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Fifteen


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Went there just after it opened, was not impressed by the standard of cooking. if you want to read my ramblings they are in the review on London Eating but briefly the ingredients may be top quality but the price charged with the basic lazyness of the cooking (River Cafe bad habits I think) mean I won't be rushing back. Not that they need to worry, most people going there wet themselves cos a 'celeb' is behind the open plan kitchen.

Think since I have been they have sorted out the wine list which was vastly overpriced on my visit. Just feel it is such a shame that there are so many far superior restaurants in London that are relativly quiet for the same sort of price that deserve the attention so much more.

The results of good PR...

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Have not yet been, have spoke to some London restauranteurs who conclude with Mr Bateman. It would appear the usual critics are suddenly shy of critiscm. They do not speak bad due to Jamies popularity.

OR maybe it is actually good.

E. Nassar
Houston, TX

My Blog
contact: enassar(AT)gmail(DOT)com

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If you go to the Telegraph website today it is in the top middle of the home page 'Matthew Norman- Why Jamie is here to stay', complete with picture of said Jamie.

They change these features daily so you will probably have to use their search engine if you try it later than today's date.

Telegraph

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Have not yet been, have spoke to some London restauranteurs who conclude with Mr Bateman. It would appear the usual critics are suddenly shy of critiscm. They do not speak bad due to Jamies popularity.

OR maybe it is actually good.

The majority of critics did not review the restaurant but reviewed the opening press junket. I am led to believe that the disadvantaged young people who were wheeled out in the TV programme were nowhere to be seen but were replaced for the evening with the culinary equivalent of Steely Dan's "Wrecking Crew"

I am not sure in what sense a review in in such a circumstance is worthy of the name

Less a review more an advertorial

I have lost much of the respect I have for FM since she took part in this debacle. The reverse is true of jay rayner who didn't

S

Edited by Simon Majumdar (log)
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The majority of critics did not review the restaurant but reviewed the opening press junket.  I am led to believe that the disadvantaged young people who were wheeled out in the TV programme were nowhere to be seen but were replaced for the evening with the culinary equivalent of Steely Dan's "Wrecking Crew"

Ex River Cafe I think you will find. They are doing most of the cooking there leaving Kelly Ann et al to peel the spuds and most of the usual donkey work

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I have lost much of the respect I have for FM since she took part in this debacle.  The reverse is true of jay rayner who didn't

in the trouble at the top prog, fm was also at the junket for the opening of the connaught, hobnobbing with gordon ramsay.

(maybe this should have gone on that thread ...)

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  • 4 months later...

I don't know if this topic's dead and burried, or just left to slow roast for a while over the Hawaian lava pit, but I went to Fifteen on Sunday for a thoroughly regrettable experience.

The high point was the meat cookery. All of it was done skillfully. The service was between well-intentioned and outright clumsy. I told three waiters on three separate occasions not to take my bread plate - containing said bread - but a fourth one was too quick for me and had it in the bus bin before I could utter an oi! They sat me in a slightly odd place - the room is essentially a corridor - and then every waiter, bus-boy, and wine guy proceeded to kick the back of my chair on the way past. Repeatedly. For the length of my meal. When I mentioned this to the hostess, she seemed immensely uninterested. Then embarassed.

To his defence, Jamie himself wasn't in the kitchen that day, but then neither it seemed were the fifteen youngsters. Tell a lie. There was one. In the one episode of J's K I caught, she'd slipped out back for a fag on opening night, and gotten in trouble.

To my defence, I came out of the closet about JO a while ago. I love what he's done. He almost single-handedly started me cooking. I've danced to his books, and read his tv programs. I went there with big, sloppy, Jamie love in my heart, and good intentions in my trousers.

And I've regretted it ever since.

Anyway. The meal.

Frito Misto - a fair cop. This was a pretty good dish. Nice, crunchy batter. The squid was lovely and tender. Lemons were bitter. Sardines were a bit oily. A bit 'high.' A wonderful, heart warming yet tearful moment when I looked at my wife as she bit into one, only to see her wretch violently. Eyes bulging. I thought projectile vomit was definitely heading my way. Simultaneously realised I was completely stuck in my plastic molded chair and in for one of those "we'll laugh about this when we're old" moments. Luckily, she managed to extrude the offending fishy just in time with a "perhaps you'd like to finish this one" and plopped it on my plate. I finished it off with much aplomb, I thought. Bastard fishy.

