Conversation Over Dinner. Yellow Bittern Controversy. Budget. Critics & More.
Tim is down on Bistro Freddie. Grace isn't sure about Fantômas. Giles gets political.
Hi, everyone. I hope you’re all doing and feeling well.
It’s been two weeks since the U.S. election, and the clock is ticking towards the return of Trump. His domestic agenda and geopolitical stance both promise greater uncertainty, fear, and anguish. There are real reasons to be concerned, not least given his cabinet announcements so far.
That all got me wondering whether a newsletter about lunch was worthwhile. After thinking about it, here’s what I concluded:
First, my basic argument still stands. Getting together over food and drink enriches relationships and makes work better. At a time of greater uncertainty, both of those remain important.
Second, there’s a strong case for the embrace of escapism in the present context. I recall how stressed and anxious I was through much of Trump’s first term. I needed moments to lock all of that away. So I’m sure escapism is going to become even more important in the next few years.
All of this may sound (and certainly is) self-serving, but the outcome is that I plan to keep writing here and keep encouraging people to spend time together, to build relationships, and to eat and drink all that they can. I can understand if your focus is shifting, but I hope you’ll stick around and continue to enjoy Professional Lunch.
Conversation Over Dinner
Speaking of the U.S. election, as part of the continuing partnership between Professional Lunch and One Question, we convened our first Conversation Over Dinner at Noble Rot Soho on November 5.
The coincidence of the U.S. Election and Guy Fawkes day had us thinking of fireworks, but the whole evening passed without major explosions.
We had a fantastic discussion about values that people around the world might share. This seemed particularly relevant given the divisions that increasingly divide our societies.
Sadly, after much consideration and contemplation, we didn’t really land on anything. That, in itself, was telling. How do we come together when we seem to have little in common? How do we find room for reconciliation when we can’t find common ground?
Except, we did find something to agree on: The brilliance of the food and wine at Noble Rot. There was fantastic, engaged service. Wonderful devilled eggs with eel. Delightful scallops. Rich terrine. Delicious lamb. And lovely, well-paired wines to go along with everything.
The private room at Noble Rot Soho has to be one of the best around. A perfect, cozy spot for 8-10 people with views of Greek Street. No minimum spend or order-ahead nonsense required.
Our dinner included people with a range of perspectives, but the food and wine brought us together, and gave us a common platform for our conversation. So in this time of division, maybe these moments of fellowship and hospitality are more important than ever. We can all agree on that.
Controversy At Yellow Bittern
An Irish-communist opened a restaurant in King’s Cross. It only does lunch, and he’s encouraging people to go big, with lots of food and wine.
Sounds right up my alley.
But it’s all a bit contradictory. Hugh Corcoran, the Irish-communist and self-declared champion of the organised working class, is married to Lady Frances-Armstrong Jones, daughter of the Earl of Snowdon. Yes. The one you saw in the crown being married to Princes Margaret. There is an estate.
Corcoran says he really wants people to embrace the long lunch, but he offers two seatings, the first at noon, which allows diners about 90 minutes to eat and clear the way for the next seating. So, not that long after all.
Corcoran wants the place to be informal and affordable for everyone. His pie is priced at £45. And he has made headlines by complaining that people are eating and drinking too little. He wants diners “order correctly, drink some wine, and justify [their] presence.”
In his review this week (see Critics Wrap-Up below) Jay Rayner says that Corcoran’s place is “already a point of pilgrimage.” … “Another table is occupied by a party of cooks from Noma in Copenhagen.” Yellow Bittern doesn't have a website, takes bookings only by phone, and accepts only cash. It’s aiming at being a cult hit. But I wonder how many people will join the cult.
I think it’s all a bit performative, even phony. So I’m not sure if I’ll go.
And I wonder what Corcoran will do when this controversy drops out of the papers. Court a new one, I suppose.
I’d rather just enjoy some wine and eat good food, but maybe hold the angst and anger.
If you’re really interested in the whole controversy, Jonathan Nunn has by far the most comprehensive and detailed take.
Budget’s Tough Impact for Food & Wine
Labour’s budget announcement, which I argued elsewhere seems broadly sensible at the macro level, hits the hospitality industry particularly hard.
For restaurants, increasing NI for employers and lowering the threshold for paying NI will add substantial costs for the countless places already struggling to turn a profit thanks to inflation-driven cost increases in ingredients, energy, and property.
The Caterer has a useful overview and some reaction. “David Campbell, chairman of Gaucho owner Rare Restaurants and all-day bakery Ole & Steen, described … the increase in NICs, and particularly the lowering of the threshold at which they are applied, as the ‘crowning glory’ of Reeves’ budget and added ‘there are only so many things you can bear.’”
There is big impact for wine lovers, too. Jancis Robinson captures the landscape and suggests a clever means to speak out:
takes a detailed look at the implications of the absurdly complicated wine duty structure on Majestic, and concludes.You may remember that Rishi Sunak announced a change to how wine duty is calculated, making it a function of alcoholic strength. This sounds reasonable superficially but the delivery of the new system is ridiculously complex. The number of different duty bands is set to rise from two or three to more than 30, creating an absolute nightmare for the wine trade, increasing prices of most wines and, as reported by Sam below, encouraging the creation of deliberately, and generally industrially, reduced-alcohol brands.
