The Man who Ate the World, by Jay Rayner - £16.99
Outside France – and Paris particularly – mass interest in fine dining is new. Even in such traditionally wealthy cities as New York and London, it is primarily over the past two decades that major upmarket restaurant scenes have developed. The major new-money cities are right behind them. Moscow, Las Vegas (Middle America’s favourite resort) and Dubai (‘pearl’ of the tourist Gulf) are all now brimming with fancy new eateries. In fact, wherever there is concentrated money to sustain it, fine dining is suddenly going mainstream.
Jay Rayner, the Observer’s critic, is arguably the most obvious man to chronicle and analyse this fast-blooming socio-economic phenomenon. Amongst London’s notoriously sharp-penned major scribes, Mr Rayner is the one who most self-consciously agonises about the ‘issues’. And he’s done time as a journalist proper (former assignments, we discover, including interviewing the unfortunate Mr Bobbit). He is also – like a number of his critical peers – a novelist.
These three strands in the author’s life may explain why his book is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure. Is this a collection of restaurant reviews? Patchily, yes. Does it reveal journalistic truths gleaned from good old-fashioned sleuthing? Yes. And is it – as all novels are to some extent – an insight into the soul of the writer? Yes, it’s that too. In spades. Rayner’s own reactions to food, and particularly grand food – and how this is influenced by his Jewish heritage – are a theme which recurs throughout the book’s 300 pages.
As do many themes. Recur that is. The book is notionally organised around six cities, but the stated organisation is only barely observed. To use a menu analogy, there is constant risk of a sorbet popping up in the middle of the fish course. Or a brief history of Gordon Ramsay, London, in the Dubai section.
Where Rayner gives himself a good clear run – the New York chapter, for example, is excellent – the reader is swept along, and widely informed along the way. There may not be be that many revelations for people in the know, but it’s a rattling good read.
Some other chapters, though – even leaving out the disruptive reminiscences – might be said to dwell on the obvious. The Moscow restaurant scene, we hear at some length, is all about politics, gangsters and money. Knock me down with a feather. And Dubai: is it really wildly nouveau-riche and glitzy? You don’t say. The fact that Mr Rayner may have invested similar amounts of effort and expense in the various places he visited doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all equally interesting to read about.
The Paris chapter – the non-introspective part of it being just some 30 pages – is a case in point. Surely the city which has kept the spirit of fine dining alive for two centuries might get a bit of special consideration? But all we really get is a travelogue of eating in seven three-Michelin-star restaurants in as many days. Would you guess that would be fun? Well, we won’t spoil it for you.
It turns out that, apart from a certain level of pomposity (generally speaking), the Paris restaurants have little in common. This doesn’t seem to inspire a consideration of whether depending on Michelin as some sort of international talisman really makes much sense. But by this point in the book, the reader may just have a slight feeling of exhaustion, and perhaps Mr Rayner did too.
Make no mistake though: if you can unpick it, there is much in this book – both factual and thought-provoking – on an interesting topic that hardly ever gets the concentrated coverage it deserves. But to get real value out of it, you’d have to make your own index. The publishers, outrageously, couldn’t be bothered.
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