Remembering Bourdain, Critics Reviews & A Clever Take on TripAdvisor
Nick Lander reviews our lunch. Jimi doesn't think much of Akira Back. Grace loves Cloth. Charlotte gets very drunk.
Hello, everyone. I’m celebrating my 50th birthday today, which is quite a milestone — at least in my own mind. I’ve had a remarkable period of celebration. Between my recent California trip, our dinner at Single Thread, some pretty epic golf, a fabulous party at Trivet, and lots of lunches and dinners with friends, it’s been a ball. In that spirit, I just wanted to say thanks for joining our little movement and for reading my missives. Writing these updates has been a real joy for me, and I’ve enjoyed the interactions that I’ve had with so many of you. Please do keep weighing in with your ideas and suggestions.
And I’ve got a lot in store in the coming weeks. I have lunches booked at Cloth, Roe, Mountain, Oma, and a few others.
I also wanted to say a huge thank you to my friend James Whatley for encouraging so many people to subscribe. And let me start by saying WELCOME! I’m thrilled you’re here. Look for two e-mails from me each week. One with general updates related to professional lunches and eating out plus a wrap-up of reviews from professional critics. The other with my own review of a London place that I think is good for a professional lunch or other occasion. Check out (and maybe bookmark) the Guide, and hit reply and let me know your favourite place for a professional lunch.
One housekeeping note: I’m going to be varying the “send” time of the e-mails over the next few weeks to see what works best. At first I’ll try some different times on Mondays and Wednesdays, but later in the summer, I may experiment with sending on alternative days, just to see what works best for you.
Thanks again for reading. Now, let’s get to this week’s update.
Remembering chef and writer Tony Bourdain
My old friend Barney O’Kelley noted over on LinkedIn that Tuesday would have been Tony Bourdain’s 68th birthday. Bourdain was a culinary and cultural giant — a huge influence on me and countless others. I mentioned to Barney that I rarely, if ever, mourn for celebs, but that I did and still do for Bourdain. From his immense legacy, there are a few things that stand out in my mind:
His suggestion that so many of the things we love today are refined versions of what he called “peasant food.” There are so many examples:
American barbecue — bad cuts, cooked for a long time to make them edible, smoked (or otherwise flavoured) to make them taste good, and sauced to make them wonderful.
Cassoulet — a load of off cuts and preserved meats thrown in a pot with a ton of preserved beans and a few root veg and dried herbs, then cooked all day to make it edible and tasty.
Bacalhau — preserved cod cooked in a stew to hide that you're eating it. The list goes on.
His encouragement of hedonism. Of travelling and relishing every experience. Of eating local. Of having one too many.
His amazing open-mindedness. He practiced “strong opinions, loosely held,” better than perhaps anyone. He lived to learn, and evolved his views based on what he encountered.
His writing. Go back and read any of his books — start with Kitchen Confidential — and it’s amazing how well they stand up.
Bourdain left us few years ago, and in this time of cultural division, when he could cut through the crap and find common ground, I miss his voice immensely.
Pied à Terre threatens closure, but not really
Pied à Terre is a London institution. Losing it would be terrible. But this is either a bit of fairly cynical attention-grabbing PR from the owner or a dramatic over-writing of the story by Drinks Business, whose lead read thusly: “Pied à Terre, London’s longest-standing Michelin-starred restaurant, could be due to close in 2029, according to founder and owner David Moore.”
Not quite. The Times sorts things out. “Moore has told The Times that, with the lease on his premises ending in 2029 he would either sell a majority stake to his employees or shut for good.”
So he’s trying to sell, and if he can’t, he might close. In 5 years time. Maybe.
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.
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) reviews SOLA based on our lunch a couple of weeks ago. “The era of inexpensive California wine is, unfortunately, long gone. And so too are my preconceptions of California cooking. In the 1980s it was a definite move against French bourgeois cuisine, with an emphasis on much shorter cooking times and on revealing the colour of the ingredients. Here the emphasis is on colour as well but the range of techniques and of ingredients is much broader, and it is certainly in extremely capable hands.”
✍🏻 Jimi Famurewa (Standard) visits Akira Back — the place I expressed concern about two weeks ago. The one with the celeb chef who licensed his name to a hotel and just about turned up for the opening. Yeah. About that. “Our server — part of a generally sweet and eager team — tried her best, and gave us some spiel about Chef Back’s favourites and personal instruction. Oh. Was he still here then? ‘No, no,’ she said quickly. ‘But he’ll be back soon I’m sure.’ ... Barely two weeks into the life of his latest outpost, Back had not fancied hanging around. I cannot say that I blame him.”
✍🏻 Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) writes a wonderfully entertaining review of Borscht N Tears, the oldest Russian restaurant in the UK, apparently. Basically, she and her friends get very drunk on Vodka, to the point that the restaurant — a Russian restaurant — ran out of shot glasses.
🍽️ Grace Dent (Guardian) reviews Cloth in the City and loves it. “Cloth blazes bright and fast all week long, serving the highest standards of modern British cooking and a nerdy wine list, so they deserve Saturdays off to wash their aprons and Sundays to rest, like gods.” I have an upcoming booking for lunch at Cloth, and will report back.
The food at Cloth looks epic. Photo by Cloth via Instagram. Giles Coren (Times) tries Julie’s, which has been much reviewed in recent weeks following a reboot. “It was historically a ‘sex restaurant’, I wrote, quoting my friend Camilla Long, and the only point in reviewing it would be to hammer it. Except I can’t, annoyingly. Because it’s great.”
✍🏻 Tanya Gold (Spectator) goes looking for life in the new Chez Roux at The Langham and finds only ghosts. “The food is uneven, and it is all so sombre. Laughing isn’t exactly banned Chez Roux, but it feels like it, and that is enough.”
✍🏻 🍽️ Jay Rayner (Observer) is the latest to check out The Hero in Maida Vale. “It’s bedlam. But if you manage to get a table in the ground-floor bar, what you’ll get is a menu of very nice, simple things. It’s an extremely decent take on the modern pub repertoire.”
🍽️ Gavin Hanley (Hot Dinners) tries The Park, the new place from Jeremy King in Bayswater. “Another hit for King.” Watch for my review of The Park on Wednesday.
Marina O’Loughlin (independent reviewer) was at a fabulous looking place in Broadstairs. Jules Pearson (LOTI) tried Coworth Park in Sunningdale.
William Sitwell (Telegraph) travelled to highly regarded Skof in Manchester. He’s also got a listicle of his top 10 places for the first half of 2024. Skof takes the top spot, with The Devonshire in Soho in second.
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) visited “Les Grands Buffets, an all-you-can-eat affair in the south of France” and also checked in from a fish place in Formentera in the Balearic Islands.
✍🏻 Tim Hayward (FT) didn’t write a review this week, instead penning a perspective on how the best spot in any restaurant is out back. It’s worth a read and has a lovely hat tip to Anthony Bourdain.
Clever Take on the Critics
is an experienced food and travel writer and editor with his own very good Substack. He sometimes does a wrap-up of critics’s reviews, although his tend to be longer and more thoughtful than mine. But this week, he did something with a note of genius: Accompanying his summary of each critic’s review, he included a few recent Trip Advisor reviews. Needless to say, the comparisons are often hilarious.
(Andy, like me, is a big fan of Jimi Famurewa, so we can be sure that he has good judgement.)
Right. That’s it for today. Thanks so much for reading. If you know anyone who likes a good lunch, please share Professional Lunch with them. And, of course, subscribe if you haven’t already. Thanks! I’ll be on the golf course when this is delivered, but I’ll see you back here on Wednesday.
Happy Birthday Marshall!