Jonathan Day

Actually, Waitrose and the John Lewis Partnership do have to make profits. They are a corporation, just not a public corporation. Their duty is to their members -- the company's employees. To quote their own literature: The "members" referred to are the partnership's permanent employees. They need profits, as the excerpt above suggests, to finance growth (e.g. to build businesses like Ocado) and to pay a profit share to their members. The Partnership isn't a co-operative like the Co-Op/Spar, which still has some grocery business in Britain. It isn't a non-profit. Like many law firms, John Lewis is a profit-making corporation owned by its employees.

If we are going to argue, let's argue with what the other person actually wrote. I never claimed that Wal Mart had reduced anyone's cost of living, though my guess is that the numbers would support this. As you say, it depends on one's requirements for "living": washing powders? barbecue grills? organic tomatoes? What I did say was that Wal Mart's corporate philosophy is about reducing prices, selling more goods at slimmer margins, and that, as a matter of corporate philosophy or intent, they believe they are "doing good" at the same time they are "doing well". I've seen the claim about small businesses closing down after Wal Mart locates near a town. But the story is often told as though this is an explicit and premeditated plan: "We'll locate a mile from Donkelburg, then we'll close down the druggist and the grocery store. Then we'll close the store and relocate 10 miles away." Is there any evidence that this is the case? Just as mags would like to see some numbers on Wal Mart's impact on the cost of consumer goods, I would be interested in the facts on its impact on small towns.

I agree entirely with this assessment. And note that I didn't say "entirely A Good Thing" but "on the whole" -- I find the positive effects outweigh the negative. But there are negative impacts of UK supermarkets.

Supermarkets both form and follow public opinion. When there is a demand for quality, they will supply it, so long as it lasts. But their biggest profit lies in rapid turnover of uniform products, and their advertising is concentrated on appealing to their customers' laziness, indifference or preoccupation -- buy this because it's cheap, it requires no work, it presents no challenge, and all your friends are eating it. Organic? Locally grown? "Taste the difference"? Window dressing. To quote Krugman again -- because I think he has it right: If we look only at range and quality, I find it hard to assign much guilt to the UK supermarkets. The selection of good things -- and I mean genuinely good things, not faddish items or tricked-out foods made from petrochemicals -- is far better than it was 10 years ago, and still better than in all but a few very fancy supermarkets in the US. Sainsburys have sponsored Delia Smith and the obnoxious Jamie -- who at least promotes the use of fresh herbs, olive oil and other good things. Waitrose has provided quality food for some time. Asda and Tesco have followed the "pile it high and sell it cheap" model; if you are a wealthy gourmet, you might fault this, but if you are the provider for a poor family, it could be a good thing. There are other things you might criticise the supermarkets for. It isn't clear how truly competitive they are; price fixing was common in the UK not that long ago. The recent DTI enquiry did find them "not guilty", and no UK supermarket has been turning in outstanding profits in the way that the banks have, but I suppose some doubt remains. A trip to a supermarket in the hyper-competitive US is a reminder about the cost that internal trade restrictions impose on UK consumers. But on the whole, although I do a good proportion of my shopping at small shops or stalls in Northcote Road and Borough Market, the supermarkets (Waitrose/Ocado especially, but also Sainsburys) have been A Good Thing. And the small shops are absolutely a luxury -- were I not reasonably well off, the supermarkets would get most of the business. My guess is that the gross margins on products like organics and Sainsburys' "taste the difference" products (some of which are very good) are considerably greater than on toilet rolls, soap powders and the products John seems to be categorising as "mediocrity". So I don't see the point about Window Dressing.

Terms like "fabrication artisanale" or (more rarely) "fait maison" are sometimes used to signal that the products involved were not been made industrially, or were made at the restaurant itself. The term "cuisine bourgeoise" (as distinguished from haute cuisine, which is seen as exclusively something that happens in restaurants) also turns up, though I agree that it doesn't have the connotations of American "home cooking". In general there is a sharper line in France between dishes you might make at home and things you probably would not, such as bread or fancy pastry.

Let's move on, please.

I agree with Krugman's assertion: What I wonder is when the biggest decline in standards took place in the UK: was it over the last 200 years, or was it largely a result of deprivation and substitution coming out of the war? I have seen menus and read desriptions of meals served in prewar clubs and restaurants suggesting that fine foods were available, that ingredients were sourced and prepared carefully -- at the top of the market, at least. The renaissance in English cuisine that Krugman describes took place relatively swiftly. How long did the decline take?

