Freud on food

[Andy Lynes]

Meet the Press Gazette's new restaurant critic.

[M.X.Hassett]

" ostentatious wastefulness impresses. Ordering a dry martini, eating the olive and pouring the cocktail into the flower vase is a sure sign that you are a man of substance."

Pure gold. Wonder if it works on this side of the pond.

[Diane Duane]

"...ostentatious wastefulness impresses. Ordering a dry martini, eating the olive and pouring the cocktail into the flower vase is a sure sign that you are a man of substance."

Pure gold. Wonder if it works on this side of the pond.

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It works, I think....though there's much more excellent advice where that came from. Strongly recommend his brilliant book of restaurant survival, No-one Else Has Complained. This article seems to partake of a little of it: in the book, he also recommends the "eat the olive, dump the martini" routine as a way to make yourself memorable (and thus at least slightly susceptible to better treatment) to/by the staff:. The "if Downing Street calls, tell them to try the private number" routine also appears in the book.

Freud's general attitude toward restaurants is one of intelligent and cheerful combativeness: like Don Quixote after laser surgery. It makes for bracing reading.

Also worth reading: Freud on Food. A long cheery retrospective on recipes / food approaches that work and ones that don't.

Best! -- Diane

Edited October 13, 2005 by Diane Duane (log)

[Pweaver1984]

Sounds like his reviews will be good reading!

Whats his background?

[Diane Duane]

My pleasure! D.

[M.X.Hassett]

My pleasure!  D.

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Let me clarify that this is Diane responding to my PM thanking here for the book suggestions.

Edited October 12, 2005 by M.X.Hassett (log)

[Diane Duane]

Sounds like his reviews will be good reading!

Whats his background?

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Kind of interesting. Check the Wikipedia entry.

Best! D.

[Diane Duane]

My pleasure!  D.

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Let me clarify that this is Diane responding to my PM thanking here for the book suggestions.

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(urk) Apologies. Late night at the pub, laptop in bed, cat on laptop, the usual...

Best! D.

[jayrayner]

My pleasure!  D.

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Let me clarify that this is Diane responding to my PM thanking here for the book suggestions.

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(urk) Apologies. Late night at the pub, laptop in bed, cat on laptop, the usual...

Best! D.

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Clement is a national British institution, much like the clock at Waterloo station that people arrange to meet under. He's been, variously, politician, chef (starting at the Dorchester sometime before the half time whistle in the last century), restaurateur, TV cook, restaurant reviewer (punch, and elsewhere), mordant wit and broadcaster, but not necessarily in that order. He's been a regular guest on the food quiz on Radio 4 that I've had the pleasure to present for the past few years, and has always sung for his supper. He is, in short, a total pro, and even if there might be the occasional tendency to slip gently into his anecdotage, It's grand to see him back in the saddle. (I believe he did have something to do with race horses once as well, come to think of it.)

[camp_dick]

Check the Wikipedia entry.

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Funny it mentions his daughter, Emma, but omits Matthew, the designer Bhuddist and PR 'guru' turned restaurant promoter (as opposed to 'resaurateur') and Noo Labour schmoozer, who has married a Murdoch and is now, no doubt, spawning a new generation of amoral, money-making clever clogs.

Gordon Burn, interviewing Damien Hirst, re: Pharmacy, 'What did Matthew Freud see in you that was marketable?'

' DH: No, no, no. What did Matthew Freud see in me that he wanted to destroy? Freedom. Choice. Understanding. Art. A reason to live. A belief in something above and beyond cash'.

He then goes on, but what he says is probably too rude for these polite pages.

[jamiemaw]

Sounds like his reviews will be good reading!

Whats his background?

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On this side of the pond we enjoyed him on the radio show Just a Minute.

[Diane Duane]

Clement is a national British institution, much like the clock at Waterloo station that people arrange to meet under. He's been, variously, politician, chef (starting at the Dorchester sometime before the half time whistle in the last century), restaurateur, TV cook, restaurant reviewer (punch, and elsewhere), mordant wit and broadcaster, but not necessarily in that order. He's been a regular guest on the food quiz on Radio 4 that I've had the pleasure to present for the past few years, and has always sung for his supper. He is, in short, a total pro, and even if there might be the occasional tendency to slip gently into his anecdotage, It's grand to see him back in the saddle. (I believe he did have something to do with race horses once as well, come to think of it.)

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I wouldn't know about the racehorses, but agree with you about everything else.

After tearing the house apart this morning (and finding many other books that had gotten misplaced) I finally located our copy of No-one Else Has Complained. It's so quotable that you can dip in just about anywhere and find something witty, sardonic or simply painfully true. A few examples:

(in a glossary section) "The Restaurant Owner: Usually a haute couturier who fell out with his backers. Sometimes an accountant who became jealous when he audited the books of a restaurateur and, because his man was an oaf, the accountant thought he could do as well. An owner's desire is to have customers who spend enormous amounts of money and depart quickly to make room for others of the same trend. ...Owners spend little time in their own establishments; when it is empty they are out seeing how the competition is doing: when it is full they are trying to persuade staff from other restaurants to work for them."