The new tax system is highly unlikely to result in greater Treasury receipts and it will leave Brits paying the highest wine taxes in Europe. Half of the purchase price of a £9 bottle of wine at 13.5% alcohol, for instance, will go straight to the UK government, leaving little for the wine itself once everything else has been paid for.
A group of interested parties is mounting a campaign to return to a simpler system. You can help by signing a petition that goes live early next week (I’ll include the link in next week’s newsletter). If you’re resident in the UK, you could consider writing to your Member of Parliament to protest at the new system. In the meantime, you might like to join me in sending a token of protest to Rachel Reeves, c/o HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London SW1A 2HQ, in the form of the capsule or a squashed screwcap from the next bottle of wine you drink and include a message urging her to #CapTheWineTax as well as your name and address.
[With] the Treasury’s ongoing treatment of the drinks industry as a cash cow … you can forgive the wine trade for wondering if they have any friends in politics at all. We will have to hope that the trade’s ingenuity and passion for wine – from Majestic to small independents – somehow wins out.
For my own part, I’ve spoken out against this mad wine duty structure before, and urge you to make your opinion known to your MPs and to the Treasury. It all amounts to unnecessary bureaucratic idiocy with no revenue upside and considerable economic downside. The definition of bad policy.
Finally, William Sitwell makes an essential connection with Professional Lunch, arguing that including wine with lunch is now an economic obligation:
I support and endorse … demands that people drink wine at lunchtime. For God forbid we descend into the tedious quagmire that is New York, where the only people who order wine at lunch are the Britons. … Have lunch, drink wine and know that when you do it, you do it not for just your own pleasure, but for the economic benefit of your country.
Best American Food in London?
The Standard has a listicle. It includes Sola, Passyunk Avenue, and Plaquemine Lock, so it’s mostly fine, though it weirdly omits Texas Joe’s. But it also includes the Hard Rock Cafe, so I am ashamed to share it, but do so only to serve two specific subscribers. They know who they are.
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.
✍🏻 Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) gives us the run-down on Yellow Bittern. (See above.) “All this white noise distracts from the fact Corcoran is clearly a talented chef whose best cooking has the élan and nerve of a panenka.” … “For London to be a food city of the first tier, restaurants with a singular sense of purpose need to attract the people who love them, and this should include restaurants not everyone is bound to like.”
✍🏻 Jay Rayner (Observer) also tries Yellow Bittern. “There is a fine line between celebrating simplicity and just not putting your back into it. Impressively, the Yellow Bittern walked both sides of that line across one lunch.”
Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) weighs in with his own thoughts. “We love the idea of bringing back long boozy lunches over plenty of comfort food. The cooking on show was also great in places and the wine was good too. There's real promise here, and we've seen reviewers that really loved it. But it's not quite hanging together just yet.”
Grace Dent (Guardian) checks out Fantômas in Chelsea. “This is a restaurant that left me with many more questions than answers.”
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) also weighs in on Fantômas. “This is the kind of sophisticated but sexy restaurant that Chelsea didn't know it needed but most definitely does.”
✍🏻 Giles Coren (Times) heads to Delamina Townhouse, an Israeli spot in Covent Garden. He declares the restaurant, “A fresh and friendly place to spend the last Friday of half-term with our children, but no doubt a sexy night-time spot when the sun goes down.” But he spends most of the review reflecting on the political situation.
Tim Hayward (FT) frowns on Bistro Freddie in Shoreditch. “London’s French renaissance has given us places like Casse-Croûte, where the authenticity is effortless and total, and Café François, where the canon is subverted and thrillingly developed. Freddie’s is, sadly, neither.”
🍽️ Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) declares Lita in Marylebone “exquisite.” The new, “modern Mediterranean bistro” delivers veal sweetbreads which are “probably the best thing I’ve eaten all year.”
David Ellis (Standard) visits Canteen in Portobello Road and gives it 5 stars. “London has only one perfect Italian restaurant, Bocca di Lupo. Well, had, not has: now there are two.”
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) heads to Quo Vadis, but, “The lunch proved to be in quality terms less satisfactory than I had hoped.”
Tanya Gold (Spectator) reviews Home Kitchen in Primrose Hill. “Home Kitchen is not for profit, an oddity for Primrose Hill. It calls itself ‘the world’s first fine dining restaurant staffed entirely by homeless people’.”
🍽️ Andy Hayler (independent critic) tries Mignonette, a new French bistro in Richmond. “These two meals were still in the early days of the restaurant, and so some inconsistency is hardly surprising. However, there is some genuine talent in the kitchen and this is already shaping up very well indeed.”
“Christina” (LOTI) tries Leydi, a new Turkish place in Farringdon. “Gather up a group, go and order as much as you can.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) gives 5 stars to Chalk in Sussex. Marina O’Loughlin (independent critic) declares Osip in Somerset one of the UK’s best restaurants. Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) loves all 20 courses at Jericho in Nottingham.
Thanks for reading this week’s update. I hope you found something that inspired you to make plans for a nice lunch. Please let me know what you think in the Comments, and please subscribe if you haven’t already.
A solid round up. I read Jay’s review over the weekend and got the feeling there is something else going on between the lines.