Time to Ban Booking Resales? Plus Critics Wrap-Up and More.
My Camille lunch gang (probably) mentioned in a critic's review. Jimi loves Roe at the Wharf. Grace finds a fresh take on Oma.
Booking for Profit
Tom Parker Bowles writes a story for the Mail on Sunday about the growing market for restaurant booking resales in the UK. I’m not a Mail subscriber, so couldn’t read it all, but his story is really a derivative of a New Yorker piece from a few weeks ago called “Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation” in New York. The answer, it seems, is the cottage industry of professional bookers who secure bookings at hard-to-get places and sell them online for a fortune. The New Yorker suggests that this secondary market is making it hard for locals to get into quality neighbourhood places. It’s definitely making it harder for mere mortals — even ones with money — to get into top spots.
This is a tough one. The booking resale market helps restaurants combat the problem of serial no-shows, which has become so rampant that some places reported losing a third of their booked tables on a given night. The costs to restaurants in unused ingredient and unnecessary staff quickly eat into already minuscule margins.
On the other hand, the resale thing incentivises touts, drives costs up dramatically, and makes it harder for food lovers to secure bookings.
In balance, I think requiring deposits (or even full prepayments, as a lot of U.S. restaurants do) is probably a more effective way to combat no-shows. So I would go so far as banning resales.
What do you think? Have you ever ‘bought’ a booking? What was your experience?
Richard Caring to Re-Open Le Caprice, but it won’t be Le Caprice, because that’s the Arlington. Got it?
Restauranteur Richard Caring let it slip to the Standard that he is planning to re-open the famous Le Caprice restaurant in 2025.
This is sort of silly, but if you care, I shall explain.
Jeremy King and Chris Corbin started Le Caprice in 1981. Caring — who owns the Ivy and some other stuff — eventually bought Le Caprice and closed it in 2020 during the pandemic, but retained the trademark.
King has now taken over the space that was formerly Le Caprice and opened the much-reviewed Arlington. But everything about the Arlington, including much of the menu, is actually Le Caprice.
Caring’s version of Le Caprice will open in the new Rosewood Hotel in Grosvenor Square, which is going into the hideous monstrosity of a building that used to be the U.S. embassy.
Caring says he plans to move Le Caprice into the 2020s but will retain some of the classic menu items, like Bang Bang Chicken, that made the original famous. Some of those classic menu items are already on the menu at the Arlington.
So, to summarise: The Arlington, which is Le Caprice, but can’t be called Le Caprice due to trademark issues, will soon have to compete with Le Caprice, which is not Le Caprice, but will be called Le Caprice. Got it?
Feels like a lot of investor money being wasted to me. But what do I know?
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 or (b) Had a flaw or two.
Hit: Capricci
Capricci is a little place in Bankside behind the Tate Modern. It’s part wine shop and part Italian restaurant. And it’s great. I visited with a colleague for a quick lunch, and was blown away by the quality of the food and the service. Homemade pastas with delicious sauces. A superior selection of Italian wines. And a chill vibe that invited conversation. The menu changes daily, and there is always something you can get excited about. My only niggle was that the vegetarian choices were a little lacking, but they happily changed a dish to accommodate a request. More on their Instagram. Find them on Google Maps.
Critics Wrap Up
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) tried Camille and Le Cocochine in a review posted back in April. I missed it then, but am sharing it now because I’m pretty sure I was one of the five noisy men that Nick references in his description of the ambience:
By 1 pm Camille was full and noisy because there is nothing in the room to absorb any sound. The entire wall that incorporates the bar and kitchen is lined with shelves which hold bottles of alcohol in every crevice. We were keenly aware of a table of five noisy men. However it is still possible to converse because the tables are small and close together.
It was on that lunch with four friends that I based my own review.
Jimi Famurewa (Standard) visits Roe in Canary Wharf. It’s the new place from the team behind Fallow, the ultra-hip and YouTube famous spot in St. James. Jimi tucked into an outstanding meal that included “the deranged brilliance of a flavoursome, puffed flatbread heaped in barrelling, richly spiced pork and snail vindaloo.” He concludes that “Roe is both big and clever. And what could have easily been a victim of sequel bloat feels, instead, like one of the defining, gravity-defying openings of the year.”
Grace Dent (Guardian) is the latest to check out Oma in Borough Market. I love Grace because she often spots angles that others overlook. “To the untrained eye, Oma is just another chic, semi-industrial space with an artisan cake kiosk and a cocktail bar on the outskirts of Borough Market; yes, the very market that I’ve already described as a Harry Potter Diagon Alley-esque theme park with extra venison sausage. But Oma is different from most other places round these parts. It is a nerdish, painstakingly thought-out, relaxed but high-end Greek-ish space-age taverna up a flight of stairs, and overlooking the melee outside.” She concludes, “Oma is one of the restaurant openings of the year, not least because literally no one was crying out for a fresh spin on babaghanoush. We were all very, very stupid.”
Giles Coren (Times) tries Lita in Marylebone and Morchella in Exmouth Market. He basically concludes that they are both good, and that Lita is more expensive. Then there’s a lot of detritus about conversations and descriptions, but it’s all contrived to allow Giles to complain about something.
William Sitwell (Telegraph) is sceptical in a “Britain is full” sort of way about old historic pubs turning into Indian restaurants, but ultimately concludes that the Tamil Crown in Islington is very good.
Tanya Gold (Spectator) follows up her perplexing review of Five Guys by reviewing the new branch of Ottolenghi in Hampstead. It’s an even more backhanded political statement, which I found as exasperating as her sub-surface anti-Americanism in the Five Guys review. But she liked the salads.
Andy Hayler (independent critic) goes to Grumbles in Pimlico. I really like Andy, and his high end reviews of two and three star places around the world are indispensable for travel planning, but sometimes his choices utterly mystify me. Why is he reviewing a 60 year burger place in Pimlico that isn’t very good? Honestly, I have no idea.
Marina O’Loughlin (independent critic) gets to Sweetings and Grumbles in the City and declares that “Life is enhanced by the existence of these places, bottles of Essencia, and good pals.” Indeed.
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) tries All’onda in Charlotte Street. “Head Chef Andrea Granzarolo spent six years working for Hélène Darroze, as well as time at both The Greenhouse and The Square. Then there's the fact that he's focusing on risotto.” … “If - like us - you love [risotto], then you are going to want to make several bookings here to work your way through chef Andrea's various clever takes on it.”
Tim Hayward (FT) stayed overnight at a pub in Wiltshire on his way from Cornwall to Cambridge. Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) has been eating Chinese food in New York and Washington, DC. Jay Rayner (Observer) was in Wales. Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) was in Shropshire. Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) had the week off.
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