Smashed: Review of the reviews #61

The UK restaurant scene digested

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The Reviews

Charlotte Ivers, The Sunday Times
Lury, Hastings (4 stars)

To Robert Cottrill: Interim Chief Executive, Hastings Borough Council

Dear Mr Cottrill,

I hope you are well. It has come to my attention that a recent visit to your town by Sunday Times restaurant critic Charlotte Ivers was badly mishandled. Judging by her report in this week’s paper, it appears preparations for her lunch at the European/Sri Lankan fusion fine dining restaurant Lury were at best inadequate and at worst, lacking entirely. As you may be aware, Ms. Ivers is a leading member of the Metropolitan Elite and as such, has every right for her Picturesque English Seaside Town Expectations to be met in full when she has seen fit to leave the capital and spend some of her very valuable time in Not London. Sadly, that was not the case in Hastings.

Prior to her visit, Ms. Ivers had been informed that ‘Hastings was wonderful — full of quaint winding streets of independent cafés and jumble shops’. On arrival, she discovered just three such streets. I’m sure you will understand that an insufficiency of independent cafés and jumble shops is, by itself, a serious cause for concern. However, the siutaion was further exacerbated by ‘blasted seafront, peeling buildings’ and the presence of an inflatable tube man similar to those ‘you see outside American car dealerships’.

One of only three ‘quaint winding streets of independent cafés and jumble shops’ found by Charlotte Ivers in Hastings. Image © Copyright Mat Fascione licensed for reuse under this the Creative Commons Licence.

By this point, the lack of independent cafés and jumble shops and presence of peeling buildings and a tube man had reduced Ms. Ivers to misery. Please then try to imagine what state Ms. Ivers was in when, in the town centre, she was exposed to ‘vape shops, closed shops’ and ‘bored teens waiting for life to start’. If that was not enough, there were ‘bin bags piled up on the streets’ outside of the restaurant. If you’ve ever travelled beyond the English seaside to London, you’ll know there are never any bin bags piled anywhere at any time and especially not when the restaurant critic of the Sunday Times is in the vicinity.

Although Ms. Ivers does not make specific reference to it in her review, it is highly likely that, during her time in Hastings, she came into contact with people not involved in the media and quite possibly of the working classes. I hope I don’t need to explain to you the impact those sort of encounters can have on the mental health of a member of the Metropolitan Elite.

Having to expend so much of her word count explaining what an utter, utter shithole she felt Hastings really was had an unfortunate knock-on effect on her write up of Lury restaurant. Unlike the review that appeared on 10th May this year on The Plate Licked Clean (TPLC) blog, she had no room to explain that chef Jack Lury worked at Galvin at Windows and Le Manoir, was a private chef in London, did some pop ups and then moved to Hastings to open Lury. She also only had space to make a passing reference to the menu drawing on the heritage of its chef Jack Lury, and his wife, Issy Cianchi without explaining what that heritage was, something TPLC did succinctly by saying, ‘With an English father, and his mum a Sri Lankan-born Burgher with Portuguese and Dutch heritage, Jack’s cooking is a tribute to those traditions’.

Despite all the disturbing things Ms. Ivers had to endure - the lack of jumble shops perhaps chief among them - she was able to describe Lury as ‘a remarkable, clever place’ with ‘an extraordinary level of ambition’ although, perhaps still reeling from the paucity of quaint winding streets in ‘a town left to decay’ was not able to articulate precisely how the Sri Lankan influence was expressed in the food. She was forced to leave that to TPLC who wrote, ‘Don’t come here expecting a familiar succession of Sri Lankan staples- there will be no hoppers, no kottu roti, no lamprais; rather, Lury’s heart is in taking flavours and memories as a starting point for creativity.’

Following Ms. Ivers’s disppointing trip to Hastings, I would like your reassurance that you will take the appropriate measures to address the issues highlighted in her review to enure that the risk of another member of the Metropolitan Elite being subjected to a substandard Picturesque English Seaside Town experience is minimised,

Yours sincerely

Andy Lynes
CEO, Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Restaurant Critics
Co-founder, Metropolitan Elite Defence League

Best line: ‘It’s just Lury and Cianchi here, plus a waitress. It feels as if you’re in their living room. I want to bring our plates back to the kitchen and ask if I can help with some chopping.’
Worst line: ‘How have we let so many of our seaside towns go to ruin?’ Breaking news etc.
Did the review make me want to book a table: I want to Hasten back to Hastings

Tom Parker Bowles, Mail on Sunday
Crab Shack, Salcombe (4 stars)

The English seaside is in for a proper bashing this week. Son of Queen Camilla, TPB finds Salcombe to be ‘a rosy-cheeked, well-scrubbed void’ with a population ‘clad in pink shorts and Panamas, wearing signet rings and showy life jackets’ and where ‘beneath the salty air is the unmistakeable tang of smug.’ Even if you try very hard, it’s almost impossible to imagine TPB, rosy cheeked, clad in pink shorts and a Panama, exuding smugness isn’t it? So he’s quite right to have a go at the denziens of Salcombe, the bastards.