A tuna carpacio that was so salty as to be inedible. What's more, and I could be wrong, it seemed to have a mixture of fresh chilli but also chilli powder! It was actually grainy. Completely ruined the fish. Sent it back.

A pasta of fresh 'strozzapretti' with a lamb ragu. The ragu was okay. Well underseasoned. No tomatoes or red wine, interestingly, which left it like a osso bucco bianco. Gentle texture. The pasta - apart from not being strozzapretti (which to my understanding is traditionally hand-made; this stuff I've seen at the supermarket under caserecci (sp?)) - came out of one of those extruder machines. Like a sausage grinder with a disk fitted over it. It means using more semolina rather than 'oo' flour. The result was pretty bad. Tasteless. Gummy.

For the mains, my wife had rack of lamb, with seven hour roast shoulder/leg with cannelini beans, and I ventured the roast pork. Both meats were cooked beautifully. The lamb racks were (again) vastly underseasoned. The pork and seven hour lamb were lovely and moist. The cannelini beans were - well - okay. I've had them cooked similarly at the River Cafe, and they'd been done with more care. The portions were stupidly large, and stupidly expensive, at between 25 to 27 quid (that's about 40 dollars for the US-ies out there). One of them would've almost fed the two of us. And I would have gladly taken two thirds the portion, and have been less unhappy about spending two thirds the cost. In fact, the whole thing struck me as enormously accomplished (if really poorly seasoned) pub grub, at Ramsey prices (and lest I be thought of as griping unfairly over the sponds, I just shelled out 750 Euros for two meals at Ducasse and Gagnaire - so believe me, it ain't the money).

I was looking forward to desert. Really. And I'm a pretty big eater. But that main course completely finished me off. I couldn't even consider it. Which was a shame.

Anyway. The above, with a couple of coffees, one glass of wine, some water, and a couple of diet cokes managed an unfortunate £111. Without desert. Now, take off the third appetiser we'd had at £10, and that still leaves £50 a head. And I just flew to Bologna for 40.

Sorry Jamie. It's just too much.

Edited by MobyP (log)

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

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Let me guess... He named the restaurant for his apparent age? :blink:

=Mark

Give a man a fish, he eats for a Day.

Teach a man to fish, he eats for Life.

Teach a man to sell fish, he eats Steak

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  • 6 months later...

Wouldn't the fish hook have made some damage? A hole in the gills, or mouth? A bit scary, but not surprising.

Edited by MobyP (log)

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

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yes, buying food from the back of the car with no questions asked. old pub tradition, i used to go down to my local and some guy once came in with half a cow and started cutting up steaks on the counter.

jamie is very personable, very charismatic, but as far as food knowledge in a growing sense of any depth, forget it. he's cute. but he has taken the place of other food writers and broadcasters who actually have indepth knowledge, and there are other restaurants with good food and attitude, for much less money. i also don't like the whole feeling of if you are over a certain age then what are you doing with this young, happening, modern food (and why aren't you at home making sponge pudding with delia). ageism and food: alive and well and stupid.

i went to a party at jamies fifteen and the drinks (cocktails) were really wonderful. don't know if they are on regular menu.

as far as moby's vaguely italian meal costing more than a flight to bologna, hear hear. i was once invited to lunch at river cafe and decided instead to go for lunch and shopping in italy. my friends at r.c. had lunch, i flew to genoa, ate lunch, did a great shop, and came back. I had change, they did not. (okay, i went ryannair). but still...........

Marlena the spieler

www.marlenaspieler.com

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yes, buying food from the back of the car with no questions asked. old pub tradition, i used to go down to my local and some guy once came in with half a cow and started cutting up steaks on the counter.

True, but "15" isn't a pub, and given that Jamie is banging on about "Know your source" etc, one wonders if this means that he has as much credibility at the restuarant as in the case of his "They should stop feeding the kids shit", whilst selling it for Sainsbury's?

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