jayrayner
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Posts posted by jayrayner
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Booked a table for Wednesday lunch. I was surprised they didn't drop the phone when I requested a table for 8: 4 adults and 4 babies. They actually said that they would have enough highchairs. In case anybody does not like children (and I can only vouch for 2 being used to lunches and being well behaved), I'd avoid Wednesday at noon. If anyone has already booked, my apologies in advance.
Brilliant. Do not apologise. We need more small people in restaurants. I'm particularly delighted to hear Galvin has at least four high chairs. I believe it's called progress.
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The chilli squid cakes were greasy and rubbery and a defamation of that noble crustacean
As much a defamation as calling it a crustacean?
fuck.
I remember thinking to myself. Must check that. And then I didn't. V crap of me.
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This struck me as a real shame
You can be sure that no one was more distressed by this dismal experience than I was. Remember, I was years away from becoming a restaurant critic. Although I went to restaurants regularly, I did not have the money to do so regularly so it was absolutely not a case of ennui or jaded palate. It was as I describe: dull, sombre, a misery and memorable only for that.
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If you can't guess by the sound of my head whacking against the desk (I'll post an mp3 of that shortly), AA Gill writes about.. No, I can't even bring myself to tell you. Go here and find out. Let's just say it's not a resoundingly positive review of a place that everyone else (and I do mean the majority of the english-speaking world, it seems) is in a frenzy of adulation over.
everyone else apart from little ol' me....
x
And me.
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For what it's worth...
AT the time they were making the show last fall everybody involved - all the execs from top to bottom, the consultant British producers, ramsay himself - made it clear to me this wasn't going to be a food thing. Like so much out there this kind of thing is never likely to satisfy the majority of people who post on egullet, though it is fun to watch Paula hyperventilate about the damage being done to the 'culinary arts' like it's the fall of the western empire.
It's reality tv. A bunch of people signed up for it. Nobody died.
Though somebody in there did make me a rather impressive pannacotta.
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Re the Ledbury don't watch this space. Not minded to review, for reasons I'll expand upon if any body is that interested, but they won't be.
go on, you've got me. dish!
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Re the Ledbury don't watch this space. Not minded to review, for reasons I'll expand upon if any body is that interested, but they won't be.
Re Taiwan Village, do watch this space. Fay Maschler was wrong, wrong, wrong.
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the guardian restaurant reviewer is a veggie, how predictable.
And they sent her to a place that doesn't have a vegetarian option
whilst she might not find the bread exciting, i have tony's recipe and not only does it go well with parmesan butter and the like, it makes great chip butties!
Don't worry. Kath's the editor of the magazine, so she sent herself. in other words, don't expect to see her become a regular. At the moment they are trying out people. Hence the week by week change.
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was he at El Bulli before or after Anthony Flynn?
Before. Atherton's claim to fame is to be the first British chef to do an unpaid stage there. Flinn was the first british chef to be a paid employee.
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tragically I had to leave the country at very short (and bloody convenient) notice so couldn 't make it. Bet the bastards will get me this year...
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It's not the first time I can recall that the Grauniad and Observer have reviewed the same place on the same weekend. I think Jay reviews about 4 weeks ahead of press; I've no idea about the schedule at the Guardian.
If they did, did Granleese know he'd be writing a review of it at the time? :)
It is, for the record, a complete coincidence and nobody is more dismayed by it than me (not least because I came out second). The only other time this has happened, was when I actually had eaten dinner with Matthew Fort, and I vowed never to do it again because it made both papers look silly.
I didn't know anything about it until I opened the Guardian Weekend yesterday. Though we are owned by the same group, THe observer and, particularly, the Saturday edition of the Guardian, regard themselves as being in competition. We don't liaise.
All I will say is that, after the total cack that has filled the Guardian space for so long since Matthew departed, it was refreshing to read someone who knew something about the subject at hand.
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I did wonder about that claim myself. I think its worth investigating, but I've just reported here what M Roux said on the night.
It's record in Britain, not Europe. Both Bocuse and the Auberge de L'Ill have held three for around 40 years, and I'm sure a bunch of other places can beat 22.
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So fickle these reporter types. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...401/ai_n9558536
That is low Ms Cavendish, very low.
At the end of the piece she asks sniffily if children ever go there. The answer is yes and she should know: when she was editor of OFM she agreed to send me there with three two year olds (including my own) for what became a cover story.
Bloody journalists, eh.
