Jamie Oliver's Restaurant Refuses Bill Clinton

[jhlurie]

PS if anyone knows who Keith Blackwell is i'd be obliged

You turned away THE Keith Blackwell?

http://www.southalabama.edu/cwrc/drkeith.html

Other Keith Blackwells, and Blackwell oriented web sites:

The Harvard Dr. T. Keith Blackwell

Some dude named "Keith Blackwell" who says he "hangs out" on the ProSound Web forums, whatever those are.

AREA Ratings for 29302.01: Keith Blackwell (I dare you to figure THIS one out!)

United States of America v. DONALD KEITH BLACKWELL

The Chief Executive Officer of Bristol Technology is named Keith Blackwell. But Bristol Technologies is located in Connecticut.

Could this be the guy? Esher College Principal Keith Blackwell? Would a Principal from a school in Surrey think he's famous?

We could do this for hours! But we won't.

Actually, the Harvard guy seems reasonably famous in his circles. He dominates Google.

[SethG]

I got the impression from somewhere that restaurants, even when "fully" booked, leave a little margin for error to allow for just the sort of dropping in Mr. Clinton tried to do.

If this is true, it sure makes this incident sound like a stunt to me.

Am I wrong? Isn't this also true of hotels? There's always a room, even if they're "fully" booked.

[Rachel Perlow]

Maybe the name Keith Blackwell brought to mind "Mr. Blackwell" the obnoxious "best/worst dressed list" fashion critic.

[Basildog]

Maybe Mr Blackwell thinks hes famous, but actually isn't

Anyhoo, not all restaurants are the same....sure, some keep tables back for VIPs, but not all.Some places would have bumped a booked table, to accomadate a former President.Me, i would have politely turned him away, when we are full we are full.No way can you bump a booked table..thats just not right.Say you get great PR out of the Presidents visit, but the people you bumped then went to the press with there side????

[Andy Lynes]

why is it that many of these posts start off with a pleasant topic and then drivel down to a celebrity chef selling out? 

Well there's this one and the Rick Bayliss one.....hold on, let me just check how many of the other 22759 threads "drivel down to a celebrity chef selling out."

[Andy Lynes]

My point was that this hardly seems to be a newsworthy item.

It put me in mind of the recent story about Brooklyn Beckham being hurt whilst out shopping with his mum. Who bloody cares! And that was the second or third item on radio news bulletins for the whole day.

Are we to believe that Oprah Winfrey rang up like a good little customer 6 months in advance when she ate at 15 recently? Oliver is a celebrity and doubtless has many celebrity mates. I am unwilling to believe that he has no way of taking care of them at his restaurant and that one or two tables are not kept back, especially on a Saturday night, for late reservations from the rich and famous. That Clinton didn't get in just smacks of headline hunting.

[SethG]

Maybe the name Keith Blackwell brought to mind "Mr. Blackwell" the obnoxious "best/worst dressed list" fashion critic.

There's also Chris Blackwell, the famous Island Records exec who helped popularize reggae music in the UK.

[madziast]

Is the restaurant that good?  Was it this crowded before he was on t.v.?

it's not about how good the restaurant is-it's just that it's the place to be right now and hard to get into. and it's not a large restaurant. actually, it's not the kind of restaurant i see Clinton at. it's a young, casual but funky/stylish neighborhood place--except for the prices. subterranean with some natural light, grafitti on the walls and pink everywhere.

i ate there in may and thought it ok/good, not great, which was disappointing. husband's yelling from the kitchen "amateur hour!", lol. yeah, the food sounded better on paper, execution lacked--mainly seasoning and balance issues. not surprising as the kitchen doesn't have that much experience and Oliver wasn't there. we decided to skip dessert after 3 unremarkable courses (no recollection of what we ate--something salad-y, some pasta and fish).

ok, i dug up the menu to see what we ate, couldn't remember one dish. here we go:

asparagus soup with poached duck egg, wheat asparagus & pecorino--pretty good but the egg was poached too long. would have been fine without it

scallop crudo, yuzu lime, ruby grapefruit, herb shoots, crispy ginger and fresh coconut--too acidic, too much going on the plate, coconut? ayayay!

lobster & mascarpone ravioli with light lobster sauce & watercress--bland and unmemorable

stracci pasta of wild, white and essex asparagus with butter, parmesan and mint...fantastic!--this is the actual description. "fantastic" is an exaggeration, but it WAS the best dish we had

warm salad of poached monkfish tail (cooked and marinated in dolcetto d'alba) with puy lentils and lemon creme fraiche--good lentils but not a good dish. can't believe we paid 22 pounds for it!

there were some service issues according to my notes--the food took a loooong time, and they brought it to the table when the plate was ready. we watched a table of four get served their food one at a time, the rest waiting for their plates to arrive.

i like the idea behind the restaurant and don't think jamie oliver is only motivated by money & fame. definitely an interesting experiment. oh, and the bottom of the menu says "All profits from this restaurant go to Cheeky Chops CHarity which takes on unemployed youngsters every 6 months to train as the next generation of chefs... love Jamie O xxx"

[Blondie]

Excellent.  He certainly got better press turning the President away than he would have serving him.

Good, so you see it as a publicity stunt too

FWIW I think Clinton is still quite popular in the UK, but I'm sure someone will correct me if that has changed.

[Matthew Grant]

i ate there in may and thought it ok/good, not great, which was disappointing. husband's yelling from the kitchen "amateur hour!", lol.  yeah, the food sounded better on paper, execution lacked--mainly seasoning and balance issues.  not surprising as the kitchen doesn't have that much experience and Oliver wasn't there.  we decided to skip dessert after 3 unremarkable courses (no recollection of what we ate--something salad-y, some pasta and fish).........

....there were some service issues according to my notes--the food took a loooong time, and they brought it to the table when the plate was ready. we watched a table of four get served their food one at a time, the rest waiting for their plates to arrive.

i like the idea behind the restaurant and don't think jamie oliver is only motivated by money & fame.  definitely an interesting experiment.  oh, and the bottom of the menu says "All profits from this restaurant go to Cheeky Chops CHarity which takes on unemployed youngsters every 6 months to train as the next generation of chefs... love Jamie O xxx"

There was a follow up program on the restaurant during the week and several things struck me. A customer complained about the quality of the food and the prices charged the discussion that followed in the kitchen went along the lines of "What does he expect? It is a charity after all" - a very poor attitude if you are charging full whack for dishes.

I thought that JO was very honest when he moaned at the chefs for using rocket that had been prepared the previous day. He told the guilty chef "What we do here is very simple food, we only get away with it because of the quality of the ingredients"

I was amazed when I saw the 2 chefs in the 'bistro' serving what amounted to short order cooking and getting so tied up that they started sending dishes out when they were ready and then moaning at the waiter when he complained "But it would have been ruined if we had waited for the other dishes to be finished!"

Anyhow to bring the topic back on track, maybe Bill popped in to see Tony and was told to give Jamies 15 a try?

"Bill, they cooked me and Bertie Aherne a fabulous lunch, they got the recipes out of a Richard Corrigan cookery book. You really should try it"

Then when Clinton failed to secure a table, Tony got Alistair Campbell on the phone to the press in an effort to trash the place for not letting Tony's good friend in