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RichardHarden

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Everything posted by RichardHarden

  1. Flatterer: Brian Sewell is one of the great writers of our day. It’s amazing how people find in reviews what they want to. Conscious of an (inevitable) London perspective, we explicitly took comfort in our review from the fact that “the MEN’s reviewer … awarded … the three (out of five) stars we might, on a good day, have awarded to a similar establishment in the capital”. Quite how agreeing with the local reviewer could be said to smack of metropolitan condescension, I don't really understand.
  2. It's impossible to guarantee, but restaurants shouldn't be offering a standard menu: the whole point of the promotion is that it should be a unique ‘deal’, and this point was made quite explicit to all participants.
  3. Last year, Hardens' press release said Sweary's influence was stifling the restaurant scene. This year, using a nearly identical list, we're told that the empire is crumbling because Walnuts is spending too much time on TV. Hypocrisy aside, you really have to admire the Harden's publicist for bashing up a story out of such unpromising material. I'd note that RHR continues to be voted the "top gastronomic experience", which is surely the only category that counts for the city's main food-as-themepark venue. ... In summary: tabloid hyperbole with a dash of tall poppy syndrome, applied for the selling of guidebooks. ← Just for the record, the big point that was entirely new in this year's survey was the RHR was not 'out on its own' any more, like it has been for the past umpteen years. When you've built a whole empire on running the best retaurant in London bar none, that's kinda important. As to the "top gastronomic experience" list, it's a very crude measure of success, which tends to reward big names. (Only big names, however good/bad they are will ever accumulate enough votes to get on such a list.) The real survey evaluation is much more detailed, and includes, for example, comparison of number of votes in 'good' lists (such as "top gastro") and 'bad' lists (such as "most overpriced"). It's all explained at the front of the guide. And as to the reversal of the 'stifling' theme of the previous year, well, that's precisely what the survey showed: as noted in the press release, most of Gordon's major restaurants just inspired less interest from reporters this year, and the previous 'stifling' trend had gone into reverse. It can happen. A year is a long time in the restaurant business.
  4. Just to say, sorry guys, but the new and improved Harden's website really is coming very soon. The real division in the restaurant guide world is between the inspector-driven guides and the the 'populist' ones. What's really funny is when people get all pompous about the supposedly self-evident superiority of the former. Many of the people who participate in our survey are older, more experienced and better-travelled than your typical restaurant inspector, and our reviews are typically based on the consensus from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of reports annually from such people. I have never understood how such reviews are likely to be inferior to those based on occasional visits (often less than one per establishment per year) by the 'professional' inspectors, who are credited by the faithful with almost supernatural powers.
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