Tony Finch

"No one wants to be overcharged.........to eat any type of food"(how do you do those direct quotes from another post on to one's own,Andy?) Obviously that's true but I was trying to say something else.At the very top end the difference between a great restaurant and,say,a good one lies in a level of commitment,a passion for attaining perfection,a single minded level of dedication that the customer is becoming increasingly able to discern.At Le Gavroche the passion for perfect service,for example, renders it almost to the level of an art form.People will therefore pay top prices for the extra-ordinary experience of eating there. Nico and Marco both realised that they had no wish to continue working at the level of intensity needed to justify their prices and I,for one,respect their honesty in this regard.They could have reduced their input but gone on charging the same old prices and hoping no-one would notice because they were famous,brand name chefs. On the basis of my one visit,Neat didn't seem to understand that a top class restaurant is more than just the sum ofa tick list of Michelin requirements.At these prices its the "je ne sais quoi" that makes the difference and justifies the prices.Neat didn't have it and therefore the prices felt like a con.

I don't believe Neat's demise has anything to do with the location. When Nico and MPW "handed back" their Michelin stars,regardless why they did it,they pointed out the fact that the needs and wants of London diners have changed. People are no longer so easily impressed by being charged astronomical sums to eat prissy,overworked,overdesigned food accompanied by outrageously marked up wine.Very expensive restaurants will only survive if they are offering a very special gastronomic experience and people are becoming ever more aware of what such an experience should be. Places like Le Gavroche and La Tante Claire obviously still provide it. I never ate at L'Odeon but as I said above I felt ripped off at Neat and told several people not to go there.Everything looked as it should in that way so beloved of Michelin,but in fact the cooking was careless and the ingredients not up to standard. Nico cut his prices and ther are places like Foliage and Embassy which are offering "top end " dining experiences at cheaper prices.For restaurants which want to charge more,just making the food look pretty on the plate is no longer going to be enough. You can now fool less and less people more and more of the time.

I'm not sure I agree with your too much competition,limited market theory.This is London-there's a #### of a big market and a lot of disposable income out there. Restaurants like Neat have massive overheads and I agree that having a hotel backer must be a great help. Ultimately though,a restaurant that gets what the French would call the "correct" price/quality equation right has more than a good chance of surviving-as many do.In my experience Neat was too expensive for what it provided and if people feel ripped off they won't come back and they'll tell others not to go.

I went to the restaurant for lunch once.I'd mistaklenly understood a review I'd read to mean that at lunchtime the carte was available at a lower price,but instead found a fully priced carte and an incredibly disappointing set lunch with very little choice.The place was comfortable with lovely views but the food was nothing more than ordinary,totally unmemorable and,for what it was,overpriced.I left feeling ripped off.

Actually,Andy,what Steve really means is that The Beatles are better than Led Zeppelin "BECAUSE THEY ARE"!

Andy,I'm back for a minute to complain about Steve LosttheplotNicki. I can sit down to dinner with a fellow who tells me that Montrachet is better than St. Veran "because it is". I can break bread with a chap who will invoke tortuous analogies to defend the indefensible Parker. As a Spurs fan I can even partake of wine with an American who supports Arsenal(a truly bizarre breed). But what I'm not sure I can manage is to share restaurant space with anyone who disses Herman's Hermits immortal "Mrs.Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter". If we allow that we've allowed the thin end o f the wedge and before long he'll be sneering at the likes of Joe Brown's "I'm 'Enery The Eighth I Am" and Rolf Harris' "Tie Me Kangaroo Down,Sport" A line has to be drawn Andy,yaknowwhadimean?

I've taken me ball and stomped off to the wine board now.

I've been unceremoniously shunted off the UK board and over to here for ranting on ad nauseam about my contempt for the Parker wine scoring system and those who slavishly follow it. My argument is not that Parker rates wines.Most wine guides have some sort of rating system.But instead of offering us a rough guide to quality,Parker's 50 point system attempts to foist on us a degree of scientific exactitude in wine scoring which is as false as it is futile. Parker would have us believe that his expertise is so attuned that he is able to assign any wine to one of 50 levels and make incredibly nuanced judgments regarding one fiftieth variations in quality.Thus a wine scoring 88 is one fiftieth better than a wine scoring 87.Does that REALLY ring true to you? You could argue that no-one has to pay him the slightest attention.However lots of people do,especially(but not only) in the USA.His status has grown to the point where he has become a kind of wine guru and it is well known that a high/low score from Parker has a profound effect on how that wine fares in the marketplace. I'm not saying that Parker himself is anything less than a model of probity but when one man has that much power you can see the potential for all kinds of problems. We don't need this bogus system.To me wine is like food,music,art.You can enjoy rating them if you wish but once pseudo scientific scores as bestowed by one man become THE overriding indicator of quality we are all lost.

