Reflecting on 'Conversation Over Lunch.' Best New Places of 2024. Critics & More.
Jimi finds an unexpected taco spot. Graces goes German. Sitwell finds The Hero.
Hi, everyone. Happy Monday. I hope you enjoyed the sunny-ish weekend. Confirming that I am slowly becoming British, I snuck out Friday afternoon for a couple of hours in the heat, and picked up a serious sunburn and a dehydration headache. Yeesh. I need to go home for some re-acclimatisation to summer. But I managed some great meals last week. Lunch at the Delaunay, dinner at Al Duca, and one or two others.
Where have you been lately that felt like a discovery? I want to know. Hit reply and tell me.
Keep an eye out for this week’s review, wherein I recount the best lunch I’ve had since Brooklands back in March.
Talking Leadership at Leroy
As promised, the One Question team and I convened our first “Conversation Over Lunch” at Leroy on Thursday. We had a fantastic group that included a teacher, a serial entrepreneur, a counsellor to business executives, a former political campaigner, and more. It was one of London’s nicest days of the year, and the restaurant gave us the best table — a spot where we could enjoy the cross breeze and gaze out into sunny Shoreditch.
Over delicious devilled eggs and a glass of cold, crisp Garnacha Blanca, we dug into the question at hand: Is how we lead determined by how we are led?
Between nibbles of saucisson, we explored the elements of leadership. Someone wondered whether being a good leader also required being a good follower. We talked about the need to be adaptable — to take on board feedback and adjust when a strategy isn’t working. But we agreed that while adaptability was essential, incessant changeability — the tendency to shift stance after every conversation — was destructive.
Over a fantastic bowl of crisp green beans with peaches, we agreed that the best leaders recognise that their role is to be in service of something larger than themselves. Serving an agenda broader than their own is vital if they are going to successfully direct others in times of uncertainty.
Summer gnocchi for some and slow-cooked lamb for others, and we turned our attention to methods for reaching across the divide and a leader’s willingness to compromise in order to bring people together.
Returning the central question, we talked about leadership vs. narcissism, and worried that narcissistic leaders were more likely to pass down their worst instincts to others.
Ultimately, over a rich “parfait” of fruity ice creams, we focused on the way that developing leaders synthesise their own styles across multiple experiences, hopefully internalising the best points, and recognising that discernment is difficult. We concluded that the best leaders, the ones who bring people with them, take time know themselves. But we also agreed that too few businesses are willing to give developing leaders the time to do so.
For me, our first Conversation Over Lunch was huge fun. I learned an enormous amount from the conversation, and made a few new friends. In every way, it was the perfect case study for the value of getting together for a good conversation over food and drink — which, of course, is the founding purpose of Professional Lunch.
I hope you’ll register your interest and join us for a future Conversation. (Click here to register your interest.) I’m eager to lunch with as many of you as possible.
NYT Critic Steps Down, Citing Bad Health
Pete Wells is moving off the New York restaurant beat after 12 years as one of the world’s most influential critics. Getting paid to eat sounds great, until it doesn’t. He explains:
My cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension were worse than I’d expected even in my doomiest moments. The terms pre-diabetes, fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome were thrown around. I was technically obese. OK, not just technically.
In the U.S., Pete and his big paper colleagues visit a restaurant 3-4 times before reviewing it. And Pete’s commitment went well past what was required. So I can understand why he wants to call time.
But his work has been outstanding, and his writing fantastic. Consider his epic take down of TV chef Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen in Times Square.
GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?
Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex?
You can read more of his best stuff here.
Wells says that he is planning to stay with the New York Times. I wish him well, and can’t wait to see what comes next. I’m also intrigued to see how the Times replaces him.
The End of Trader Vic’s
“I saw a werewolf drinkin' a piña colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.”
