Fluent Canton Ease

I’ll not lie to you; big cities confuse the shit out of me. Despite New York being all straight up and down and side to side, it would be as well to blindfold me and spin me round a few times rather than attempt to orientate me by advising I’m on the South East corner of W14th St at 7th Ave. I find the way London boroughs overlap equally unhelpful. My best friend just moved to Hackney, Homerton AND Lower Clapton. Try to establish exactly if the recently refurbished Canton Arms is in Stockwell or Vauxhall and you may just find that it’s in both. Having emerged from Vauxhall overground into warm sunshine, I tossed a few blades of grass into the gently prevailing breeze, squinted after them as they floated away, and then headed off in the opposite direction.

Coming at the pub from either end of South Lambeth Road is unlikely to set your pulse racing. Therein, while its aesthetic impact has a slow burn, lies the ultimately pleasant surprise. To call the improvements sympathetic is to say that there don’t appear to have been many. That said, and given where we are, such a deliberate exercise in simple restraint may just qualify as a stroke of genius. By retaining the flaws, the new guv’nors of this towering, street-corner ‘sairf-Landon’ session boozer have hung on to its regulars. Not only that, with her experience at The Eagle in Farringdon and drawing on the table/plate sharing premise of tried and tested gastro-institutions ( Waterloo’s Anchor and Hope and Holborn’s Great Queen Street), chef Trish Hilferty’s reinvention of the Canton Arms’ food offer has stealthily extended its scope far beyond local builders and businessmen.

Cantonese Cuisine

Alongside a lick of paint the artfully written content of the blackboards is the first clue there might be more to this place than there first appears. Toasties are a speciality bar snack and are available, old-school, with baked beans or, if you’re open, haggis or foie gras (Chip butties go for £1.50). The water-tight main menu is likewise approachable and cosmopolitan. Wild black bream with tapenade and creme fraiche looks cracking at an arbitrarily arrived at £12.20, and Loin of Old Sport pork with apple sauce and watercress (£14) just about had me before we were alerted to the sharing specials on the wall above us. Seven hour neck of Salt Marsh lamb with butterbeans served four, (and then some, as it turned out), for £48. We didn’t need asking twice. One of those please, two sides of Cornish news, two of greens (£2.50 each) and a bottle of Minervois (£22)…, and another Betty Stoggs (Skinners, 4% and drinking a treat) if you would. And some olives – if this bastard’s going to take seven hours I’m gonna need something to try to convince my stomach my throat hasn’t been cut. I’m being obtuse now, of course. But if  I didn’t begin to demonstrate how even the retrospective prospect of slow-cooked meat and red wine still inclines me to show off about having ordered it I wouldn’t be doing justice to what a nice time I had.

We didn’t need pudding but ordered cheese anyway (£7.20), and to save Smethers the embarrassment of animated anaphylaxis, we opted not for the recommended Chocolate and hazelnut cake but for an unusually free-form Buttermilk pudding with strawberries and (excellent) shortbread (£5). Which was nice. And light.

In terms of an experience the Canton Arms is a real grower. The nuances of its execution register gradually and lie more in what the owners have opted not to do. Some places feel misjudged. Some spend money in the wrong areas or appear to run out of it. I genuinely think the powers that be here chose not to spend it; what you see is what you get and it assumes nothing. The restaurant staff in particular were as beguiling and relaxed as our surroundings. The guy running the show – I’d call him the maitre d’ if it befitted him in any way except in regard to the authority with which he held the floor – was possessed of the kind of enviable calm that puts everyone else at ease. The incorporation of slow-cooked specials, whilst they’re brilliant sharing dishes, lends added appeal in that their preparation time dictates once they’re gone they’re gone (we nabbed the last neck but one); the kitchen can sell through on product in the healthiest possible way and customers will resolve to be quicker off the mark next time. It is, as I’m want to say whenever the package is as much the sum of all its parts, all deadly.

