Andy Lynes

In Jay Rayner's fascinating interview with Marco Pierre White in the current edition of the Observer Food Monthly, Rayner describes a meal at MPW's The Restaurant, Hyde Park Hotel as "the most expensive meal I have ever bought with my own money, at £267 for two." He goes on to say that "It was also the most joyless. I remember almost nothing of what I ate, save a pig's trotter dish that he had cooked in homage to the chef, Pierre Koffman. The rest was a dismal procession of prissiness plated more for design than taste. What I do recall is the funereal atmosphere of the up-itself dining room, the gloomy demeanour of the staff and the sommelier who suggested a £75 bottle of wine when we had asked for something at £50." This struck me as a real shame, as I remember my lunch there on my birthday in 1994 as one of the best I have ever had. A stupendous risotto nero (never bettered), then turbot with grain mustard sauce and noodles for me, herb stuffed chicken with potato gratin for the wife and two amazing prune and armangac souffles to finish. A bottle of chablis 92 (£22.00), two set lunches at £22.50 each and a glass of Elysium dessert wine plus £6.00 for a bottle of water bought the bill to £78.00 plus service. I remember service as exemplary, especially as the maitre'd remembered us from a year earlier at La Tante Claire, where he was then working, and the fact that my wife had been pregnant at the time. Marco was in the kitchen, and could be clearly heard from the dining room berating his brigade everytime the automatic door slid open, "come on, or we're really be in the shit!" I mentioned to a waiter that it had been a wonderful meal but could he please mention to Marco that I had found the charge for water excessive. A credit for £6.00 duly appeared on my next credit card statement. A great cook and a great restaurateur.

An update on Stepehen Terry from an industry insider: "For the moment Stephen Terry is cooking at The Pear Tree Inn just outside of Bath. There may be more to tell you soon however."

Bandy2010 - are you not the owner of Insadong as this thread appears to indicate?

Bloody hell! I can't leave the country for 5 minutes and they go and close one of my favourite restaurants. Its not all bad news however according to Caterer. Best of luck to the two Adams and I hope Thyme is back up and running in some form as soon as possible.

I have made a little progress on this already in terms of interest from the Vancouver organisations in having some input in such an event. This thread will be very useful indeed in explaining the idea to interested parties in London so thank you all for your input and keep it coming.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a beer tasting and the Lynes family enjoyed meeting everyone. I unfortunately did not get a chance to try the steak and only tried one of the beers, which was delicious and refreshing. If Neil could remind me which type I was throwing down my throat with abandon I will be happy to rate it. I have gone native since arriving in Vancouver and have stuck to 1516, Okanagan Brewery Pale Ale as well as a few BC wines of course. I really enjoy the beers I have tasted so far and will be trying a few more tonight at Canoe in Victoria which I will report on in another thread. In the meantime, I would be really interested to read your thoughts on the beers served at Hamilton.

This was a real milestone event for eGullet.org that marked a turning point for the society. Sustainability is an issue of crucial, international importance and the C lunch has provided eGullet.org with an opportunity to help raise awareness of it and spread information about it. Enjoyment of the fine cuisine was balanced well with the educational aims of the event and should serve as a benchmark for all future eGullet.org events. I will be looking into the possibility of re-creating the event in London as soon as I get back home. Congratulations and thanks to all involved in the planning and execution of such a memorable afternoon. I have the speeches made on Saturday on tape and will transcribe them as soon as I can. I'll write up my impressions of the food when I have more time, but all I can say now is that I really wish I could have stuck around long enough to taste those scallops, they look awesome.

We stayed at the Travelodge on a £5.00 a night deal. They are currently offering a £26.00 deal if you can stand the thought of staying in such a place. Its newly built, the rooms are comfortable enough but I'd take your own towels if I were you.

Evening Standard Review The Princess 76 Paul Street, EC2 Tel: 020-7729 9270

So where can you get "kipper tie" food in London then? Sketch is a good call as Gagnaire has ties (no pun intended) with Herve This. Other than that, I can't think of anywhere really. Atherton at Maze did time at el Bulli - does he have an MG slant to his food (doesn't look like it from the menus and reviews I have seen)?