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"and a chef to boot?" cheeky monkey. :)
It all burst forth in textual effluvia from my typing fingers last night, though I really enjoyed writing about the whole experience.
You need to go. Everyone does.
Lovely review. And from a squaddie too.
And all that for £45 really is intriguing.
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The pleasures of ostentatiousness have nothing to do with it - as I doubt there's little which is actually pleasurable. The effect of ostentatiousness however is like the effect of publicity - bums on seats. In this Ramsay is the master. Wareing has occasionally dabbled (under the master's eye). But Blumenthal?
As to the article, with the exception of the first sentence, I haven't read such invidious, tendentious bullshit in years. Half of the first page is indistinguishable babble, the likes of which I haven't heard since I visited my great-gran in a home. (""Football is democratised, so should we look forward to commentators who believe that roasting is a method of cooking?" I mean what is he talking about? Football is democratised? No it isn't. "Roasting is a method of cooking" - erm - what am I missing here? Or are we mixing our metaphors along with our lithium?)
He then descends into sort of post-colonial pre-modern blather, bemoaning the loss the educated Elizabeth David-reading amateur. Of course, this is someone who's used to the Rowley Leigh/Alistair Little paradigm - just popped down from punting along the fucking river Cam to open a restaurant where you can find real duck confit like what those illiterate non-punting froggy peasants make - none of your bourgeois Nouvelle mousse-pounding rubbish (although that too, if your Rowley)! This is authentic!* I mean who is this idiot writing for? The fact that he discriminates between the four chefs in the book based on who's had an education (no offence Shaun, but I wouldn't want Meades in your corner), is mind boggling.
"To become a chef in Britain demands a greater self-discipline, a steelier will, a more determined bloody-mindedness, the thickest of skins."
What? Does he honestly purport to know the first fucking thing about working in a French kitchen? Or succeeding in France as a chef? Go speak to Louisa. (From her blog) "my sister Annie tells me that Gordon Ramsay's Boiling Point just started running in the States. She's worried that I get yelled at like that in my kitchen. Not quite - French kitchens are even more extreme."
How does he think French Chefs are formed? Skimming stock with one hand whilst reading Baudelaire with the other? Or read 'The Perfectionist' - kids placed in kitchens as teenagers, and forced to shovel coal for the beginning of their apprenticeships. Educational drop-outs, misfits, homeless kids, or (just as likely) a tradesman's kid taking over daddy's little Auberge and, several years and much back-breaking work later (voila!), turning it into a success.
"One is reminded (Oh, is one?) of sportspeople whose devotion to one pusuit (sic) at the expense of all others renders them inarticulate... insouciant - as though the price of success has been a sort of eletive autism." (For one's information, apart from poor spelling (which the sub-editor should have caught) he's making up words here - "eletive" is in no part of the Oxford English Dictionary (another autistic trait, Mr. Meade - making up new words?)
I don't doubt there are cultural differences betwen France and England - and as FaustianBargain points out below, the mentoring system in France is something we don't have here. And I don't doubt that the UK requires a diffferent psychological profile to succeed in this country than does France.
I just don't think Meades knows much about it beyond his anachronistic and somewhat bizarrely shallow prejudices.
*BTW - Alistair Little and Rowley Leigh's contributions have been tremendous, but I don't think it was because they had previously gotten themselves an education.
I'm with you Moby. Jonathan Meades is, and can be, a great writer, but since stepping back from the gig he has made like some whore whose suddenly become shocked by all the shagging going on in the brothel. This, remember was the guy who, more than any other critic, secured Marco's reputation. To rant now about the filthy celebrity business and to point to France as some eden, when top chefs there aren't made men unless they've got the legion d'honour, is simply bizzare.
As to the book, yes the Sean Hill section is the best, probably because it is the least familliar but I defy anyone who bothers to waste as much time as we all do posting here not to be intrigued by it. Tough Cookies is a very good read.
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Don't worry though - we won't all be eating Mapplethorpe in twenty years.
Is that a regional type of sausage?
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Obviously the 'cool' thing would be to say nothing, but it seems rather peculiar to have people misrepresenting my views when I'm around and reading so...
I have never been a proponent of Molecular Gastronomy for its own sake. Indeed, on a number of occasions in my column I have expressed the fear that terrible things will be done in its name by young chefs watching the likes of blumenthal, Adria et al and thinking metoo. I've referred to it as the 'liver in lager' moment and it will happen. (For what its worth I've also said that I am probably happiest eating in the classic French bistro, than anywhere else; hardly makes me a goggle-eyed supporter of the foams and jellies brigade.)