To move things forward, let's stipulate that all those Italian, American and British food writers (Bugialli, Hazan, Gray, Waters, etc.) are wrong. Adam Balic's scholarly course on the eGCI is wrong. Giancarlo Caldesi, the Italian chef with whom I learned to make pasta, was wrong when he said that it could be done with ordinary flour. Everyone who has prepared pasta using all purpose flour didn't actually enjoy the product they produced. So let's get it straight, people: Schneich is right. He says so himself, after all. Everyone else is wrong. They don't know how to prepare or cook pasta. They don't know their flours. Source: Schneich. Granted. Now let's move on.

That's a bit like suggesting that Hitler wasn't responsible for WWII, it was the technological revolution which enabled the Blitzkrieg. WalMart has not just ridden the crest of the wave, it has manned the wind machine which makes the wave crest ever higher. As the world's largest corporation, expanding exponentially, it's not merely a passenger. I am no admirer of what WalMart have done to small retailers in the US. But it's important to get the facts right. Wal Mart is not the world's biggest corporation, except perhaps by revenue (sales), a measure so economically irrelevant that in some industries it isn't even provided in press releases. Microsoft's last reported annual sales were $32 billion with net income of about $10b; Wal Mart's sales were $256b with income of $9b. Oil companies, for example, hardly report sales, since the only relevant fact is income. Wal Mart's current market capitalisation -- a far better index of whether it is the "world's largest corporation" -- is less than that of Exxon, GE, Microsoft, among others. Wal Mart's sales grew by 12.5% per year over the last 5 years; earnings grew at 14.5%; the shares increased by 7.5%. Respectable, especially for a retailer in some tough economic times, but hardly "exponential" (well, a very small exponent). (Source for these numbers: Reuters) Wal Mart's UK business (remember the subject of this thread?) is ASDA, which have arguably had far less impact on retailing than Tesco. One reason for this is that ASDA didn't start out with the giant store "footprints" so essential for operating mega-retailers. Given the density of the UK, it's hard to get these "boxes" if you don't have them already. In France, the dominant players are groups like Carrefour. Wal Mart isn't a player. They have a small position in Germany. Wal Mart has been a powerful demonstrator of what is possible -- in that sense, I guess they aren't a "passenger", though groups like Carrefour and IKEA led similar revolutions in Europe, independently of Wal Mart. A lot of Wal Mart's philosophy, starting from its founder and continuing today, is about so-called every day low pricing (EDLP), i.e. constantly lowering the cost of living for middle America. Do they have more sinister objectives? I don't know. I think the story is more convincing as an example of how well intentioned actions -- making more goods available to more people at lower prices -- can have adverse consequences. In any event, I can't see how Wal Mart have negatively affected food in the UK, which, if I recall, was what we are talking about here.

Unfortunately this is a global phenomenon, almost as true in France and Italy and Japan as in the UK or US. Call it "walmartisation" but in reality it has nothing to do with Wal Mart and everything to do with cheaper and faster information and communication technology (ICT). It is simply more efficient nowadays to run larger shops. ICT means that supplies can be managed "just in time"; supply networks that once had many levels (farm to co-operative to aggregator to producer to distributor to sub-distributor ... etc., down to the retailer on the corner) now have perhaps two, or even one. Governments can slow this down -- France, Italy and Japan each have mechanisms to favour smaller shops -- but they can't stop it. Consumers can favour markets and small retailers (and I do) but as Andy notes, they become a luxury rather than a source of basic supply. There's good news in all of this. We wouldn't be communicating over eGullet in the "good old days", not just because the web hadn't been conceived, but because the cost of the computing power needed to make this work in the home would have been well into six figures. And, to go back onto topic, home delivery of groceries is now easier and more prevalent. Sainsburys deliver in Brighton; not sure about Tesco; Ocado (Waitrose) don't. Ocado, especially, have some good products and we have found their delivery very reliable. Again, none of this would be possible in the good old days.

