When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. So said Samuel Johnson – but he never
lived to queue for hours at a no-reservations hot spot, only to hoick himself
up on to a rickety stool at the end of a communal breakfast bar at bedtime to
enjoy a burger served in a dog bowl with a side order of chips in a flower pot.
No, if Johnson were alive today, I’d wager his maxim would have been: when a
man is tired of London food fads, he is at last a man.
This is not a
beef with restaurant cuisine, but with the way it is served. Food-fiddling is
rife, and not just in the capital. Everywhere, the Zen perfection of a disc of
white porcelain with a lip to stop you splashing gravy on your knees is being
elbowed out by what looks like the remnants of a car boot sale. Roof tiles,
coal shovels, deep-fat fryer baskets, jam jars, miniature wheelbarrows, boxes
of hay, takeaway cartons and a salvage yard’s worth of planks of wood are all,
inexplicably, standing in for plates.
Michelin-starred
chef Tom Aikens is opening a restaurant in Dubai called Pots, Pans and Boards,
the concept (strong word) for which is that “every dish will be cooked – and
served – in a pot, pan or on a board”. A new London chippie will serve its
spuds “airline style” with condiments pushed down the aisle on trolleys by
waiters dressed as cabin crew. Why? To fit in with its name: Come Fry with Me.
Nobody asked
for this. My fellow Independent columnist Grace Dent recently shared a picture
of herself in a new London restaurant, staring unhappily at a table-top washing
line on to which had been pegged five slices of Parma ham. My own tipping point
came in Amsterdam, where I had to eat raw tuna with my hands (using the rubber
glove provided), suck mushroom soup out of a Kilner jar and, the last straw,
eat a chocolate mousse that was nestled inside a baby’s nappy. If anything will
put you off gimmicky presentation for life, Pampers will.
These are extremes, but the hunger for
originality in a saturated restaurant scene means the quirks keep on coming.
Even the most straightforward dining experience can throw a curveball. Why is
this bread served in a paper bag? I don’t want to eat from a jar, I was brought
up to know better. And if I am extravagant enough to go out for beans on toast,
then give me beans on toast – not a mini Le Creuset crockpot of beany salsa
with half a muffin balanced on top.
Now the
revolution is coming, thanks to We Want Plates, an
online sensation which shares on Twitter the most egregious examples of
plate-shirking in the UK. It has led to direct action, a wave of disgruntled
diners returning boards and baskets to the kitchen and requesting china
instead. It is perhaps quintessentially 2015 that there is a social media
campaign to bring back something that is not actually extinct, but that is
where we are. One can always stay at home.
To those who
say it’s just a bit of fun … well, it’s not, really. The trend for boards and
other bits and bobs often puts the onus of fiddling about assembling a meal on to customers when they are supposed to be paying someone to do it
for them. It can also be a nifty way of distracting the daft and the hungry
from meagre portion sizes. More crucially, these fripperies speak of a lack of
confidence in the food – and, insultingly, in the diners. The restaurant that
serves up a “talking point” assumes that visitors want to be infantilised, that
without a tiny shopping trolley of French fries to chat about, their evening
might fall a bit flat.
The pursuit of
novelty has its dangers. This week, a wine bar in Lancaster was fined £100,000
after its Nitro-Jägermeister, a cocktail served with liquid nitrogen, led to an
18-year-old girl having her stomach removed. Will this end the dreadful rash of
zany cocktails in watering cans, old boots and paper bags? I fear not. Like
selfies, funny chalkboards and Keep Calm and Carry On merchandise, it is the
dire trend that will not die.
So yes please,
we want plates. We also want reservations without
restrictions, nice tables, comfortable chairs and flattering lighting,
non-quirky menus that keep quiet about how “scrummy” their dishes are, and
napkins, rather than the kitchen roll favoured by self-conscious,
spit-and-sawdust hipster joints.
We want a
dining experience that is so much better than we could manage in our own home
that we are willing to pay for it. Sounds radical, but it might just take off
Courtesy: independent.co.uk
