Professional Lunch in Orbit. Gov't Stops Chefs. Critics & More.
Famurewa reviews for the Observer! Rayner latest in Town. Preston all warm over Polish milk bars.
Hello! I hope you had a fantastic weekend. I’m busy eating my way through Sicily at the moment, and loving every food encounter. On Saturday, we went on a “Street Food Tour” across Palermo and experienced Sicilian cuisine’s true blend of North African, Greek, Italian, and other influences. I learned something new at every stop. The highlight was veal spleen sandwich. Slow cooked and sliced thin. Fantastic.
Jimi Famurewa has, as he put it on Instagram, a restaurant review in a national newspaper this week. He heads to Leeds for the Observer. (Details in the Critics Wrap-Up below.) I am not saying or speculating anything about Jimi’s appearance in the Observer, and I’ve seen no announcement. I am simply hoping that this review is a sign of a more permanent partnership, and the end of the run of “celebrity” reviews. Though
points out that there is a further “celeb” review planned next week. So perhaps I hope in vain. And yet, hope exists to hold despair at bay.Some interesting things to get to this week. Let’s start with the ISS.
Three Star Food in Space
French astronaut Sophie Adenot is due to blast off for a 6-month stint aboard the International Space Station next spring. And she’s taking along a few special meals.
Fellow Frenchwoman Anne-Sophie Pic, one of the world’s most decorated chefs with 10 Michelin stars, has designed a few special meals for the trip.
The Guardian has the menu. In addition to lobster bisque and foie gras, it includes, “Parsnip and haddock velouté, chicken with tonka beans and creamy polenta, and shredded braised beef with black garlic will also be on the menu, as well as desserts of chocolate cream with hazelnut cazette flower, coconut and smoked vanilla rice pudding, and coffee.”
Normally, space station meals are from a limited menu of tinned and freeze-dried items, but each astronaut gets to take along a few selections prepared to their own tastes. Bonus food catered for specific crew members makes up around a tenth of the menu.
Adenot decided to put the spotlight on French food, and worked with Pic to develop a menu. There are limits. The Times says that, “Food taken aboard the space station is subject to strict rules. It must be crumb-free, lightweight and able to be stored for at least 24 months.” Sadly, wine isn’t allowed.
Adenot, a Lieutenant Colonel in the French airforce, is an engineer and former helicopter test pilot. She has a Masters from MIT and speaks four languages. “This is important to me because I grew up in the countryside and it will remind me of my roots,” she says. “Anne-Sophie’s menu will not only surprise our taste buds and delight our palates, it will also allow us to reconnect with the Earth.”
I reckon that when you’re on a work trip, as Adenot will be during her stint aboard ISS, every meal counts as a “professional lunch.” And its nice to see an astronaut heading into orbit with a proper palate, hoping for quality cuisine, rather than a food-is-fuel attitude.
Here’s to wonder and discovery. I’m wishing Colonel Adenot a safe and successful mission.
Gov’t Makes It Harder for Chefs to Work in UK
Back down to earth, the UK government has announced a series of changes to immigration laws that will see chefs lose their status as “skilled workers.”
Among the self-evident idiocy of that conclusion, the policy change will make it virtually impossible for restaurants to bring in specialised chefs from around the world.
London’s food scene has a truly global flavour thanks to these skilled worker visas. We have top-caliber chefs from Japan, China, France, Italy, Nigeria, India, and a myriad of other places running restaurants. Some current chefs may even be at risk.
Sometimes it feels as though this government just doesn’t like food and drink very much, and would be perfectly happy going back to a 1970s Britain where the menu was nothing but plastic, used newspaper, and mushy peas.
I have to wonder whether anyone who believes that chefs aren’t skilled workers has ever been to a restaurant.
My message for the Home Secretary: Please leave our chefs alone.
I’m interested in your views on this. Am I missing something? Why would a Labour government do this?
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.
🍽️ Grace Dent (Guardian) raves about Marjories, a new wine bar in Soho. “It might well be the most earnest, accomplished, imaginative food being served in this square mile right now.”
🍽️ Jay Rayner (FT) says that at the Town in Covent Garden, “Occasionally the cooking teeters on the edge of overkill, but manages not to tip over by dint of pure deliciousness.”
🍽️ David Ellis (Standard) enjoys the Acme Fire Cult in Dalston. “Given the open grills and rivers of black paint, Acme appears to be a shrine to things like fat-washed hunks of meat and arm-wrestling.”
Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) checks out Home in Putney. “If you’re going to choose somewhere to become a regular, SW15 Home is not a bad shout at all. I might even try the one in Barnes.”
Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) courageously travels to Barbarella, the new Big Mama Italian spot in Canary Wharf. “It's not going to be up there with some of London's best Italian restaurants, but it offers a lot at reasonable prices, and there are some great mad touches throughout.”
🍽️ Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) also goes Italian, test driving the new Lupa in Highbury. “This corner site in Highbury has changed hands a lot while we've been living in the area. But it seems that in Lupa, it finally has something that both locals and other Londoners will want to try.”
✍🏻
(Bald Flavours) reviews The Plimsoll in Finsbury Park. “The Plimsoll, as with their second site, Tollington’s, predicates itself on being a love letter to these countries of influence, which they execute with aplomb rather than toe-curling cringe.”Marina O’Loughlin (FT via Instagram) loves Terry’s Cafe “for a Billingsgate Roll (scallop, bacon, black pudding).”
- (Cheese & Biscuits) visits vegan-focused Studio Gauthier in Fitzrovia. “Even a committed protein eater like me had a blast at Studio Gauthier — it's intelligent, enjoyable food done well in attractive yet informal surroundings, and for not very much money at all.”
Alex Larman (The Arbuturian) says hello to Victor Garvey at the Midland Grand and concludes that, “We will be back, and so, you imagine, will everyone else who’s dined here.”
Salty Plums goes crazy and releases three reviews on the same day.
🍽️ First is Town, in Covent Garden. “I’d say Town is a pretty good candidate for meal of the year already. Combination of superb food, lovely setting and really excellent service.”
🍽️ Next is Counter 71 in Shoredtich. “There was some excellent food here, and we had a lovely evening, but looking back the tale of the night seems to be modesty: the kind of portion sizes I’d expect on a tasting menu with twice the number of courses.”
Finally, there’s Juliet in Stroud. “The only larger plate we ordered was the hogget, as we felt we had to try something off the grill. Mmmm… and this piece goes straight in there as my favourite piece of lamb this year.”
Amanda David (Palate) tries Mamapen, “London’s only Cambodian restaurant,” in Soho. “All in all, it’s a triumph and I can’t wait to eat it again.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) doesn’t seem to have filed a review this week.
Beyond London
✍🏻 Jimi Famurewa (Observer) is in Leeds to try the Highland Laddie, and he is on top form. “Can you sense, in my tone, the almost tearful relief of a man who was just grateful that a very long journey had not been wasted?”… “So many recent restaurant openings seem to orient themselves around the idea that we all want to be transported to pretend Parisian bistros, make-believe Manhattan red-sauce joints, or ersatz izakaya. The implication is that we crave escape. But what if the thing we all really want is just a more thoughtful, impassioned and irreverent engagement with British dining’s more recent, unsung past? The Highland Laddie offers that by the barrel-load and reminds us that, to push forwards, sometimes you need to look back.”
Giles Coren (Times) spends most of his column not reviewing Casa Jondal in Ibiza, which he loved, because he thinks its too expensive, and sort of reviews Da Costa in Somerset instead. “The cooking is not ambitious, but it’s pretty good.”
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) is in Salina in the Aeolian islands. “Everything here is just right, seasoned with the exquisite ennui of nothing much to do. The afternoon ferry slides in, and out once more. The rest of the island sleeps.”
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) checks in from three-starred Troisgros near Lyon. “Anyone planning a career in restaurants or restaurant design should eat here first.”
✍🏻
(Braise) is in Warsaw at Bar Mleczny Rusałka, exploring the fading tradition of “milk bars.” “A borscht, billed as Ukrainian, arrives lurid pink and packed with chunks of soft, steaming beet. It’s richer than any borscht I’ve had before, hearty and comforting, a bowl that could easily be a meal in its own right.”
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I’m heading to Sicily in a couple of weeks. Palermo and Menfi. Any links would be appreciated. I’ll go back and read the rest now.
I just finished Jimi's latest book, Picky over the weekend. I miss his writing and I would love to see him back in the nationals just to read his prose regularly. On the skilled chefs status, I would be very interested to know if, where and how this would impact the hospitality sector in the UK now. From my memories of over 10 years ago, this would disproportionately affect London vs the regions, but I don't know if that is still true.