I wonder how strong the stereotype still is. Britain sustained enormous economic damage during and after World War II. Some rationing lasted into the 1950s. Yes, there was some horrible food around. Things are very different today. Food and cookery are still not the national obsessions here that they are in France, nor can you breathe them in the air and drink them in the water as in Italy and perhaps Spain. But availability of ingredients, general awareness of cuisine and skill of cooks, in restaurants and homes, are increasingly strong here. On culinary grounds I would far rather be in the UK than in Germany, Austria, anywhere in Scandinavia, anywhere in Eastern Europe -- or in the US or Canada. Asia is a different story.

It seems that many of us end up in chambres d'hôte for similar reasons. Many years ago, I was speaking at a conference at le Mas D'Artigny, a hotel near St Paul and Vence. My sister-in-law was flying over from the US with a friend, and we arranged a weekend for four at the Relais Cantemerle, another hotel in the area. Or that's what I had thought. Somehow the confirmation fax never got through, and when I called to check on some detail of our rooms, was told that the hotel was full. So was every other hotel, gite, chambre d'hôte, boarding house, or room in the area, from Nice all the way over to St Tropez. Everything was full. I eventually tracked down a farmer who offered us rooms for one night ... and on the second night, you can move to my friend's house, who has converted a shed into a comfortable room, except that you have to walk a bit to the toilets, and there is no bath...it was not looking to be a happy weekend. Then I stumbled across a new website, for le mas du Haut Malvan (www.hautmalvan.com), a chambre d'hôte in a lovely valley just outside of St Paul. The website was unusually elegant. The rooms looked attractive. The only problem was that the telephone number on the site was (1) hard to find on the site; (2) incorrect once you found it. Somehow I tracked the owner down. Yes, we have rooms. For some reason it has been very quiet. You would be welcome for the weekend. The weekend was paradise. The landlord owns one of the largest and most interesting galleries in St Paul, and the property is old but decorated in exquisitely modern style; Each of their three suites had a kitchen attached -- the largest suite has a living room and a full, working kitchen. Breakfasts were superb. The landlord's son is an artist, and his works are featured in a number of the rooms. Since then the mas has been written up in a number of fashion magazines, though its rates are still reasonable. If this is the future for chambres d'hôte, who needs hotels?

Aren't, or weren't, there a number of pubs that lent or rented their kitchens to entrepreneurial restaurateurs who couldn't manage the fixed costs of fully operating a restaurant? I recall one country pub that offered a Spanish menu on selected nights of the week (almost no food on the other nights). And weren't there London pubs -- one near Chiswick, if I'm not mistaken -- that offered "London authentic" Thai food on certain nights? By "London authentic" I mean of a standard that you would get in a small independent Thai restaurant in London, e.g. Talad Thai in Putney. They were able to do this because a local Thai cook who couldn't afford to establish a restaurant came in; the pub brought in punters who wouldn't otherwise have come. The equivalent would be renting a Regus office to conduct business, or perhaps sharecropping. I would guess that these arrangements are short lived and perhaps increasingly rare, since the "system" operators of pubs would try to capture any food margin available by pushing industrialised sandwiches, plastic-boxed salads, etc.; and since an entrepreneurial restaurateur who succeeded in a rent-a-kitchen model would be inclined to open an independent establishment.

Vedat, it wasn't that far out of the way: our normal door-to-door time from London to Mougins is only 5 hours, going via Nîmes it was 8. We'll be back to Lourmarin. I was inclined to skip the Moulin after reading Robert Brown's less-than-enthusiastic review on this forum. And, travelling with two children (14 and 8, the middle child of 11 was skiing) we are "working our way up": they started with a one star Italian place, and this time wanted to try a one star French restaurant. L'Arpege is in the distant future for them...but at this stage the Moulin might have been a bit of a stretch. Finally, we were just off an aeroplane after an early morning flight, so nobody was quite dressed for an elegant restaurant. The children were slightly underdressed even for the more relaxed Auberge. But if those reasons don't suffice, there was another and more practical one: the Moulin was closed on the day we were travelling! I agree that the cookery was toward the upper end of the one star range, perhaps even deserving a second star if you could rate it separately from the crazy service. The sauce on our venison was excellent, and the foie was perfectly cooked. And the pastries, as I posted earlier, were outstanding. For some illogical reason, when we are dining with the children I tend not to order higher-priced wines; perhaps it seems harder to concentrate on the wine. But the list at the Auberge was deep and interesting and well priced.