..."Menus are not cookbooks. They are there to describe the end product, not to teach you how to make it; 'raw monkfish passed through a hair-sieve by a lady of easy virtue, blended with raw egg white into which Jersey cream is folded prior to simmering in a court bouillon' may be true, but it is too much if you are going to eat the dish and not enough if you want to go home and cook it."

..."Don't be ashamed to look at other people's plates as they are carried past you. I quite often ask other customers if they like what they are eating. At worst they can say nothing, but usually they'll tell me -- especially if it isn't very good. Be careful which people you ask. Well brought-up Englishmen will say it's all right when it's foul and very nice when it's OK. Take the advice of foreigners or badly brought-up diners."

(on cooking at table -- the steak tartare / Crepe Suzette kind of thing:) "'Bespoke' cooking is not necessarily good cooking -- rather the reverse. The time when you need a waiter with a stove is when the conversation between you and your guests has ground to a halt and you are too scared to cut your losses and leave."

...And so much more. The book's a lot of fun. While it's no longer in print, various used-book sources have it, as does Amazon.co.uk.

Best! D.

[erica graham]

"The Restaurant Owner: Usually a haute couturier who fell out with his backers. Sometimes an accountant who became jealous when he audited the books of a restaurateur and, because his man was an oaf, the accountant thought he could do as well. An owner's desire is to have customers who spend enormous amounts of money and depart quickly to make room for others of the same trend. ...Owners spend little time in their own establishments; when it is empty they are out seeing how the competition is doing: when it is full they are trying to persuade staff from other restaurants to work for them."

[Dirk Wheelan]

Being read the Grimble stories was a highlight of my otherwise horrific prep school education.

I also worked with Emma, who is lovely.

[Andy Lynes]

He then goes on, but what he says is probably too rude for these polite pages.

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Definately, but its well worth following the link. Maybe someone ought to employ Damien Hirst to review restaurants.

[Diane Duane]

Definately, but its well worth following the link. Maybe someone ought to employ Damien Hirst to review restaurants.

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Sure. You wouldn't pay him by the word, though. The F-word, possibly.

Best! D.

[Winot]

He then goes on, but what he says is probably too rude for these polite pages.

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Definately, but its well worth following the link. Maybe someone ought to employ Damien Hirst to review restaurants.

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This bit's brilliant:

Everybody looks at me and thinks I only care about money. It's, like, you dive into money, and you question money and you find out you can't rely on money. When you get involved with people in money situations and you start competing with them and you win, it looks like you're winning because you're only interested in money. But you're only winning because you don't give a fuck about money.

Pure Martin Amis.

[Andy Lynes]

Sir Clement posts his first review and is less than a-maze-d by the service at Maze.

[camp_dick]

Is it just my 'pooter, or is there something funny going on with the HTML? This piece is riddled with what look like Chinese characters. D'you think Sir Clem is doing his own coding?

Edited October 24, 2005 by camp_dick (log)

[jtcookie]

Is it just my 'pooter, or is there something funny going on with the HTML? This piece is riddled with what look like Chinese characters. D'you think Sir Clem is doing his own coding?

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Your 'pooter, tho' attempts to apply acutes, circumflii, et al result in the usual squared off thingeys.

Quote from Maze review; "It is in the nature of a waiter to act in a way that persuades clients that, but for their attention, the meal would have been less enjoyable".

Surely one of the most succinct lines written to describe modern restaurant service!

John

[camp_dick]

Your 'pooter, tho' attempts to apply acutes, circumflii, et al result in the usual squared off thingeys.

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Not hardly; that I would comprehend. I'm talking about these fellers (which the e-gullet editor has resolved in the same way on my - OSX/Firefox - system): Ch᳥au P賲us; star anise pur裬

[JudyB]

Not hardly; that I would comprehend. I'm talking about these fellers (which the e-gullet editor has resolved in the same way on my - OSX/Firefox - system): Ch᳥au P賲us; star anise pur裬

I'm seeing pretty much the same on Windows XP with IE6.

This looks like a character encoding problem to me, but I can't get it to display correctly no matter what I try with the Encoding settings (which usually fixes dodgy foreign characters).

I tried looking at the source, but I don't know enough about HTML and character codes to understand what is wrong.

[erica graham]

Snap ( at least I think it is what I am struggling with!!)

[Ian]

The character encoding problem is likely to have been caused by someone cutting and pasting the editorial from a Microsoft Word document into the website content management system. :-)

All the best,

--

Ian Fenn

Chopstix Media

http://www.chopstixmedia.com/

[camp_dick]

Reading Kim Fletcher On The Press in Monday's Media Guardian (you'll need to register) I learned that the owner of the UK Press Gazette is Matthew Freud. So, it transpires that Sir Clement's major qualification for writing restaurant reviews in that formerly esteemed organ - besides his venerable age and status as a National Treasure - is that his son is the proprietor.

One can imagine the conversation. Matthew: "Great wheeze, Dad. You can take Mum out for dinner and scribble a few words about the experience and I can claim the bills as a business expense." Clement: "That's my boy. Never mind nepotism being a two way street when we clever Freuds can make it into a motorway."

Of course, there's nothing more important than Restaurants, and I'm sure Sir Clem's opinions and writing style are beyond reproach, but who trusts a PR man who is Elizabeth Murdoch's husband to comment fairly upon the UK Press?