Conor

Just recieved a flyer saying that Ping Pong are doing a "eat any item for £1.99" between 3pm and 6pm. Offer excludes set menus and specials, and finishes at the end of October. So i guess i'll use this offer to try it out myself! Might see some of you there.

Blimey, i get the feeling this thread will provoke a lot of response, so i will try to stay as impartial as possible. As far as i can see it there are three main "accusations". 1. Adding on supplements on menus 2. seasonality of ingredients 3. ability of English service staff As far as supplements are concerned, i agree to a point. If you charge already £48 for your menu, then there should be nothing that can add to that. But then what about the people who are doing as good a menu as Richard Corrigan for £22, their margins may be far less, their dining room less sulubrious, their PR less effective, they could justify a lobster/kobe beef suppl. Basically it comes down to one fact: are you getting value for money? if you are, with or without a supplement then go for it. As far as seasonality is concerned, there is a lot to be said for Shaun Hill's view and lets face it, it is probably quicker to get an asparagus spear from South Africa today than it was to get it from Oxfordshire a few years ago. What i believe is far more important nowadays in terms of sustaining our agricultural economy and preserving our country's future health and education when it comes to food, is locality. As for the last point, well i could go on for ever. I once did a presentation to some senior figures from the hospitality industry. I listed 8 famous restaurants and asked the panel to name the chefs and the restaurant managers. It was no suprise that all chefs were named straight away and not one could name a restaurant manager. You could talk about the why's and wherefores of the service industry in the UK until you are blue in the face but ultimately it comes down to 2 main factors. Firstly we do not have a service culture, and have never had. The upstairs downstairs mentality will always remain, yet we are happy for our children to stack shelves in tesco's but not to become a chef de rang in a good local restaurant. This stems from one thing, i believe. The vast majority of parents do not stay at the Ritz, they do not eat at Locatelli's or Ramsayas or Aikens. They can't picture Claridges. They do know on the other hand, the 2* b&b outside Chester, and the shit restaurant down the road that microwaves everything and then serves chips with it. Would you want your kids to work in places like that. Until we can promote an education on quality of ingredient and quality of service to the furthest points outside London, we will always suffer this service issue. I must say, however, that i find it very suprising that Richard Corrigan has decided to pigeon-hole and steryotype some very large countries in Europe. I have had some wonderful staff and some awful staff from all the countries he mentions. At the end of the day, human nature knows no geographical boundries.

"Also - does anyone know where to get pure ethanol (its for taking the skin off oil paintings" I might be mistaken but i think you can get it in a good chemists?!?!

Good stuff about the ledbury, i'm supposed be trying ity next week so now i'm rather looking forward to it. Interesting you mentioned the Ladbroke Arms. Easily my favourite pub in London. Good beer, well thought wine list, and excellent food.

I've just heard that Thyme was closing officially for "refurbishment" as of last week for a few months. Although i believe it might be a fair deal longer than that. It is a shame because some of the food was very good, and the wine list excellent, but i think changing their concept which had been so successful in Clapham was a mistake. They moved to a market where there are two many good, yet non-descript, high end restaurants but only a few great ones. Its always sad to see a restaurant close so soon after opening, especially for all the staff who put in the effort to open in the first place. But it does show how difficult the London restaurant scene is.

I'm sure this topic has come up before, but does anyone have a defintive answer to how to catagorize where is old world and where is new world. Is there an easy way, or is it more blurred?

Suprise Suprise, Circeplum got there already, her review is in todays metro. She didn't really like the food but still gave it 3 stars?!?

I went last week for my first visit and have to say i was totally impressed. Everything is as it should be, no suprises, exact cooking and exact service. Francois the sommelier looked after me very well so my bill wasn't too high, but even just for food it was as much as i've paid in London for a meal for two. But still to see how they operate it was worth the expense.

I've just checked with my brother as to what the food coverage in the Coventry Evening Telegraph is like and he replied "There is none. There are no restaurants in Coventry" I think he might be having a bad day though. No, he's right!