I haven't dined at Juniper, though I've been to Altrincham. But I wonder whether some posters are misinterpreting an ironic turn in Kitching's menu. Irony is a peculiar and local vice over here, like queueing or the unspeakable things done in public schools. It is often a stumbling block to foreigners. Just a passing thought. Please carry on.

It would be good to bring more locals -- Parisian or otherwise -- into this forum. Whether we are chasing Michelin stars or, in John's nicely turned phrase, "restaurants that tell you where in the world you are without your having to ask someone", most of us here are visitors, either tourists or temporary sojourners. We would still get plenty of argument and controversy with more French locals on the board, but we would get a different perspective on restaurants.

There was a guy with longish hair, stubble, wearing a suit rather than a uniform, who took our carte orders and then forgot to convey them to the kitchen. Perhaps this was the delinquent M. Samut. I wouldn't give the place any stars at all on the basis of the service. But Mme Samut sure can cook. And the patissier is no slouch either.

For some reason this year, every school in Europe held half term in the same week, so tickets from London to Nice were outrageously expensive. We decided to fly Ryanair, via Nîmes, which was offering very cheap tickets from London -- some for as little as £1 plus airport taxes. I was slightly worried because of Ryanair's reputation for inflexibility and poor service, but everything worked as planned. Stansted airport, though irritating to reach from South London, was efficient, and the outbound and return flights were exactly on time. Nîmes airport itself has a bizarre mix of flights -- Air Cubana was there, and there is one daily flight from London. But the airport is simple and modern, and more relaxing even than Nice Côte d'Azur, which as airports go is pretty good. We were quickly enough on the road toward Lourmarin, and I felt a strange peace as we drove though the sunny countryside, even when we went through the rather nondescript towns near Nîmes and wondered why the French seem to have several "literies" (bed shops) in any town of any size. Do they buy beds so much more often than people from other countries? We left Nîmes airport at 1120 and arrived at L'Auberge de la Fenière just over an hour later, in time for lunch. The restaurant itself is decorated in a clean, modern style. My wife, eldest son and I had the Valentine's Day menu (EUR 78): Noix de saint-Jacques et truffes, en salade de mesclun au vieux parmesan (Scallops with truffles on a mesclun salad with aged Parmenan cheese) Filet de chevreuil façon Rossini, galettes de polenta, sauce poivrade (Venison filet with foie gras on polenta cakes) Saint Marcellin affiné (a soft cheese) Blanc-manger au parfum de truffes, sauce chocolat (Blancmange studded with truffles in a dark chocolate sauce) Macaron "rose et framboise", sorbet litchi, coulis de fruits rouges (Rose-flavoured macaroon with raspberries, litchee sorbet) There were several interesting amuse-gueules, including a plate of jewel-like slices of bottarga, dressed with olive oil, and an anchovy cream that was light and perfectly flavoured, and all sorts of mignardises to follow. The younger son wasn't quite up to the menu, so he had a pavé de boeuf which arrived beautifully charred and rare, surrounded by quenelles of mashed potato. He tucked into the beef with relish but looked at the potatoes, decided he didn't like them, but was eventually persuaded to taste. His face lit up and his eyes widened, and the potatoes (which were superb) vanished quickly. Almost all of the food was delicious. We were served a mediocre second amuse, a flabby slice of red mullet, but the rest was remarkable. The scallops were sweet and firm, the combination of venison, foie and polenta perfectly balanced. The blancmange reminded me of one of Bruno Clément's truffly desserts, but it was better, and the macaroon was superb. While we had our dessert, our youngest son had the "assiette tout au chocolat", an amazing plate of mousses, sorbet, cake, and other chocolate preparations. He adores dark chocolate, and this was perfect. The wine list, which I believe was developed by the chef's husband, was also good; we drank a 2000 Coteaux D'Aix en Provence from Chateau de Revelette, the "Grand Rouge" that had surprising power and finesse for the price (about EUR35). What fell down at the Auberge was the service, which was friendly and earnest but entirely uncoordinated, as if orchestrated by the Marx Brothers. Part of the problem was that everyone and no one seemed in charge of our table; various waiters brought and removed dishes, took orders (but then forgot that they had), poured the wine or forgot to pour the wine. Servers brought bread around again and again, but wouldn't bring the Badoit we had requested. Chef Reine Sammut is doing some beautiful cooking at this place, and the ambience is lovely. If she can just improve the somewhat bumbling front of house, the Auberge will be a required destination in the area. It was wonderful, though slightly frightening, to see the children start to recognise good food (and at a later lunch in Nice, to spurn badly cooked dishes). We will certainly return. ---------- Auberge de la Fenière Route de Cadenet, Lourmarin Tel 04 90 68 11 79

