Hayward's Last Word on Fine Dining. A Miss in Soho. Critics & More.
Giles takes down three places. Jay takes apart one. David makes Sael. Charlotte has a Chaat. And Sitwell goes to the pub, again.
Good morning, everyone. I hope you had a good weekend. I’m back from the USA, where I had fantastic meals at The Roosevelt in Richmond, Virginia and at The Bazaar by José Andres in Washington, DC. Where have you tried lately and loved?
It’s a week for negative reviews, I’m afraid. Giles and Jay are both in full attack, and I’ve recounted a less-than-stellar experience at Inko Nito in Soho.
Where have you been lately that didn’t meet your expectations? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Hayward Finishes Fine Dining Reassessment and Gets the Last Word On Our Conversation
In case you missed it, I published my Chat Over Lunch feature on the FT’s Tim Hayward last week. In it, I recounted our conversation about “fine dining.” When we met for lunch at Café Francois, Tim was in the middle of his journey to reassess and reconsider his general dislike and mistrust of such places. But after visiting three great restaurants and talking to a selection of critics and a top chef, he winds up, more or less, back where he started.
For a critic, the food is the point of the thing. We don’t need to prove status to anyone, and we don’t have to pay personally for access. We proudly don’t give a toss. We’re supposed to care about places that display creativity and divergent methods of service rather than box-ticking off a checklist.
…
Has the therapy worked? No. I can’t rekindle a love of fine dining because I can no longer think of it as a meaningful category. … Because I care first about food and second about real, soul-deep hospitality.
I still disagree with Tim on this. I appreciate his point that national critics have to serve everyone, and not just an audience of me and people like me, who enjoy fine dining. Although I agree that “fine dining” as a label, especially as a self-declared positioning, is usually unhelpful. But the best is still the best. Great places deliver exceptional experiences and real pleasure. I can’t apologise for taking advantage when I can.
Office Canteens can be Great?
“All too often, lunch these days is a sandwich eaten at one’s desk. A new generation of cooks – and employers – is now trying to reclaim it.”
The FT explores the growing trend of fantastic office canteens springing up across Europe and beyond, including one in East London called Polentina.
All of these sound excellent, and I really hope it becomes more of a trend. Of course, the opposing force is employers outsourcing canteens to big, industrial catering companies. The effect is that canteens are consistently mediocre in most work settings.
Maybe quality will reassert itself. But probably not.
Hits & Misses
Mini-reviews of places that were either (a) good, but not quite good enough to do a full review and add to the Guide, (b) had a flaw or two, or (c) that I revisited following a prior review.
Miss: Inko Nito
Saturday night in Soho. Late-ish dinner following an early movie. It isn’t raining. The streets are wonderfully heaving. The bars are packed. Restaurants filled to the gills. Everyone dressed up for a big night. Fantastic.
I’ve booked Inko Nito because it sounds interesting. An “unconventional Japanese restaurant offering robatayaki and sushi.” One review says California influences. Another says Korean. Maybe it’s both, but I’ll be glad to try it.
The whole restaurant is built around the Japanese grill in the centre of the dining room. It’s a big space for London, and it really works. Lots of raised tables with views of the working chefs, made to be comfortable in spite of the stools. It’s an attractive, modern space.
But it’s Saturday night in Soho, so the music is at full pelt. Heaving, thumping bass and little else, drowning all conversation. We are given great seats, right across the central counter from the chefs, and the music is making things very difficult. The chef running the pass has to walk to his brigade and shout orders in their ears. The restaurant is rammed, so the kitchen is slammed, and it’s a superb act of concentration to avoid being in the shit.
The service is Wagamama style: Someone with a tablet takes your order. Someone else brings each dish when it’s ready. Everyone is uber friendly. The approach is efficient, but order carefully, because you will never, ever be able to ask for a second drink.
Some of the food is pretty tasty. A crab maki roll is done with a modern take and offers great crabby flavour, along with a little cucumber crunch and a spicy zip. The “Korean cauliflower roll” is the hit of the evening with real zing.
