Smashed #57: Review of the restaurant reviews

The UKs restaurant scene digested

The machine stops

The Newsletter Machine Stops

(with apologies to EM Forster)

Imagine, if you can, a small cell-like room. It throbs with the melodious sounds of the new Cosey Fanni Tutti album. There is an office chair and a desk. In the chair sits a lump of flesh, a man about six feet high with a face as white as fungus. It is to him, Andrew, that the room belongs. He never leaves the artificially climate-controlled room. To him, the outside world is mere dust and mud, there is no advantage in treading upon it. He keeps the blinds drawn against the sun, there are no new ideas to be had outside.

Inside his cell-like room, he has everything he requires. He needs only to press a few buttons on his keyboard and call for food, music and clothing. On the desk is the Book of the Newsletter Machine. It contains instructions against every possible contingency. He takes it in his hands, murmurs ‘O Newsletter Machine!’ and raises the book to his lips. It is time for him to deliver his latest newsletter. He writes:

‘Beware first-hand ideas. First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation, who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element – direct observation.

Do not learn anything about food, drink and restaurants. Learn instead what I think that Giles Coren, Grace Dent, Jay Rayner, et al think about restaurants. You who read my newsletters are in a better position to judge about restaurants than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. In time there will come a generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions which will see restaurants not as they happened, nor as they would like them to have happened, but as they would have happened, had they taken place within the Newsletter Machine.’

Jasper Conran, Evening Standard
The Lavery, London (5 stars)

Like Jeffrey Bernard, David Ellis is away, so Jasper Conran stood in for him, obviously. Who better? I mean, his brother Tom owns The Cow in Notting Hill and used to run Crazy Homies (you couldn’t call a restaurant that now could you?) and Lucky Seven both of which are now closed. Their dad was something to do with restaurants, too, but I can’t remember exactly what. Anyway, you want like for like, don’t you; posh white boy for posh white boy? Nothing else will suffice.

You’ll be thrilled for Jasper that finally he has a restaurant near his home in South Ken he wants to go to. The Lavery is ‘a short hop and an appetite-inducing skip across the park from us’. My heart did a short hop and skip when I read that because, before The Lavery opened, Jasper had to navigate his way to ‘the four corners of London or in the impenetrable maze of Soho’. Who could penetrate the maze of Soho? If only there was some sort of handheld devi…HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF GOOGLE FUCKING MAPS JASPER?!

Where were we? Oh yes, a hop and skip from Jasper Conran’s house in the former home and studio of artist Sir John Lavery. And look, there’s the ‘much-loved’ Alcides Gauto, formerly of Toklas. Jasper Conran is exactly the sort of person I imagine has a much-loved maitre d’ or two in his life. They’re delighted to see him, probably give him a hug, the best table and some free booze. I, on the other hand, don’t tend to make that much of an impact on maitre d’s.

The odd thing about my obsession with restaurants is that I am an introvert. Dining rooms are about as far from my comfort zone as it’s possible to get, apart from Tough Mudder. All that eye contact and small talk is both unnerving and exhausting. But I love dining, mostly for the food and drink, but I also enjoy the environment, the crockery and cutlery, the sense of theatre and occasion. I also appreciate great service, being looked after, and having my custom valued. And after 35 years of practice, I can be a good guest; enaged, enthusiastic and even assertive but not demanding when I need to be. But, as it was rather brutally driven home to me by the maitre d’ at 3 Gorges in Fitzrovia recently, I’m never going to be anyone’s favourite punter.

At the end of a very enjoyable lunch during which I’d been vocal in my delight about much of what we ate, the restaurant manager came to the table and declared, ‘If it was a competition, you would win’, turning and gesturing to my fellow food writer dining companion as he did. When I asked what he meant by the comment, he said ‘presence’. It was an extraordinary moment and probably only occurred because the room was empty apart from our table for two for the entirety of lunch. Perhaps he felt emboldened by a false sense of intimacy engendered by the lack of other customers, or by the fact that the meal was a PR comp and that he knew we wouldn’t be paying a bill. Maybe he was just bored.

I don’t doubt that my ebullient companion had made more of an impression than I had, but I didn’t exactly relish being publicly judged for my personality type. It would be naive to imagine that front of house staff aren’t gossiping and bitching about their customers on the reg, just as they’d be naive to imagine their customers aren’t judging their every move. But there is an important social contract in the waiter/customer relationship. I had enough of a filter not to call Mr 3 Gorges a deeply unprofessional cunt to his face and I would have appreciated it if he had managed to keep his thoughts about me to himself.

But I don’t imagine Jasper Conran has ever found himself in that sort of situation, and especially not at The Lavery where tomatoes are ‘the stuff dreams are made of’, the Tuscan salami conjures an ‘image of some beefy-armed nonna at work’ (steady on Jasper) and nettle tortellini is ‘the sort of dish that comes back and tickles your tastebuds in the middle of the night’. Does that mean they repeated on him? Whatever, Jasper will return to the Lavery because ‘The frustration of choosing only some dishes on the menu is real’ and he wants to try the rest. Well, it is only a short hop and an appetite-inducing skip away. It’s not clear if Conran wasn’t a resident of South Ken that he’d be quite as enthusiastic about the place. But as we’ve learned from The Observer in recent weeks, celebrity reviews generally depend on the reviewer not having to make too much of an effort in order to file their copy, which makes their value questionable.

Best line: N/A
Worst line: ‘The menu is entirely its own, and is difficult to choose from, since most of the dishes look tempting’. Am I reading a review from Kent Life? He might as well have written, ‘We eagerly perused the menu and uhmed and ahed as we did, everything sounded so good’. Menus are meant to make everything look tempting, it’s the reason they exist. They don’t say ‘Boring Pasta Dish - £More than you could ever imagine in your wildest dreams’ do they?
Did the review make me want to book a table: If I ever move to South Ken, I’ll be sure to pop in.

Charlotte Ivers, The Sunday Times
Janda Diner, London (4 stars)

Isn’t it always amazing when some people live closer to a restaurant than you do? It’s almost as if the owners of the restaurant have identified the location that’s not near you as being able to provide a customer base for their business regardless of whether you go to the restaurant or not. It’s almost like they’ve done some research. It’s almost as if the world doesn’t revolve around you.