Data from Reader Survey. Heartbreak of Closing. Guide Review of Roast. Critics & More.

Twiggs contrasts Marylebone bistros. Lynes adores Victor Garvey. Bowles makes it to AngloThai.

I could get used to having a fortnightly bank holiday, especially when the last couple of weeks have been so pleasant. Someone will respond by worrying about lack of rain, but given that London is actually in England, I’m pretty confident that the rain will arrive at some point. For now, there is a very pleasant white wine and sunshine. Nothing further is required.

A warm welcome to the influx of new subscribers, and a huge thank you to the inestimable Jeremy King for mentioning Professional Lunch in his own newsletter. If you’re curious about what’s happening here, this page might help. And please do share the Guide with friends and colleagues. It’s updated regularly.

Let’s get straight in.

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Honest Account of Closing a Restaurant

We learned this week that James Lowe is planning to close Lyle’s, the iconic, Michelin-starred spot in Shoreditch, after more than a decade. I’m really disappointed that I didn’t manage to get there. But it’s another high profile closure, and just the kind of thing that Claire Thevenot predicted during our conversation.

Whenever we lose a great place, there’s a customary outpouring of disappointment and commiserations from regulars and commentators.

But what is it like for the restaurateur? For the person who poured their soul into the place, service after service, year after year?

Chef Julie Lin shared her own experience this week, and it makes for powerful reading.

No one tells you, when you go into this, that the inevitability of closing your business will eventually come around – whether by choice or from being forced to hang up the greasy apron and embrace a graceful early retirement. As happy as I had been, and despite making it through that tough period, I knew it was time to leave the tininess and chaos behind. The pandemic had taken its toll on me, and I needed a plan, but there’s no handbook or guidance.

Julie managed, and now she’s on the cusp of publishing a cookbook. But it seems to me the innate connection between food and soul must make closing a restaurant even more difficult than some other kind of business. My heart really does go out to anyone who might be on that journey.

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Highlights of Reader Survey

A massive thank you to everyone who has completed the reader survey. If you haven’t yet done so, I’d still love to hear from you.

Here are a few things that stood out for me:

• 28% of you manage to eat lunch “out” once a week or more. A further 39% get out a couple of times per month. That’s much higher than I was expecting. Though it does suggest we all need to work harder to spread the go-to-lunch message.

• Thursday is the most common day for a professional lunch, with Friday a close second.

• 13% of you work in the City with similarly sized groups in Bankside / London Bridge and Covent Garden / West End. At least two of you live in Paris.

• A whopping 57% of you want more wine and wine bar related content. I will be working on that.

  

• Your favourite places for lunch included:

  • Noble Rot (which got the most nominations)

  • Wilton’s

  • Rules

  • The French House

  • Brigadiers

  • Luca

  • Andrew Edmunds

  • Elliot’s

  • Galvin La Chapelle

  • 40 Maltby Street

  • NOTTO

  • Trinity (Clapham)

  • “Any place with tacos”

  • Origines, in Paris

I’ll make an effort to visit and review some of those in the weeks to come. I have also drawn a winner for lunch with me at Cabotte, and I’ll be getting in touch with them tomorrow.

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Click on the image to read the whole review.

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Michelin Gets High on Gordon Ramsay

The famous Guide announced its first UK additions since its star ceremony in February.

Gordon Ramsay High — his new place in 22 Bishopsgate — headlined the list. Other London spots added to the guide included Bar Valette, Canteen, Long Chim, and The Waterman’s Arms.

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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.

• ✍🏻 Jay Rayner (FT) isn’t impressed with La Mome in the Berkeley Hotel. “Another waiter arrives at our table to perform a little light topiary. She is holding a potted thyme bush, which she now trims ceremonially with nail scissors into a saucer of olive oil. We fall silent because short of exclaiming ‘Nice trimming’ there are no words.”

• 🍽️ Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) heads to AngloThai, which I tried a while back. “The atmosphere is more local bistro than purse-lipped mausoleum. And while the presentation may be pretty, this is all about the flavour.”

  

  Oyster at AngloThai. Beautiful and delicious.