Here's a report from the Nice winter carnival, including two restaurants. We bought tickets to the evening "corso illuminé" and the following afternoon's "bataille de fleurs" via the Nice website -- which was cranky about allocating seats, but finally did. In both cases, we drove from Mougins. We had seen signs that the centre of Nice closes down about 2 hours before the start of each parade, so we planned to have a meal before each event. For the first dinner, my eldest son had asked that we return to one of those pan-Asian restaurants toward the back of the flower market. We never made it: the motorway was plagued by "bouchons" (traffic jams) apparently unrelated to the carnival, and by the time we arrived in Nice, the promenade des Anglais and other roads were crowded. I had engaged in plenty of cursing and swearing after numerous near misses on the motorway, on the local roads and in the car park. By the time we had collected our tickets, the flower market was too far away: we had just enough time to pop into Le Sansas, a touristy-looking restaurant near the gates. Ah well, I thought, it will be marginally better than McDonald's. It was a lot better. One son's pizza was beautifully done, with a crisp crust and a good balance of cheeses and herbs; another's pasta alla carbonara was almost perfect: an eggy sauce, noodles cooked exactly right. I had a plate of veal with peppers that was tender and flavourful. It was simple, honest cookery at a fair price, and a place to which we will return. We left in a happy mood. The evening parade was a lot of fun. The theme of the carnival as a whole was "le roi de la clonerie" -- which means "the king of clownery" but was intentionally misspelled to refer to cloning. As the carnival website says: They recruited top newspaper cartoonists (e.g. Banx from the Financial Times, Franco Bruna from La Stampa) to make drawings about the dangers of biotechnology, evolution, and the like -- and then these were turned into elaborate floats. You can see the cartoons themselves by going to the official website, linked in Menton1's post above, and clicking on "theme". The king himself was preceded by numerous "clones"; the queen turned up naked, inside the glass dome of a futuristic "machine à cloner". Bands from various countries marched and played on the stage as floats and clowns paraded by. As ever with these events around Mardi Gras in France and Italy, there was a wonderful abandon -- at various points, some of the actors on the floats adopted lascivious positions, and there were plenty of witches, devils and monsters on display. The audience contented itself with shouting, following the master of ceremonies' admonition to do "Mexican waves", tossing confetti and shooting off canisters of "silly string". We returned to Nice the next day for the "bataille de fleurs". This time, the traffic co-operated, and following Robert Brown's advice we had lunch at La Rotonde, in the Négresco. As he had predicted, most of the food was mediocre, but the room itself is magic: it's decorated to resemble a carousel (merry-go-round). At various times during the meal they start a clockwork mechanism that animates the horses, an orchestra conductor and other figures. The pastries were good. Incidentally, the Négresco offers a terrace that overlooks the Promenade des Anglais; as long as you consume at least EUR20 per person (the same price as seats for the bataille de fleurs) you can sit on the terrace and watch the fun. Unfortunately we had already bought our tickets -- perhaps next year we'll reserve places on the terrace and enjoy a good bottle of wine during the proceedings. The day was bright and sunny but cold, with a brisk wind blowing in from the seafront. The bataille de fleurs itself was less wild and more sedate and the floats somewhat more traditional than those from the previous evening's illuminated parade; actors on floats tried to toss branches of mimosa into the crowd, but the wind meant that they didn't go far. Again, there was the overtone of the forbidden and the sexually risqué. Women from Brazil and Cuba danced along, wearing virtually nothing; I wondered how they managed to keep smiling in that cold wind, but enjoyed them nonetheless. Count on the French to mingle fun, intellect, sex and religion in a single event. All in all, lots of fun, and something I might have overlooked without eGullet. Thanks to Menton1 for calling attention to these events. Next year we hope to get to the Menton lemon festival. ===== Le Sansas, "Bar Restaurant Pizzeria, Spécialistes de Poissons". 4 av. des Phocéens, 06300 Nice, tel 04 93 62 29 22. La Rotonde, in the Hôtel Négresco. 37 promenade des Anglais 06000 Nice, tel 04 93 16 64 00.