Lets keep this about food and not personalities - that way madness lays. The topic is about MG in London - if this strays to a more general debate about MG itself then I will need to move it to the general food topics forum.

Gastropubs are like the hole in the ozone layer, multinational corporations and Abi Titmuss; unpleasant side effects of modern life that aren’t going to go away just because you ignore them. Like it or not, the twilight of the boozer has had its last gleaming and a new gastropub morning is upon us. Deny it if you want, but the tarted up tavern is here to stay. Which is fine by me, as long as it’s done right. Which brings us to The Princess in St Paul Street in the City of London, an establishment so finely engineered that any of the usual criticisms that could be levelled at your average gastropub just bounce off it. Let’s give it a try shall we? I wouldn’t eat my dinner in a smelly, noisy pub if you paid me. You don’t have to. The restaurant is on the first floor above the bar. I don’t want to sit on a hard wooden chair at a table retrieved from a skip with one leg shorter than the other three. The chairs are rather elegant teak and white leather jobs, wide enough to accommodate the arse of the fattest city fat-cat while the solid teak tables are large and well spaced. Gastropubs think they can charge restaurant prices just because they slapped £15.99 worth of Do It All magnolia paint on the walls. The Princess has pink and burgundy floral wallpaper, an enormous art deco mirror above a beautifully restored fireplace and crystal chandelier and wall lights. I can get better food at my local Harvester. Despite an improbable name, chef Zim Sutton knows his stuff and has put together an intelligent and well thought out menu of simple but delicious food. Service in gastropubs is pure amateur hour. Restaurant manager Tania is personable, highly professional and knows about wine. So The Princess sails through the theory, but how does it do on the practical? My lunch last week began with a glass of the perfectly serviceable house Chilean Sauvignon Blanc Tierra Antica 2004 and wedges of delicious multigrain bread served with butter soft enough to spread. A recommendation of a glass of 2004 Saint Claire from Malborough nearly lived up to Robert Parker’s claim (reproduced on the usefully annotated list) of it being ‘Quite possibly the best Sauvignon Blanc in the world”. It certainly went well with my starter of three seared scallops, coral still attached, served with a granular pea puree and accompanied by some cubes of fatty, salty wild boar pancetta and a few leaves of peppery rocket. It was a beautifully balanced dish where every flavour was made to count. A main course of Pata Negra pork cheeks braised with Morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) and Rioja should have been way to heavy and autumnal for a humid summer’s day, but was in fact delightful. It was certainly a rich plate of food, especially with a generous portion of creamy roast pumpkin polenta, itself rather unseasonal, and some sauteed baby spinach that was a little too watery and under-seasoned to do a proper job of lightening the dish. The meat however was accurately braised, fork-tender but not dried out or stringy, and the sauce was lent a powerful savoury kick by the sausage. A braise for all seasons. Hot chocolate pudding was a decent stab at the Jean George Vongerichten standard. The centre was molten, although slightly granular and thicker than it should have been, indicating that the dessert had spent a little too long in the oven. The accompanying ricotta ice cream was just a little on the rich side and plain vanilla would have been more welcome, especially as cheese featured on the only other dessert on offer (meringues with cardamom mascarpone and rosewater raspberries). A third option was, you guessed it, a plate of cheese. In total, cheese played a part in half of the 18 dishes on offer, including starters of buffalo mozzarella with baby vine tomato salad; gnocchi with tomato, asparagus and ricotta; bbq baby chicken stuffed with feta and mint; and a side order of peas with lemon zest, mint and yet more ricotta. Despite the diaspora of dairy, the menu read well and was fairly priced given the quality of the ingredients and the apparent ability of the kitchen. Starters are £4.95 – £6.95 for the scallops; mains £11.95 to £14.95 for aged rib-eye on the bone and desserts £4.95. Side order will set you back between £2.50 for a wedge of iceberg with caper dressing and that plate of cheese will cost you £6.95. House wine starts at just under thirteen quid for Chardonnay, Mas du Soleils, 2004, vin de pays d’Oc and the list tops out at £98.00 for a bottle of Clos Blanc de Vougeot, Domain de la Vougeraire, 2000. Overall, the dining room at The Princess passed both the theory and practical test with honours. It’s a fine place to while away a couple of hours, as is the ground floor bar. If we must have gastropubs, and I fear we must, then let them be made in the image of The Princess. The Princess 76 Paul Street, EC2 Tel: 020-7729 9270

Please let's concentrate on the food and not on individuals. If you want to bitch about each other, do it via PM or e mai; you'll find it just as much fun and you won't have me on your case. Thanks.