• David Ellis (Standard) falls for Chuck’s, a rotisserie chicken joint in Brixton. “Chuck’s is not offering a revolution; it is a rotisserie restaurant that almost everyone can afford. Still, it is one executed uncommonly well.”

• Grace Dent (Guardian) is the latest to try One Club Row in Shoreditch. “They will feed you, water you, give you a good time and make you feel carefree and cosseted. And if that all sounds a bit old-fashioned, then the future suddenly feels a whole lot brighter.”

• Giles Coren (Times) sort reviews three places, including 45 Jermyn Street, which opened a decade ago. “Anyway, it’s still there.” As is Giles.

• Hannah Twiggs (Independent) visits Lita and Josephine Bistro in Marylebone.

  • On Josephine: “If you’d dropped me here blindfolded (and, crucially, French), I’d assume I was in Paris.”

  • On Lita: “I can’t remember the last time I ate a meal at this price point that felt so worth it. … The food feels genuinely original – inventive without being attention-seeking, luxurious without being heavy.”

• ✍🏻 Jonathan Nunn (Vittles) returns from a hiatus to review Come Back In on the Caledonian Road. “Like The Yellow Bittern, it is run by dreamers with a vision, some money and no real business plan. It has created a cloistered space of its own away from a busy road, in which the customer is forced to hang their disbelief at the door. The cooking is untrendy, domestic and exactly what the chefs want to make.”

• ✍🏻 🍽️

  Andy Lynes
  (Smashed) gives us a wonderful account of his experience at Victor Garvey at the Midland Grand, which I visited right after it opened. Garvey’s food “echoes the bold experimental approach of US chefs like the late Charlie Trotter or Grant Achatz, although Garvey’s food is unlike either. It’s the American pioneering, can-do, anything-is-possible spirit I’m talking about.”

• Dominic Preston
  (Braise) tries cheung fun and congee at Lilimi in Bethnal Green, and “the cheung fun are annoyingly good.”

• 🍽️ Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) tries Row on 5, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. “We haven't seen an undertaking like this in London for quite some time. The amazing space, the attention to detail in the food (which, importantly, tastes wonderful), and the immaculate service (which isn't at all stuffy) all contribute to delivering a truly special occasion.”

  

  Dessert at Row on 5. “Truly special” is spot on.

• Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) test drives the Kerfield Arms in Camberwell. “We crossed town on a bank holiday weekend to try The Kerfield Arms and we'd happily make that journey again (and encourage others to do the same) based on how good our lunch was.”

• Alex Larman (The Arbuturian) tries Colonel Saag, a curry place near Trafalgar Square. “This is a place that should, and undoubtedly will, attract serious attention, and I’ll stand up and salute that highly deserved outcome.”

• 🍽️ The celeb guests reviews continue at the Observer, with actor Simon Callow visiting Trinity in Clapham. “Trinity is a model of everything I want from a restaurant, in ambience, service, location – above all, of course, in food.”

• William Sitwell didn’t publish a review this week.

Beyond London

• ✍🏻 Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) compares the food in business class on flights with Japan Airlines and British Airways. “The most damaging consequence of BA’s ungenerous hospitality is that it perpetuates a myth: that Britain is lacklustre and unambitious when it comes to cooking the best produce, at looking after its customers and at making any visitor to its shores feel welcome.”

• ✍🏻 Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) needs planes, trains, and automobiles to get to her dinner at Paternoster Farm in Pembrokeshire. “Hearty and rural yet elegant and cosmopolitan: the product of a big city lawyer transplanted to the rolling fields.”

• Chris Pople (Cheese & Biscuits) luxuriates at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire. “The main story here is that somewhere with such a long history, so influential and important in the country's culinary history (the list of alumni is basically a who's-who of transformational British chefs) is still operating right at the top of its game, and can hold its own amongst the best the country has to offer all these years later. And, I hope and fully expect, will continue to do so for many, many more.”

Thanks so much for reading this week’s update. I’d love to hear your reaction to the Lyle’s closure or about a favourite place that you were sad to lose in the Comments.