I have though referred to MG with regards to the Fat Duck and Blumenthal's cooking, because others have referred to it in that way and it is a useful label for what is a base style of cooking that is a development on (but not removed from) the traditonal French method. Yes I am a huge fan of the Fat Duck. The Fat Duck is MG. therefore I am a fan of MG. No, not quite. Blumenthal has said time and time again that his method counts for nothing if the food doesn't taste nice, and it does taste nice. very. that's why I like it.
Re the menu, yes there are a number of dishes which, according to their description, have remained the same for a number of years. But all of them have evolved over that time. (The quail jelly, with pea puree and foie gras parfait today is nothing like it was four or five years ago) They are constantly changing and being refined. In any case so many of the FD's dishes are so good - so far ahead of many of those offered by competitors - I'd be distraught if they came off the menu. There is also very little difference between the maintanence of those core dishes at the FD, and what they do at, say, the Auberge d L'ill where some of the offerings have been on the menu for over 40 years. As with the Auberge - which I adored on my one visit - I am attracted to a restaurant and a chef who knows what he wants to do and does it surpemely well.
Yes of course, if you wanted to go there six times a year, you might find it limiting. But that is not the way either I or the readers of my column in the Observer think about three star restaurnats. That is a fetish that only a very few could either afford or enjoy.
As to me not entertaining you, well Dick, there's nowt I can do about that save for put tassels on my nipples and strart siging the score from Gypsy, but I really don't have the hips for it. Not any more.
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SOrry. Just noticed the Nigel slater thing. That is intriguing. Will read with interest.
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Jay Rayner
THe March issue of Saveur has a piece on the differences between US and UK restaurant critics by, er, me. It goes into all this stuff.
Jamie MawCongratulations to Jay Rayner for his article in Saveur entitled "Diatribes for Dinner" which does indeed explain why British critics feel a compunction to dish spleen or merely offal. There is an interesting historical slant to the piece as well, although it doesn't mention Craig Brown, whom I had thought was in the vanguard of eatertainment reviewers.
My only real complaint with the piece was that--at less than 40 column inches--it was even shorter, if only slightly, than Michael Winner.
By the way, Gourmet magazine this month scours London.
Jay RaynerANd thank you. Believe me I could have gone on for another thousand words. Re Craig Brown - he was great, and perfectly fit the model of the journeyman writer thrust into the gig, but historically he's not really more relevant than any of the others.
thanks for the heads up on the London Gourmet. Am meant to have a small bit in there (D is for drinks) and didn't know when it was out.
On first blush it seems that your editor, Ms. Reichl, may have pulled rank and installed "Dark Roast" in lieu of "D is for Drinking", however there is an unattributed piece called "Just Drinks" that mentions Match EC1, Match Bar, The Cork and Bottle Wine Bar and Cross Bar.
And Nigel Slater offers "The Tables Have Turned", an article on . . . wait for it . . . British restaurant critics.
Ah, the no-byline thing. That's the way to keep the uppity journos in their place. Yes, that drinks piece is me. I suspect they'll be some round up of names somewhere in 2point.
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In addition to service questions (see 'A Glass Half Full?'), The Box Tree thread also prompted me to ask you about British restaurant reviewers and their seeming propensity to review a restaurant after a single visit. It seems that the reviews of The Box tree were written after a single visit, or at least that's the impression I got. Am I correct in this assumption?
If so, is it because the budgets of even the national newspapers/magazines don't allow for multiple visits given the horrific expense, especially in London? As it takes greater effort (and perhaps knowledge) to qualify for a driver's license than the postion of large-circulation restaurant reviewer, I was wondering if it asks on the job application: Are you (check one) (a.) not very, (b.) quite, or (c.) very clairvoyant?
Because as any critic worth their salt might allow, restaurants can and do change from night to night, as well as over longer periods of time; a decent critic can tell you if chef fought or made love with his girlfriend that afternoon. That change and lack of consistency is especially true of new restaurants still gaining traction; ironically that is the stage in a restaurant's life when most reviews take place.
Perhaps even more ironic however, is the fact that the financial editors of the same periodicals would never consider reviewing other businesses (and forecasting their future prospects) after a mere two hour visit--much more due diligence would be required of the reporter. Why does this seemingly not hold true in the UK for restaurant businesses?
