The Times
Giles Coren couldn’t get a booking at Tollington’s, the north London chippy makeover that’s causing a sensation in hip foodie circles, so he had to settle for a meal at a new place from the “great, glorious and beloved Endo Kazutoshi” of Rotunda fame, at the hotel owned by the Hindujas and full of “ridiculous International Superwank restaurant offerings”.
The food was, of course, delicious – most notably a “rich and fatty/salty, utterly sublime” crouton piled with chopped raw fatty tuna and a splodge of aged caviar.
But, said Giles, … “Everything was beige, it was £540 and everyone was on their phones. Like everyone, all the time… scrolling while they ate. It didn’t make one feel, you know, special.”
“Endo is a genius, no question,” he concluded. “But this is not the sort of place that does it for me. I just don’t warm to the ghoulish transience of a megahotel and the tax exile citizens of nowhere such a place attracts.”
Giles Coren - 2024-08-18
