Most important restaurant ever to open in London?

[Gavin Jones]

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.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well I have defined "ever" by saying it is because it's the first 3 star chef of this magnitude from France to open. How are you defining ever? Because depending on how you define it, you could have hundreds of different answers.

[Andy Lynes]

Surely the only definition of "ever" is since the first restaurant opened in London. This is claimed to be Rules in 1798 although I did see something about Browns Hotel claiming they were first, but in 1837.

So it's either Rules, or the Ritz when Escoffier was there, or Le Gaveroche or the first branch of McDonalds, all of which I would argue have much more significance than Sketch.

[Kikujiro]

I bet we could broadly agree on a list of, say, twenty.

[Winot]

oh god here we go again

[Steve Plotnicki]

If Sketch fails, it won't be important at all. But "opening" is the key phrase here and it modifies "ever." So I'm only describing how one reports on it. But from a historical poiint of view, Escoffier at The Ritz is probably the most important. The Roux Brothers are up there as well.

[Gary Marshall]

i've put my argument on the other topic, but, for the list i would nominate le gavroche, chez nico & harveys

[macrosan]

oh god here we go again

Oh no you don't, Winot, because you're obviouslky not going to bother reading this thread

[Kikujiro]

KP. RC. The Eagle.

PizzaExpress. Wagamama. Pret. Seattle Coffee Co.

Fifteen.

I'm joking, of course. Except about PizzaExpress.

[macrosan]

I actually had lunch in a Pizza Express yesterday. The pizza was better than some I've had at "proper" Italian restaurants both in London and the USA. What really impressed me was that I asked for a Venezianawithout the billed sultanas, and it was "no problem Proves that they're making it to order, at least.

The wine was awful, though. I had a 175cl glass of Chianti for £3.20 !!!!!!!! Pretty poor, too.

[Gavin Jones]

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?))

[Andy Lynes]

I might get into trouble if I were to encourage the use of polls.

I think they are all important to the evolution of eating out in London, except maybe the last 2 on the list. You could argue that you couldn't have one without the others so looking for an overall "winner" is probably a bit futile.

[cabrales]

I believe Sketch, Le Gavroche and Escoffier's tenure at the Ritz (?) (not necessarily an opening per se of a facility) have been the most significant openings (with respect to restaurants that we collectively could cover as adults) in the UK to date (not necessarily in that order).

Le Gavroche, because of the profound influence of the Roux brothers on their progeny and their indirect "offspring" (incl. Koffman, MPW, Ramsay, Wareing, Blumenthal). Also, their role as almost "pioneers" with respect to certain cuisine.

Sketch, because, with all respect to Gordom Ramsay (RHR is one of my preferred restaurants and its opening should be viewed as significant as well), P Gagnaire and others in France are offering fundamentally differentiated cuisine. For me and shifting away from Gagnaire's particular cuisine, the cuisine in France remains unmatched (including by the promising cuisine one can find in Spain).

Escoffier's tenure, because it was Escoffier.

Edited December 10, 2002 by cabrales (log)

[Wilfrid]

And Escoffier at the Ritz had worldwide and enduring significance. Easy winner. And I hazard a guess he might have pulled three stars too.

[britcook]

I would think to define a restaurant as important it would have to have had a significant effect on the restaurant business or dining habits of London. In both cases Veeraswamy misses out, when it opened it was a mere curiosity, which eventually turned into an anachronism. The food etc. may have been excellent but it had no effect outside its own doors. Same for Chez Nico, great place to eat but it didn't move the game on at all, on the other hand Gavroche when it opened was entirely original. Sketch will only be important if it raises the price level to allow top-end restaurants to stay in business without subsidy.

[Kikujiro]

The wine was awful, though. I had a 175cl glass of Chianti for £3.20 !!!!!!!!  Pretty poor, too.

PE's wine is actually fairly decent value, I thought. The Aglianico is a much better deal than at other restaurants.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Sketch will only be important if it raises the price level to allow top-end restaurants to stay in business without subsidy.

