’s menu at The Canteen in Chelsea in 1994, 30-odd years post-Profumo. But details and facts are boring and I’m sure Hayward didn’t mean it literally. He does however admit that he got so pissed over the course of his meal that he lost his receipt and did actually end up paying for it himself, so there is some justice in this world (although why he didn’t just call the pub and ask for a copy is a bit of a mystery). In summation, Hayward says ‘The food was exemplary, the hospitality superb and the venue the stuff of dreams’ which sounds more TripAdvisor than F&MF&DARW winning to me, but what do I know?

Best lines: ‘The T-bone was gargantuan. Technically, it’s a cut from the base of the spine, just short of the pelvis and including the false ribs. But of what beast? This behemoth must have stood three metres tall and probably ate human flesh’ (Hayward has a book on steak coming out, in case you hadn’t heard. And that is an affiliate link)
Worst lines: ‘There is more menu poetry. “Pile of langoustines”. What mortal hand or eye could resist anything in a pile? It’s like a bucket of mussels, a wheelbarrow of caviar. A provocation of desire that’s only ever been exceeded by “Hey kid . . . the first one is free.” Part of me wants to congratulate Ashley Palmer-Watts as a chef. Part of me wants to congratulate Oisín Rogers as a landlord. But mainly I want to worship them as the exemplary hybrid of copywriter and drug pusher’. Alright, you’ve won the award already, calm down.
Did the review make me want to book a table: Everyone must get Dev’ed.

Jay Rayner, The Observer
Public House, Paris

Jay Rayner went all the way to Paris and all he got was a raw pastry duvet. No, that’s not an obscure service available in the Pigalle district, just what was hiding in his €69 lobster pie. Also hiding in his lobster pie was Not Much Lobster. This was all doubly surprising as he’d gone to UK industry darling and master-of-all-the-pies Calum Franklin’s new Paris venture Public House. Franklin happened not to be in the kitchen when big bad Rayner came a calling, as executive/consultant chefs tend sometimes not to be. He’ll be kicking himself, or the nearest French commis chef (that’s a joke. Franklin has been vocal in his stance against bullying in the professional kitchen).

It was, says Rayner, a ‘calamitous experience’ of ‘Fanta-orange walls and the bright lighting and the frankly weird faux Scottish references’. The sourdough was stale, the pig’s head croquettes ‘tepid and tense’. There was some consolation in a ‘do-it-yourself ice-cream sundae built from a cheery checklist, and a sturdy sticky toffee pudding’. Maybe Rayner should have gone in search of that mythical Pigalle raw pastry duvet after all.

Best line: ‘It is heritage sourdough, in the sense that it is somewhat old’
Worst line: N/A
Did the review make me want to book a table: I’m yet to develop a taste for raw pastry duvets.

Jimi Famurewa, Evening Standard
Lita, London (5 stars) and Oma, London (4 stars)

Let’s play Jimi Famurewa Phrase or Farrow and Ball Paint Colour? Answers are at the end of the newsletter (behind the paywall). For those of you too stingy to pay, I’ll repost the answers at the top of next week’s edition, but can you bear to wait that long?

Jimi Famurewa Phrase or Farrow and Ball Paint Colour?

Pulsing Gloom
Hog Plum
Scarlet Blots
Conjoined Sibling
Raw Tomatillo
Fairy’s Hot Tub
Fragrant Swamp
Buoyantly Creamy
Swaddled Whole Pig Carcass
Skimming Stone
Clamourous Scrum
Sophisticated Primality
Sleek Griller
Elephant’s Breath
Clubby Whirl
Puckering Punchy Green
Clunch
Gently Heretical
Borrowed Light
Gushing Spill
Slipper Satin
Oozy Deep Savour
Whirybird
Tremendously Boring
Stony Ground
Dead Salmon
Intractable Weight Gain
Savage Ground
Thuddingly Incorrect
Wine Dark
Imaginative Thrust
Down Pipe
Requisite Brick Oven
Wet Sand
Sprawled Luxuriousness
Green Smoke
Crisped Little Loofah
Double Cream
Poised Marvel
Sugar Bag Light
Ambrosial Puddle
Ringwold Ground
Translucent Scrim
Mouse’s Back
Sensitively Conjured
Pale Hound
Fathomless Shifting Complexities
Punctuating Presence
Tack Room Door
Vertiginous Lunacy
Fake Tan
Weightless Mayan Red
Luscious Chew
Copenhagen Roof
Judderingly Cold Foam
Surging Pleasure-Bomb
Sulking Room Pink
Fearsomely Skilled Wolf
Babboozle
Nancy’s Blushes

Best line: N/A
Worst line: N/A
Did the review make me want to book a table: I’m too busy painting the bathroom with two coats of Intractable Weight Gain.

Giles Coren, The Times
Hearth, Hull (9/10)

Giles Coren went to Hull and then came home again and didn’t even make The Joke. I’m not going to either. Everyone knows the only good thing to come out of Hull is Cosey Fanni Tutti and she moved to Norfolk decades ago. So what has attracted Coren to the city where one of the main attractions according to the council’s website is called Escape Hull? Well, turns out Coren is a Football Dad and supports QPR who were paying Hull away. He took his son Sam, who was grumpy as sons often are. QPR lost 3-0 and then the father was grumpy too, as fathers often are.

But before the calamitous fall, there was an ‘incredibly delicious and moreish’ 9/10 meal at Hearth cooked by ‘Northern hipsters with skilled palates, good attitude and a lot of soul.’ Back of the net! The sample menu on the restaurant’s website sounds terrific. It’s even enough to enable me to overlook the terrible copywriting on the landing page where there is talk of ‘a charming culinary paradise’ ‘a delightful dining experience for all’ ‘a haven for food lovers’ ‘delectable dishes’ and ‘mouthwatering main courses’. If the owners happen to be reading this newsletter, I would happily write you something sans the stomach churning clichés for free, it sounds like you deserve better (apologies if you wrote it yourselves).

To be honest, Coren sounds rather distracted by the footy, but does find it in himself to wax lyrical about the ‘beautiful 18th-century brick building’ ‘wonderful views across Trinity Square’ and ‘kind, calm waiters’. There was a ‘a plump thigh of buttermilk fried chicken sitting in meaty gravy and strafed with a pungent ranch dressing’. A confit Yorkshire duck thigh was also found to be ‘plump’ and came with ‘fat butter beans and cubed Morteau sausage and wild garlic in a pungent creamy broth’. I’d go to Hull and back just for a taste of crispy pig’s head terrine with 22-month aged parmesan polenta (damn, I made The Joke).

Best line: ‘I am living my life, inserting restaurants into it, like you do, trying to be positive, not always succeeding, some days ebullient, some melancholy, and the truth of life is that circumstances matter, experience is subjective, memories are vulnerable’
Worst line: ‘And then I ate the long, sleek baton of smoked pork belly, deep purple under its sriracha glaze on a fruity sorrel and apple sauce with a hedgehog of hen-of-the-woods mushroom perched cutely on top’. Giles ate a long sleek purple baton. Tee hee.
Did the review make me want to book a table: Hull, yes.

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