-Warren Zevon
Trader Vic’s is an American contrivance that conquered the world via Hilton Hotels. I have no idea how it has survived in the Hilton Park Lane (of all places) for so long. But its time has finally run out, and it will be chucked out in December. I’ve never been, but given its pride of place in one of the best 1970s rock songs (but one of the lamest music videos), and its status as an ancient monument, I thought it was worth noting its passing. As James May night say, other Mai Tai options are available.
Best New Places of the 2024, so far
Gavin Hanly at Hot Dinners is out with his mid-year listicle, following on from William Sitwell’s a couple of weeks ago. Gavin’s is London-focused, whereas William’s covered the whole UK, but both are, in my view, too long.
Let’s try harder. Let’s pick a top 5.
Roe (review out Wednesday)
Cloth (review out next week)
I suspect I will add Mountain to the list, and I’m hoping in the top spot. I think Josephine Bouchon will also earn a place. But I haven’t visited either, so for now, that’s my top five. What’s your top five?
Critics Wrap-Up
✍🏻 indicates a review that you should read for the writing.
🍽️ indicates a place that sounds excellent and is probably worth a try.
🍽️ Jimi Famurewa (Standard) follows the Tik Tok hype to a taco place in Soho, doesn't like, and heads somewhere better: Lucia in Hackney. “London’s latest exceptional Mexican is oriented around fire, fumes and the airborne lure of sizzled animal fat. Nonetheless, Lucia’s feels to me like a much-needed blast of fresh air.”
🍽️ William Sitwell (Telegraph) reviews The Hero in Maida Vale. He is critic number 4,322,811 to review it, and is, to his credit, self-aware about this fact. That doesn’t mean he particularly cares. “We pile in for good reason. For the style and the confidence, the magnificence and the deliciousness.”
✍🏻 Grace Dent (Guardian) tries the new outpost of Albert’s Schloss in Covent Garden and finds “a deeply silly point of refuge, an oasis, a cold pint of Pilsner Urquell and a woman in a sparkly bra singing a Liza Minnelli medley. It’s not cool, it’s not going to appear in any lofty, food scene guidebooks, but it’s clean, welcoming, and has friendly staff and nonstop giant pretzels. I had more fun here than I’ve had at many a Michelin-starred restaurant. And that’s quite wunderbar.”
✍🏻 🍽️ Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) goes deep on Hill & Szrok, “a butcher’s shop-by-day turned restaurant-by-night on Broadway Market,” and declares it “the best restaurant in London this year.” Chef Will Gleave, formally of P Franco, “has slowly transformed Hill & Szrok into a steakhouse that exceeds every reasonable expectation.”
Butcher by day, steak house by night. (Photo by Hill & Szrok via Instagram.) ✍🏻 Tim Hayward (FT) didn't write a review this week, and instead contemplated on the virtues of “brute force food.”
Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) checks out ABC Kitchen in the new Emory hotel in Knightsbridge. She winds up eating mostly Mexican food, and concludes that “perhaps this is one for a Tuesday working lunch.”
Jay Rayner (Observer) goes to Julie’s. I say this respectfully, but this review feels a bit phoned in. It’s the same review we’ve seen from several others — Julie’s was once celebrity hook up parlour but is now good.
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) sort of reviews Kroketa in Marylebone, but most chats with Rashnet Bagdai, an accountant and restaurant-world deal maker who has been a key force behind Camille, Brindisa, and others. It’s an interesting insight into how restaurant things actually happen.
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) tries Koyn Thai in Mayfair. He likes the food, but finds the room dull.
Marina O’Loughlin (independent critic) raves about Ibai in the City. “It's very Basque/San Sebastian in flavour, with the emphasis on steak.”
Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) tries Henri in Covent Garden. It’s the new place from Chef Jackson Boxer. “Every dish delivered, and then some.”
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) visits Los Mochis City for sushi and tacos. “They've managed to make this one of those buzzy places that still retains the human touch.”
🙄 Giles Coren (Times) is now officially taking the piss out of himself and, I think it’s intentional. He’s gone off Gloucestershire, found a pub he likes, and declared it the best is Britain.
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