I started to write a reply to Margaret's opening question -- which seemed interesting, exactly the sort of thing we should be discussing here. Then I realised that I wasn't quite sure what the question or concern was. Is it that gastro-tourists are overly focused on "scoring" reservations at L'Astrance, or el Bulli, or the French Laundry -- the handful of restaurants that have climbed to the top of the international foodie desirability pyramid? And that aspiring chefs therefore have some difficulty breaking into this magic circle? Or is it that we tend to return to old favourites in Paris (or anywhere in France for that matter) and are therefore likely to miss the work of innovators? I am struck by the difficulty of travelling a long distance to a particular place, with an aim of eating at specific restaurants and limited time in which to cover them all. Even at the very top, there is a randomness about cuisine and service at restaurants that means that a single visit is unlikely to give a definitive sense of how a place will deliver over time. For me the way out of this dilemma means either many brief visits to the same place or spending significant time in one place. The latter has the advantage that you have some chance of getting to know local residents, who of course are motivated by considerations other than "scoring" hard-to-get reservations.

The website for the Carnaval was incredibly cranky when it came to ordering tickets, but I finally managed to get seated tickets to the illuminated parade (Tuesday night) and the flower parade on Wednesday afternoon. I hope we'll be dining at La Rotonde on one of those days. We may give the "new" Moulin de Mougins, under Llorca, a try. Full report in a week.

That was a treat to read, and I agree 100%. There are a few adult writers who give themselves to the story the way that the best childrens' writers do (E Nesbit and P L Travers come to mind) but very few. I would put Robertson Davies on this list, and of course Mark Twain. It's a short list, though. Michael Ruhlman's food writing has some of this quality for me, though his style isn't always as clean as it could be. And I love Elizabeth David's writing, though there is a coyness about it that can grate. John Thorne definitely. I enjoy reading John and Karen Hess, but somewhat in the same way it can be fun to read "train wreck" threads on eGullet: sooner or later, you know that they are going to rip into someone: Claiborne, Pepin, Julia Child ...

Ah, yes, but Ryanair, which we are taking, flies into Nimes (FNI). Lourmarin is (roughly) enroute to Mougins. This is a bit of an experiment. We usually use Easyjet into Nice, but these tickets were so cheap (some were actually free) and Nice tickets so expensive because of school half term that it seemed worth trying Ryanair.

Where Robert recommends, we go. Report on the Negresco next weekend. We're also hoping to visit the Menton lemon festival. And I'm hoping to take some of the sting out of an early morning Ryanair flight by having lunch at the Auberge La Fenière in Lourmarin.

A business dinner at Aikens last night. I was focused on the client and the discussion, and I will plead Moby's excuse about superb food leaving one speechless, so what follows will have little bite-by-bite detail. The room was reasonably quiet, until 6 bankers turned up at the next table and started to bleat, at high volume, about this the dollar (down) and 2003 bonuses (up). Happy times are here again! Even then, the tables are spaced widely enough that we had a good conversation. The food was simply outstanding, some of the best I've tasted in London or anywhere else for that matter. Starter of chestnut "cassonade" with duck egg and truffles, then turbot with roasted artichokes. Each was wildly complex, yet delicious in every bite; like diving into a river of flavours. The turbot was perfectly cooked. Breads (white, dill, olive, etc.) were ordinary; butter was fresh and delicious. Service was slightly self-conscious, and the waiters announced each dish -- not only the numerous amuses and pre-desserts but also the dishes we had already ordered -- in soft, heavily accented voices, so that it was anyone's guess what some of them were. Otherwise, the service was very good. We ordered cheese rather than pudding; my companions just asked for "a selection" and received somewhat mingy plates. I abandoned professional demeanour, asked the waiter to bring the cheese trolley over, and asked for 7 different cheeses, which he was happy to dish up. All were superb. There were so many mignardises -- wafers, chocolates, madeleines -- that I can't imagine having ordered puds as well. The wafers were wonderful: thin, some almost transparent, in sesame, mint, chocolate flavours. The madeleines arrived warm and almost creamy inside. We had a St Aubin 1er cru (£48); the sommelier recommended this over a more expensive wine I had requested. I wasn't watching the food prices and didn't see the bill, so I don't know how expensive it was, but my guess is that this place is pricey. Tasting menu, if I recall correctly, was £55. Truly an outstanding restaurant, definitely in a league with GR RHR; some of the dishes were better.