The Guardian, 21 May 2005 Doesn't look like there's much chance of Anthony's slipping off the egullet.org radar anytime soon either.

The dishes that Matthew actually ordered for himself were from the a la carte so it appears that someone else has the set lunch that day. It's OK for someone to have had a less than stellar experience isn't it? Disappointing for that person of course, but with somewhere like Anthony's that is quite challenging and does change the menu around a lot, there is always an increased risk of not nailing it everytime for everyone. I really am going to have to get my act together and book a table at this restaurant soon so I can speak with at least some authority on this subject. I can't believe I'm still an Anthony's virgin - how can I hold my head up in polite society while that situation still persists?

Matthew posted that he ordered from the a la carte menu, and the dishes he mentioned are listed as such on the website. If I'm reading him correctly, the greedy so and so had 2 starters, then a main course then the chocolate charabang, so I think that's a pretty decent basis on which to make a comparison to an earlier meal.

Has nobody made it to Maze yet? I was going to pop in for a drink and a look around yesterday but had a last minute change of plans.

Tommy out of Ground Force, Linda Barker from the DFS ads, Loyd Grossman, Ken Hom and the big bloke that got ejected from Hell's Kitchen for dissing JC - yes, it was quite a star studded event. Although my expereince of Taste of London is skewed by not having to pay to get in and being able to guzzle free champagne, I have to say I was quite impressed. The pigeon pie from Le Gavroche and fish curry with noodles from Nahm that I tried were both quite excellent and if I hadn't had such a big lunch I would have been eager to try a lot more dishes. If the rest of the stands were up to the quality of those two (and from Ori's excellent snaps it at least looks as though they were) and the weather holds, I'd say it would be worth forgoing a dinner, and stuffing yourself with 9 or 10 plates in Regents Park. Most of the named chefs were manning their stalls last night (Marco did not turn out for Frankie's and Gagnaire was absent from Sketch), but I don't know if they will be around every day. The photographers and camera crews were out in force last night which is bound to attact the likes of AWT, JC, Gary Rhodes, Giorgio Locatelli et al. I would have thought Shane Osbourne of Pied a Terre would be there as he doesn't have a restaurant to go back to at the moment and he was actually plating up rather than just hanging out. As well as the food and wine stalls, there are chef demos, wine tastings and two book stalls The Cook Book Shop of Harrogate and Cooking:The Books.

I think we can all agree that Mr Ramsay has a potty mouth - lets get back to food related discussion of the programme. Thanks.

Smokey's last great song must be at least 25 years behind him. Rather than a bunch of mediocre tunes, we can now look forward instead to a whole mess of mightly fine tasting gumbo. I think its a move to be applauded and more over the hill rock and pop stars should follow suit. I'd be more impressed if Van Morrison started a line of heat'n'eat Irish stew rather than keep re-making the same album over and over again. Bowie could switch to sushi, Motley Crue could bottle their own bourbon and McFly could market a range of human sized swatters for the benfit of music lovers everywhere.

Sorry Jon! I thought that was a request for information rather than a quiz.

If we are talking UK that must be Nico surely?

This is what I was thinking of.

I'm sure I've heard "Soul in a Bowl" somewhere before, but I can't think where. I can't say I've ever thought of Ramsay as an innovator, but as Felix Dennis once said (and I'm parphrasing) "Who cares if the idea is original, its the execution that counts." I recently heard Ramsay interviewed on the radio. He passed off Bocuse's famous quip "Who cooks the food when I'm not in the restaurant? The same people who cook it when I am there" as his own, so I wouldn't be amazed if he pinched soul in a bowl.

Yes I do, especially as the website says "As Vineet is regularly including some new creations it becomes difficult to give an accurate list of the dishes on the menu". I'm sure the menu will have changed by now, I'd be amazed if it hadn't.