But spicy edamame is lame. Just a bunch of unsalted beans in a bowl with some too-sweet chilli jam. Chicken teppanyaki is similarly too sweet. Wonderfully cooked beef cheek nearly redeems the misses, but it’s served with that same over-sweet chilli jam.
All of this is to say that I can’t recommend Inko Nito. It’s too noisy. The food isn’t good enough. And there are so many better places in Soho. Choose one of those instead.
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.
✍🏻 Giles Coren (Times) is in full, peak snark this week, complaining about undesirable tables and delivering drive-by shootings of three London spots, including the new Oriole in Covent Garden. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE GILES A BETTER TABLE? (Editor’s note: Tim Hayward told me that he is recognised pretty much 100% of the time. Giles is way more visible and recognisable than Tim. So if Giles walks in your restaurant and asks for a particular table, why in the world wouldn’t you just give it to him? And if you’re a maitre’d and you can’t recognise Giles Coren, maybe it’s time for a career change.)
🍽️ Jules Pearson (LOTI) heads to Café Francois in Borough Market, which I reviewed last week as part of my feature on the FT’s Tim Hayward. “Cafe François has set out to be that dependable, affordable spot that is going to suit almost any occasion.”
He also visits Tuna Fight Club in Holland Park, calling it, “a pretty unique experience so if you can manage to get a ticket.”
🍽️ And finally, he checks out the newly-opened first floor grill in The Hero in Maida Vale. “It’s almost a bit Sessions Arts Club vibes but crossed with a classic pub.”
🍽️ Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) tries Fonda, the new Mexican place from Kol Chef Santiago Lastra. It’s on Heddon Street, which would normally be an alarm bell, but “offering a more casual (and more affordable) line in dishes” than Kol itself, so it’s probably excellent.
🍽️ Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) heads to Keep Chaating in Covent Garden for Zone 5 prices and spices in the middle of Zone 1. “The waiter asks twice if the food is too hot. I derive an embarrassing degree of pleasure from telling him it isn’t. In fact it’s delicious, and wonderfully good value — for any zone of London. Everyone should go.”
🍽️ David Ellis (Standard) reviews Sael, the new place from Jason Atherton. “Nostalgia has seasoned the pans here.” I’ve got my own review of Sael coming in a couple of weeks.
Jay Rayner (Observer) takes apart Maroto, a new Brazilian place near Oxford Street. “‘Don’t have the marmalade with the meat,’ the waiter says quickly, after describing the plate. ‘It doesn’t go with it.’ So why are you serving it? He shrugs. ‘It is just my opinion.’”
🍽️ Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) is the latest to try Ambassadors Clubhouse. “Here the menu is based on the food of the Punjab before it was split so tumultuously between India and Pakistan; these are swaggering flavours, splendidly meaty, with kebabs cooked in the tandoor, under the grill and on the griddle.”
Grace Dent (Guardian) checks out Leydi in the Hyde Hotel in Holborn. “We ordered the ‘Leydi Deluxe’ for two people, which was described as ‘a showcase of Leydi’s greatest hits’ and which, at £50 a head, was exceptional value, especially considering the amount of food involved.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) heads to Barnes to try the Waterman’s Arms. It’s not clear whether he liked it. “The Waterman’s Arms is a grower. It’s like a Coldplay song that you try not to like but end up, seduced by the chorus, singing from the rooftops.”
Chris Pople (Cheese & Biscuits) visits Xi Home Dumplings near Liverpool Street. “The dumplings, as you might be wondering, were wonderful.”
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) was in Copenhagen. Marina O’Loughlin (independent critic) was in Paris.
Tanya Gold (Spectator) heads to Bath this week to explore Sally Lunn, a very specific type of bread that, as it happens, is also made to perfection at a bakery near where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Sadly, she orders things other than bread, and doesn’t like them.
Thanks for reading this week’s update. Please subscribe if you haven’t already, and let me know a good place you’ve been for lunch recently.