I haven't read Restaurant magazine, can anyone tell me what it says. Obviously i have a sincere interest of developments for 1880, but i would be very suprised if any money was spent re-doing the restaurant upstairs. Lets just say the owners have short arms and long pockets, allegedly!

i'm not clever enough to attach links, (perhaps someone could help), but Thyme didn't get a great review from Marina in Metro yesterday. I have some friends there and i think the common feeling is that the pricing in comparison to the service/food is a little unbalanced, but not in our favour!!

Andy, i couldn't agree with you more. Haute cuisine restaurants such as hospital road and fat duck have their place in the restaurant scene, especially as standard bearers and trend setters, but there are still not enough restaurants doing good (but not great) food in an inviting environment. It is not fun to eat haute cuisine in generally sterile rooms with impersonal service every night. Sometimes it is good just to eat exactly what you expected when you order in a buzzy atmosphere. Kensington Place used to be particularly successful at this, and now to an extent Boxwood are doing the same. When i ate at Boxwood, i couldn't fault the service. It was totally charming and put a smile on my face. The food was good, i too had the croque monsieur and also a fish dish with samphire, something i order whenever i see it on a menu (rarely!!), but the price did annoy me slightly. It ends up the same price as all the wannabe haute cuisiners, so why not visit them? But still it was a nice meal in a relaxed environment, just what i was looking for. One other restaurant that does this well is Almeida in Islington, simple food in a good room.

My brother ended up at No 3 York Place and came back with positive reviews. I've just got back from visiting the Angel at Hetton with him. We ate in the bar rather than the restaurant. Food was good, wine list was excellent in terms of wines but its hard to get a grip on the pricing when everything seems good compared to london, but it seemed well priced. I'd recommend the specials rather than the bar menu, but i think that is overtly the aim at the pub. Food was hearty, well presented with no frills. Service was friendly and efficient. The bill came to £58 for 2 starters, 2 mains, a £24 pinot noir from NZ and a particularly good pot of coffee. I would return to the Angel, the setting is beautiful, and it is really a place you could end up spending the whole afternoon, pity you have to drive the car to get there meaning one of us wasn't drinking. However i got the feeling while everything was good, nothing was great and i felt that they were operating very much within themselves. But perhaps it is a tried and tested formula that works there so why change it.

the point of a loss leader, is because you're not getting enough punters in at full whack. For once Scott you are exactly right. The idea of the promotion was to attract diners during August which is a historically quiet month in London for virtually all restaurants. I only allocated 3 or 4 tables per night and it was to provide more of an atmosphere for regular guests. And again i reiterate the standards were not and are not lowered for lower paying guests.

All weekend i regretted the comment i made!!! But i think it stemmed from two directions. If everyone is totally honest they know that if you are buying the du jour menu at a restaurant it will not be as good as the a la carte. It does not incorporate all the ingredients that fit on the full menu and also the cuts of meat/fish are different. This is why inspectors do not eat du jour/pre theatre menus as opposed to the a la carte. In any industry you know that if you are paying a far lower price for a product there has to be a reason why. Maybe i'm the only one being honest here. The other direction that made me make an unsubstantiated comment like i did is a bit of pride and hurt! I do not like my restaurant criticised just as anyone else doesn't like their work questioned. When i read comments about there being too many staff so we had human tables, it is annoying. These are called commis waiters and are used by every restaurant in the world. My sommelier has been criticised for his wine list while no one has been of aware of the constraints that we created the wine list under. This is of course not waht people should be aware of, but then again, noirmally people aren't writing half baked restaurant reviews on the back of one visit tryng to be A A Gill. I do agree with the common theme i have provoked, if you are paying a price, whatever price, you should get the standards at the same level as "normal". But i honestly feel that 1880 provided the same standards on that occassion. As a footnote, i am a little bit dissapointed with some people for the reaction to my comment. I am not stupid enough to post a commen to incinuate that standards were lowered to fit to price but yet still i expected my response to provoke a few questions but still i am suprised at the way some people have taken hold of it and created an incident of this extreme.