Okay,Andy,Okay.I get the point.I'm calm awright?

Robert Parker does not "provide a context" for anything.He is TELLING you what is better and what is best.A wine which scores 88 out of 100 is, by obvious definition, better than one which scores 87.A wine which scores 100 would be the best.What possible other purpose could these "scores" have? The system presupposes that any one wine can be assigned to one of 50 levels and that Parker has some special and unique ability to assign it to its "correct" level.It is HUMBUG and wouldn't matter if everyone ignored it.Unfortunately many seem to need to follow the guru and as a result the man is probably the single most powerful figure in the wine world at the moment.Does this matter.I think so,but maybe the reasons are for another thread.

I've not eaten in any of Ramsey's establishments but by calling the restaurant after himself he's only following in the tradition commonplace in France where there are lots of eponymously named restaurants.

As must be tiresomely obvious by now I'm opposed to any rating system which even hints at the fact that it might be anything other than a totally subjective snapshot by one person at a particular time.Most wine and food guides are fine by me.Parker and Michelin,in my opinion assume a level of authority for themselves as gurus which,as I've said before,I consider arrogant and bogus.Hugh Johnson's pocket wine guide uses stars as a rough guide to quality.But its whole tone is to inform,help and amuse rather than to instruct. As for information,with the number of publications on food and wine plus all the TV food shows plus the internet it's possible for anyone who's interested enough to find out about fine beef or whatever with very little trouble.You might not be told what is "the best",but then finding that out for yourself could be part of the fun.

Steve,for every person who sees the French culinary classification systems as a useful and accurate guide,there is another who believes they are outdated,riddled with vested interests,corrupt and designed to prevent progress and experimentation.Your Chateau Lafites and Romanee Contis may still merit their lordly status but at the lower everyday levels there are hundreds of wine that don't have AOC status for some reason or another that has nothing to do with their quality,and which are much better than the annual sea of mediore AOC Bordeaux which is produced. These codification systems which you admire so much are fast falling into disrepute and their relevance to modern consumer needs are seriously questionable.

My point,and I realize I am beginning to labour it now,is that in the world of Michelin it is NOT POSSIBLE for the (non AOC) frogs legs to be as good as,let alone better than,the (AOC) chicken.That kind of culinary dogmatism does not chime with the British,which is why Michelin is largely ignored by restaurant goers in this country.

I'm not totally against ratings per se.My argument with Michelin is the narrowness of its perspective,not that it awards stars .My argument with Parker is not that he rates wines at all but that his 50-100 rating system implies a level of rating expertise and precision that is both bogus and misleading. The fact that its easy to be seduced by it and that lots of people have been only condemns it more in my eyes.

You Americans are too touchy! I didn't mean to imply that Americans are the only ones influenced by Parker but that its a shame that Americans are so influenced by him because they are such a large and important part of the world wine market. I don't believe Parker has achieved any of the things his defenders claim for him.There are plenty of wine guides which offer user friendly advice for both the beginner and the 'expert' that do not feel the need to give every wine a rating.It is extremely unhealthy for one man to have so much power and influence in the market.The scores are ludicrous and the system is bogus.Even Michelin doesn't insult our intelligence by marking restaurants out of a hundred.We are adults not children and we don't need it!

What makes Robert Parker successful is the gullibility of people stupid enough to believe that one man can mark wines out of a hundred,and that a wine which scores 95 must be "better"than a wine which scores 94. This "system" is a blight on the wine world and it is a great shame that so many Americans appear to put so much in store by it.

Wow,you guys love your hierarchies don't you? This is more evolved than that and that cuisine shows more technique than this.The truth is that food,like music,serves a wide range of purposes and meets a variety of needs.In the UK,unlike France,we have a fabulous array of choices and any decent guide should communicate that. There are times,and I mean this,that if faced with the choice of a free meal at Le Gavroche and one at my local Indian,Chinese, Syrian whatever, I would choose the latter.Not 50-50 maybe,but there would be times. Michelin simply fails to recognize and respect ,let alone celebrate,this diversity.It is a mono-cultural guide and has little relevance to our increasingly multi cultural society.Its importance amongst chefs far outstrips its importance for punters and I dont know anybody in this country who buys it or uses it.

