“It’s the good intentions that sink vegetative restaurants. They are selling the goodness of their intentions in the hope that you’re more interested in filling the karma bank than your stomach. The explanations of the ingredients are always longer than the recipes. Vegetarian places are to restaurants what the Big Issue is to journalism.”
“I’d seen a sample menu and pictures of some of the dishes online and knew already that Damson conformed cheerfully to the “One year back in time for every ten miles out of London” rule. So it was “Welcome back to 1995” and a delightful selection of veloutés, plated scallop arrangements, fillets of beef and everything double-spooned into quenelles.”
“I don’t like queuing. I don’t like queuing behind members of my own family to use the bathroom in my own house, let alone behind 14 sweet-natured, patient young people who don’t think standing in line for 45 minutes to eat dinner is bizarre. I am not sweet-natured. I am definitely not patient. Hence I have found the rise of non-reservation restaurants extremely tiresome. Time is precious. I’m getting old. I might be dead soon. I want to know where I’m going to be and when.”
“Despite some excellent dishes and the cheery professionalism of the staff, I’m not buying it. We’re flanked by helmet-headed dames ordering grilled salmon (“No miso, please!”) and the only young people appear to be on a grandparents’ treat. It’s all too corporate and slick, overproduced and soulless, safe and anodyne: an M&S cashmere of a restaurant. It is, of course, wildly busy: people pile in even at the most off-peak times. (“Is it because it’s payday?” I idiotically ask a staff member who laughs: “This lot got paid years ago.”)”
In this life, you’re either someone who wears sample-size, or you’re someone who knows the joy of pommes aligot washed down with Picpoul de Pinet. I am rarely begged to ‘Frow’ — chiefly as my left butt cheek is the entire circumference of one Victoria’s Secret Angel. In fashion circles, I am little more than a fire hazard.