Just as I dont believe restaurants should be judged on their specially priced du jour lunch menu rather than their a la carte menu, I also do not think restaurants should be judged on a 50% discount menu booked through lastminute.com.

Jay, Shame on you, and the rest of the e gullet forum. Have you all forgotten the powerhouse that is Marina O'Loughlin. In all seriousness, i think she writes the best restaurant review of all. Her reviews only contain what the average diner wants to read, no padding or social commentary that so many others suffer from/are instucted to do* (delete as necessary)

Having watched Chris work for a year, i can honestly say he has the best attitude of any chef i have seen. He is passionate about his food, but also understanding and polite, not typical chef qualities. I hope he gets all the plaudits he deserves.

I'm suprised Moby didn't order you another portion!

The maury in question is a mas amiel which we regularly match with our foie gras dishes, especially a foie gras marinated in port. Obviously we can't please all people all of the time, we just try our best. Wine matching can often be a very subjective issue, but i do take on board your comments. Its up to you if you take on the Gastronome Andy Lynes!!!

Just thought I'd follow up to a few af the recent posts regarding 1880. Zerlinetta - It was good to meet you in the restaurant recently, hope you enjoyed your birthday meal. Please report back its good to get feedback, both complimentary and critical. Marilyn4k - thanks for your report, i'm pleased i made it into the likes rather than the dislikes! In response to one or two of your dislikes, in terms of wines by the glass, we offer 150 from a list of 270 bins in total. I don't think we can do much more than this and i don't know of many places with a better percentage of wines by the glass. In terms of of the wine list in general, it is a little unfair to compare the list to Browns who had built it up over a period of five years to get to that size where as we have had only 10 months. In fact we only had 3 weeks before opening to compile the list. The wine list was also nominated for list of the year in the Tatler restaurant awards. The list is ever evolving and expanding and in September/October we hope to launch a new list taking it to the next stage. I would like to find out which wines you believe are marked up too much as this is definately not our policy. Agressive water/wine pouring, we try not too - must try harder! Lighting, yes i agree, but we are looking at ways to improve this and September should see an improvement, it has taken me this long to find candles to fit into the slightly maximilist (!!!!!) surroundings. Hopefully that sheds a bit more light, it really is good to have the feedback, i hope you all dont mind the response as well!

I couldn't agrre with Jay more, if you are paying this kind of money, then you should get in reason what you want. Obviously bookings are staggered to ease the pressure on the kitchen and service staff to maintain standards, but this can be controlled whether the booking is on the hour or 27 miutes past it. I do truly feel in restaurants that the more you pay the more complicated it can get and its something i try to elimate as much as possible. As far as the credit card number, i'm afraid i agree with the restaurant. But not for the resons mentioned. Unfortunately there are people in London who don't honour their reservations, or book three tables at different restaurants and decide on the night which one to go to. By asking for a credit card, it is unlikely that a diner will not turn up. Also, while Foliage was not full that night, they cannot predict that in advance when they are taking the reservations so they must stick to one policy. I think that by asking for a cc number, i use it as a deterrent, and would very rarely charge a cancellation fee because at the end of the day, if you chage £25 cxl fee pp, its's pretty likely you won't see those people again.

The hotel and caterer magazine and restaurant magazine are two that carry a lot of information, a lot of rubbish too, but still keep you up to date. To a lesser extent there is hotel and restaurant magazine.

I visited the club last week for the first time and had the "grand tour." We just had coffee, my host had further meetings that day. The private rooms are truly impressive, and the restaurant itself very nice, if a little old school, but then again I guess that is exactly what you would expect for a members club of this kind. In all honesty I have heard mixed reports about the food at the club, but it is certainly busy. The day I went, they would be full for dinner with all the private rooms in use too.

he told me that you often compare bow ties!!!