John,how on earth can there be "absolute standards" when it comes to cooking and food.And even if there were,who appointed Michelin inspectors to be the arbiter of it? "enculturated" and "damascene" within a post of each other eh? I'm beginning to feel a little under-educated for this thread.

My main problem with Michelin in the UK,and especially London,is that it implicitly pre-supposes a hierarchy of cuisines and not just restaurants within cuisines.In the Michelin mind the very best Chinese or Indian or even Italian can never be as good as the best French restaurant.A restaurant which presents several dishes to you at once can never be as good as one that serves you 3 courses or more sequentially.A restaurant which lists just a few bottles of well chosen wine will never be reach the highest echelons along with those who feel the need to stock wines from every region in the world(ie France).And so on. The issue is not whether Michelin restaurants are fine restaurants,but whether a guide that declines to rate or recognize so many other types of fine restaurant can really be said to have any relevance to todays restaurant going public.

Dined here with 3 others last night.The deal is still the same,ie. £25 for 3 courses or £20 for 2 inc. half a bottle of wine pp. This is a really noble attempt at serving 'haut cuisine',Michelin style food at bargain prices and as such one is loth to knock it.However,in all honesty it must be said that the food just missed too many of the right notes.A baked(single) scallop and (tiny piece of) lobster starter had a separate thin sauce poured over it by the waiter and the advertised galangal was impossible to detect.Sweet and sour squid was heavy on the sweet and virtually absent with the sour. An ambitious main of braised,smoked pig's trotter advertised foie gras in the stuffing and truffle in the jus.You'd had to have been Sherlock Holmes to detect either.Fillet steak came up medium when requested medium rare.Lamb shank,Morrocan style had clearly used pre ground packaged spices.A dessert of "hot" pear souffle was decidedly tepid,and I struggled to find the cinnamon in the ice cream. Everything was pleasant enough but maybe this restaurant should either cut out using very expensive ingredients altogether and take a more 'rustic ' approach to its cuisine,or (forgive me for saying so)it should raise its prices and produce a higher standard. For decent food at a reasonable price its a good place to go but don't expect too many culinary 'wow' factors.

Are some types of lobster supposed to be better than others,like oysters or caviar and so on? I ask because while I was eating my 5th freshly killed lobster in a 5th seafood diner on Cape Cod last year it suddenly dawned on me that,apart from all the faff of eating the bloody things,they actually tasted of...well not much more than the melted butter and lemon they were served with.I tried again towards the end of the holiday,but I just wasn't able to 'get it'.Can anyone tell me what I'm missing?

Well it was a lobster dish at Embassy that caused all the kerfuffle as reported in TheObserver and discussed on these boards. They do two lobster dishes there-Newburg and American(or is it Armoricaine,I never know) I happen to think that generally lobster is overrated and tasteless but I was sorely tempted by the Embassy menu descriptions. Otherwise I'd stick to a specialised fish/seafood restaurant.

I think you're mistaken if you think a restaurant has to produce "great" food in order to get a Michelin star.What is more important is that the food and the restaurant be of a certain type-a particular style of ambience and presentation,pre starters and ,sometimes desserts,certain ingredients(is there a starred restaurant that doesn't have foie gras somewhere on the menu?),a wine list like a book etc. I'm not saying I don't enjoy restaurants like this myself from time to time,but it is only one definition,and a narrow one at that,of how "great" food can be cooked,served and presented. As to why this or that place does or doesn't get a star,or another star,I'm not sure that an award system which operates in such a closed and arcane way should be given so much credibility in this more open day and age.

On the general topics board Simon tell us that there might be an alternative (ie the restaurant's) version of the events which led Jay Rayner to write such a damning review of Embassy in The Observer. Restaurant reviewers may not feel themselves to be under an obligation to the principles of 'balanced ' reporting,but a piece like that in a national newspaper can be massively damaging to a restaurant's prospects of success.In such an instance,I think Jay Rayner should at least have attempted to seek out the restaurant's view before issuing such an outright condemnation. This maybe outside of the reviewer's remit,but maybe The Observer could do a follow up piece in the interests of fairness. I hold no interest in Embassy,or any other restaurant,but I am rather fond of natural justice and ,after reading Simon's post,I'm not sure The Observer has seved it in this case.