So, for the most part are they one-shot wonders? Or do critics of conscience revisit (as in the methodology of The New York Times) until they're sure that they have gotten the full measure of the establishment, especially in tasting most of the menu? I ask this realizing that there are some cartoonish characters such as the oxymoronically named Michael Winner and AA Gill who could as easily be writing about The Norfolk Small Animal Auction as food and no doubt should.
But for the most part, what's the deal--and the rationale?
THe March issue of Saveur has a piece on the differences between US and UK restaurant critics by, er, me. It goes into all this stuff.
Congratulations to Jay Rayner for his article in Saveur entitled "Diatribes for Dinner" which does indeed explain why British critics feel a compunction to dish spleen or merely offal. There is an interesting historical slant to the piece as well, although it doesn't mention Craig Brown, whom I had thought was in the vanguard of eatertainment reviewers.
My only real complaint with the piece was that--at less than 40 column inches--it was even shorter, if only slightly, than Michael Winner.
By the way, Gourmet magazine this month scours London.
ANd thank you. Believe me I could have gone on for another thousand words. Re Craig Brown - he was great, and perfectly fit the model of the journeyman writer thrust into the gig, but historically he's not really more relevant than any of the others.
thanks for the heads up on the London Gourmet. Am meant to have a small bit in there (D is for drinks) and didn't know when it was out.
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Morning everybody,
First things first - Hello again:
Though I'm not quite egotistical to expect that anyone actually noticed I have not been around for the last three or four months. My main excuses (always be sceptical of someone who needs more than one) are that moving house, having a baby and setting up a new company do take up one's time. Also, a virus ate my computer so I lost my log-in details. Grrrr....
Second thing - Providing context for this post:
You'll be glad to hear I am still a bitter Northerner, continually spitting bile about the London-bias in the worlds of media and restaurants. In fact, I have more of a bee in my bonnet about it then ever as since leaving Restaurant magazine I have bought 'Restaurant and Bar', the exhibition for the Northern restaurant and hospitality industry (I won't stoop to turning this post into a corporate puff piece. I'll save that for later...).
Third thing - The post itself:
So food journalism - and specifically the dark art of restaurant critic-ing - are VERY London centric. This has equally been the case with relevent food journalism gongs (Glenfiddichs etc), and I note it's the same again with the British Press Awards this year - Our own Jay and Marina (good work chaps) as well as Terry Durack, Tracey McCloud, Giles Coren and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall are all in the running for food writing gongs.
It made me think. Whether they get the recognition they deserve or not, is there anyone outside London actually doing a decent job or reviewing restaurants? Let's face it, beyond the M25/Home Counties national reviewers are thin on the ground, so if tanything here is actually a greater need for decent regional/local critics.
I imagine the Scottish papers do quite well, and there is a guy at a Birmingham restaurant website that seems quite well respected. I don't think there is much of note in Liverpool, Cheshire or Lancashire, but what about Yorkshire, the Evening Post is quite a serious journalistic paper?
In my own back yard, the MEN have just wheeled off long-time critic Ray King, and replaced him with.... no-one. It seems now that every week a different staff writer who knows how to chew food gets the job. Sad. Besides that there are a handful of guys who write for City Life (Manchester version of Time Out), but with limited space they don't get to shine, and Emma-Jean Sturgess on the Metro who actually does a pretty good job.
Anyone else fair better with their local critics?
Cheers
Thom
Bar Marina we are all at least national reviewers. Also Robert Cockroft of the Yorkshire Post has been shortlisted in the glenfiddichs at various times.
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And they weren't celebrating too hard last night---e-mailed congrats and got a reply. Not sure I'd be capable of doing the same if I won something like that.
Trust me, They party-ed good and hard at the awards party in London on Thursday night.
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And congratulations to all the team for T'Observer award. Course it was obvious yesterday when T'Grauniad had a tiny image of the cover of OFM on it, and there was Mr Flinn, jr. Makes up for the Michelin and then some.
And, yes, I voted for it. Bit confused how it could win best restaurant but not best newcomer, but I guess it's not like the Oscars , and things get handed around?
Readers vote for best restaurant; panel of judges choose best newcomer.
For what it's worth my shortlist for best newcomer was
1. Leon
2. Anthony's
...simply because Leon really does break the mold. Anyway I'm v pleased with the result all round.
Fat Guy Lays it on the Table
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
My colleague Terry Durack, who reviews for the Independent on Sunday here in the UK, put it best I think when he said: 'I am yet to find a bad restaurant that becomes a good one because I walk through the door.'