Gavin Jones

I think some of the same idea (but with more generosity of spirit) may be found in Kingsley Amis' "Amis on drink" (or somesuch). The title is of course a crib from his dad's 'Waugh in Abyssinia'. An intriguing writer who spent much of his life epating (for he was fairly bald) anyone who would react. Quotations from it are liable to interest any passing Plotnicki...

For a while at least. I'd advise to holdfast till people who drink that level of claret advise - like 10 years or so, even lowly (cru bourgeois) growths from 1997 are just starting to be approachable.

Would this be the bar that SteveP. wants to keep raising?

English readers will be familiar with the Coleman's wealth resting on 'the mustard that people leave on the side of the plate'. The history of condiment millionaires. Mix (Prepare) with a little water or vinegar or cream or any sauce. The ground dried mustard seed thickens and develops heat over a 10 minute or so period. It treats those namby-pamby dijonnaise types with the contempt they deserve.

Kulu kulu - ok, no more. K-10 in Copthall Avenue is pretty good.

The discussion is not so much about ingredients against technique. Apart from JD's excellent summary. But rather different sorts of technique. Noone (I believe) is disputing that better ingredients make a better dish). As Numero Uno pointed out the techniques required to exploit 'naturalistic' culinary aesthetics can be as demanding as those which adopt a more involved presentation & exhibit 'technique' by the ladleful. These things go in fashions & you can take your pick. I'm reminded of presentational styles for music: A large-scale example might be the great tradition of western orchestras as exemplified by the Vienna/Berlin Phil versus the Authentic music brigade. The first with stacks of instrumental textures (e.g. heavy vibrato, I typed an extra r there but managed to delete it) and instruments which have technically evolved since the time of the composer display 'technique' prominently. The second with ropey old cat-gut strings, faster tempi, and instruments which offer significantly less amplification sound more 'natural'. It is hard to argue they require less 'technique'. Though they do gesture away from the mythologisation of the performer (i.e. the chef/conductor as artist is replaced by a less exalted self-description). However the reduced claim that one is just 'getting what the audience of the time would have heard' is still self-evidently false. They are both dependent on huge amounts of technique just presented differently.

It was certainly not unusual in 18th century London to abandon babies to die who were 'economically surplus'. (Source: Christopher Hibbert).

Nothing of note - I just wanted to point out that I appear to be echoing kikujiro with around a 24 hour lag.

Very positive reviews in Time Out & Metro, this morning. (Though only for the fine dining option - not the rest of the complex).

Gary Marshall proffered Spoon (An Alain Ducasse Restaurant).

I am stupidly misreading the above then.

Andy, If we narrow it down to 10 names can we petition for a poll? So far I think we have - approximately chronologically Rules Ritz (Escoffier - surely a far more significant chef than any working in the haute cuisine genre now) Veeraswamy Le Gavroche Pizza Express McDonalds (was first one in lovely woolwich?) Chez Nico River Cafe The Eagle (Traditional London restauration i.e. in a pub) Harveys (MPW) Sketch Fifteen (Actually to get to 10 I'd delete Fifteen (having the River Cafe - though they did learn everything they know from Jamie - and Chez Nico (ahead of MPW?))

OK - SteveP in his usual hyperbolic fashion informed us that 'Sketch' a collaboration with Gagnaire which has recently opened in London & which will sell you a 3 course dinner for £150 is the most important restaurant ever to open in London. Even out of recent candidates - and I'm sure Steve was overlooking Fifteen here - there might be some dispute here. Rather than derail discussion of Sketch of which I would be interested to hear I will nominate my candidate for 'The Most Important Restaurant Ever To Open In London': to whit Veeraswamy, opened 1928, London's oldest ongoing Indian restaurant. Purveyors of the cuisine which best fits our native drink.

It is interesting linking repressive social developments with technical innovation. The development of empire in the spice trade & the role in the establishment of western europe's technical advance part funded by the triangular trade are dwelt on later. And the dominant position of wheat even later carries implications for the social organisation around it's processing. So the standard reading of people as vehicles for the transmission of ideas/syphilis/your favourite virus works also as the agents of grasses, with which we will carpet the earth and be enslaved by.

edit: Absolutely pointless sarcasm

Where is this tasting menu? The review in the telegraph -and the carte posted - suggest £150 for 3 courses.

Standard small gamebird issues. Basic approach shove it in a hot oven for a few minutes. The problem: The breast cooks to done & dry before the legs are cooked through. Solutions: ignore legs they're little - but they are tasty. Roast till the breast is done - carve breasts off & then finish legs separately - in oven or sauced. Recently had teal with the breast done in wellington with the legs cooked separately. This worked well but a faff for a casual cook (such as myself).

Given there extraordinary subliminal Europop promotion of the restaurant I wouldn't bet on failure just yet.

We have done this topic rather to death before. But the question is generally why is such a bizarre pricing structure adopted? There are two components to the costs the restaurant has to recover: 1. Variable: including wastage (corked et al), VAT, return on capital - which should be charged as a % mark-up and then 2. Fixed costs: wine-glasses, somebody to uncork, carry bottle over, pour - which should be charged as a fixed cost. Using a completely variable mark-up means for a more expensive wine the restaurant charges a totally disproportionate price: This results in diners a) not ordering better wine - and getting irritated at the wine they can afford to drink at any sensible price-point. b) resenting the restaurant for blatant profiteering c) suspecting the restaurant (unjustly) of operating this level of profit on lower cost items. Colin Spencer in 'British Food: 1000 years of pie' partially attributes this to constraints in WWII the maximum that could be charged for food at a restaurant was 5s and hence a disproportionate mark-up on wine has developed.

That was literally fantastic, Stellabella - and you've certainly deterred me from ordering eggs over-easy for a while.

I find it impossible to pass the RAH without attempting to recreate the fight on the steps from the Ipcress file. Co-opt a passing tourist - they'll thank you in the end.

Heading out of London if you, by mischance, stop at Deptford turn left out of the station & down the high street. You'll soon hit West Lake a BYO Vietnamese cafe. Leaving my order to the capable and incomprehensible gentleman who oversees the front of house I was treated to half-moon cakes (somewhere between a rice-flour pasty & a samosa) stuffed with prawns and cabbage and garlid and fermented shrimps. He explained the Time Out people had been terribly disappointed at their non-appearance. Later an enormous platter of vermicelli, vegetables and grilled beef with lemon-grass and chilli appeared. Tender as the night. This was immaculate food - and almost impossible to spend over a tenner on. A table of second generation vietnamese girls pondered the cheapest place to buy Gucci in SE Asia and a couple of the 'liberal intelligentsia' drifted in towards the end of my meal. Then onward - towards the watergate - followed only by my footfall - and a child's singing truncated, provincia deserta . Swing round the corner into the Dog & Bell for a pint of Pride and the pleasure of an antique local functioning as the Chorus (in a SE London Patois). He explained the argument at the bar as a faarking Greek Tragedy & went on to meditate upon the failure of Suicide as a moral choice. Making my excuses I headed down Creek road, over the sloe-dark Creek, before hitting St. Alfege's and the backstreets where a glass of whisky tastes of bile & home.

But as the Dictionary suggests this is not what it means. Unless you wish to conflate usage with meaning (definition). In the field I used to work this is simply known as 'abuse of language'. There are, of course, also examples of this in periods of very sudden social change.

Steve I think you should be talking to the Academie francaise. This is their suggestion for Artisan "ARTISAN, ANE. n. Celui, celle qui exerce un art mécanique, un métier. ... Il signifie figurément Celui qui est l'auteur, la cause de quelque chose." with an appropriate adjectival construction.

Only to British food.