I'm not sure what this means but Sketch will be important if the food is so different and unusual and of such quality that people feel it is worth paying that price point. The important restaurants are ones that change dining thereafter. Some do it by cuisine. some do it as to who the restaurant is trying to attract as it clientele. Some do it by trying to establish themselves as permanent fixtures. Probably the most important restaurant to open in the U.K. over the last 30 years is Kensington Place. Hundreds of restaurants have been derived from that concept. Odeon meant the same thing to dining in NYC and then Union Square Cafe improved on that concept. There would be no Craft in NYC without those restaurants as predecessors. I don't find any of the high end French restaurants in London to be that significant. Yes they served good food but they didn't have the same impact on the worldwide dining scene as a place like Le Cirque did. And their descendants, places like MPW and GRRHR while getting recognition, did not create the same kind of buzz on an international basis as Daniel and J-G did. To this date, nobody in London has created a haute cuisine concept that feeds 200-300 people a night. That concepts derives from how the original Le Cirque was set up.

[britcook]

Sketch will only be important if it raises the price level to allow top-end restaurants to stay in business without subsidy.

I'm not sure what this means but Sketch will be important if the food is so different and unusual and of such quality that people feel it is worth paying that price point. The important restaurants are ones that change dining thereafter.

Nice of you to understand it and explain it so well. I totally agree.

Sits down in amazement.

[Tonyfinch]

Well if we're defining important as "influential" then the Agra in Whitfield St. has got to be there or thereabouts. It's now a bog standard curry house but it was the firstb restaurant in the UK (or so it claims) to serve Tandoori Chicken- possibly the one dish that's had more impact than any other on Brtitish eating habits in the last 30 years.

[Tonyfinch]

Well if we're defining important as "influential" then the Agra in Whitfield St. has got to be there or thereabouts. It's now a bog standard curry house but it was the first restaurant in the UK (or so it claims) to serve Tandoori Chicken- possibly the dish that's had more impact than any other on Brtitish eating habits in the last 30 years. I don't think Veerswamy served it before them.

[Gary Marshall]

I promise i'm not on the MPW payroll but it does seem as the years pass his contribution to the culinary scene is being diminished....

. To this date, nobody in London has created a haute cuisine concept that feeds 200-300 people a night. That concepts derives from how the original Le Cirque was set up

I'm pretty sure this was the exact concept of 'the canteen' which MPW opened post harvey's, in the early 90's (?) I think it got two stars which is pretty haute in my book.

cook book is good too!

[Steve Plotnicki]

I'm pretty sure this was the exact concept of 'the canteen' which MPW opened post harvey's, in the early 90's (?) I think it got two stars which is pretty haute in my book.

Gary - Haute cuisine is a style of cooking and has nothing to do with the amount of stars a restaurant gets. The Canteen was not a haute cuisine restaurant. Le Gavroche, Tante Claire, Gordon Ramsey, and MPW both at the Hyde Park Hotel and then The Oak Room served what you would call haute cuisine. The Canteen was more like a brasserie. Like Langen's but with good food. I was there a few times and it was quite good. In fact all of the MPW restaurants were really good until he started running multiple restaurants at the same time.

[Andy Lynes]

Jay Rayner's review which puts the price of a meal at Sketch into perspective and the first which has made me want to visit the place to eat:

http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0...,873042,00.html

[Andy Lynes]

I'm pretty sure this was the exact concept of 'the canteen' which MPW opened post harvey's, in the early 90's (?) I think it got two stars which is pretty haute in my book.

cook book is good too!

Just the one star I think, but it was a bloody good restaurant and I still use the cookbook.

[Tonyfinch]

Pierre Gagnaire's absence from this place continues to bug me. Is he a feature of these restaurants or not? The place is charging far more than any other London restaurant but the involvement of the top chef is fuzzy to say the least.

Does it matter? It does if you see food as art at this level. There are some fake paintings that are so like the original that it takes top experts to tell the difference. Does it matter? Well the market says it does. You pay a fraction of the cost for the fake although to all intents and purposes no-one can tell the difference.

So in Sketch you're paying for Gagnaire type food-but not Gagnaire's food-but unlike the painting you're paying exactly the same prices. I think this is wrong and I think it is cynical.

Mind you if someone wants to take me there..............