The only down-side to the evening was the terrifying image of me captured on C’s iPhone that, via an ingenious ‘app’, showed just what I would look like if I was a good 100lb heavier. Awful, is how I’d look (and I’m relieved to say it’s yet to appear on ‘Facey-B’). Still, a timely reminder that the perils of over-egging the pub/restaurant pudding are very real, and every other site-visit paid from here on in should probably be tempered by some exercise and a bit of vitamin c. I might just, therefore, walk upstairs to eat this orange.

Smethers, C, Priesty. An absolute pleasure. See you soon xx

Out of Prawn

As far as I can tell the essential difference between J. Sheekey and its neighbouring Oyster Bar is that the Oyster Bar doesn’t employ anyone specifically to open the door for you. (Of course you could, if a bit of ceremony is likely to make your evening, enter through the doors to the main restaurant, blame the scaffolding outside for throwing you off, and then nonchalantly segue through). Dispensing with the outward formalities effectively makes Sheekey’s oyster off-shoot the restaurant equivalent of a capsule range. A discreetly labelled, tightly commercial and considered representation of everything that’s terrific about the holding company, without the stick up its arse. Not that I object to a contextually formal dining experience. I am, however, conscious I’ve got holes in my All Stars.

It’s in a great spot. Fifty yards from the colourful chaos of Theatreland and still far enough away that you’re not too concerned about having sight-seeing bumph thrust in your face by someone on stilts. Nick claims not to have been here for months and yet he’s recognised instantly by a member of the bar’s politely engaging, smartly attired staff. I don’t disbelieve him. It’s more, I think, a mark of our server’s professionalism and an advert for the format of the seating arrangement here – the majority of dining space is around the marble-topped horseshoe bar – in that a face-on dynamic creates a more sociable, level platform on which to make a genuine and memorable connection with your clientele. If you’re a lone diner looking for a quick, easy and delicious lunch, and in that sense the concept’s perfect, this is a massive plus point.

We’re a four, this evening. We’re lucky, Nick says, since three is now the maximum number for which you can book at the bar. While this might have seemed strange initially, after an incomprehensible mathematical calculation involving odds, evens, and a very British reluctance to sit directly next to someone you don’t know if you can help it, I somehow concluded that this and the law of averages might make for fewer empty or spare seats. Right or wrong, and I’m going to err towards my being wrong, I’m sure their reasons are commercially valid. One of our party is held up so we order wine, a really decent and slightly surprising Sicilian chardonnay (£20.25), and we’re unexpectedly ‘comp-ed’ £9.25 worth of Grilled Tiger Prawns with chilli and lime while we talk about cool stuff and wait. Nice touch, I thought. ‘Course, at the risk of sounding cynical, that’s what was I meant to think.

Once we’re all here we get down to it. Crab Houmous with spiced chickpeas (£9), Razor Clam Persillade (£9.25), Sheekey’s Fish Pie (£10.75) and Sautéed Octopus with chorizo and broad beans (£9.50) are all sensational. The Octopus especially, its cooked consistency proving once and for all that whenever I’ve had it before it’s not been done right. I was sceptical, I must say, given the starter-size of all dishes save the pie, whether you wouldn’t have to break the bank here in order to secure enough matter to satisfy a very basic hunger. If ever quality does as much to quell this as quantity, though, I’ll venture it’s here. In an ideal world you’d probably hope for a bit more razor clam for your money, but mainly because it tastes so bloody nice. A short recess followed before we shared pudding; Spotted Dick with golden syrup, butter and vanilla custard (truly indulgent at a proportionately modest £5.75), and Scandinavian Mixed Berries with a hot white chocolate sauce (£6.50). The latter was a total triumph, the longer the warmth of the sauce had to take the edge off the berries the more intense the pleasure in the eating. For embarrassment’s sake I’m normally at pains not to get too sensory beyond confirming whether things were nice or not, so you should just take from that my pudding was absolutely mint.

Service was terrific. Personable, attentive (bar a protracted lapse whilst we waited to pay) and far too good that we wouldn’t point out they’d left our second bottle of wine off the bill. They showed their gratitude for our honesty by producing some homemade truffles to accompany what was left of our coffee. Say no more. If I’d suggested they do anything differently to enhance what they already do so well it would be to try to gauge with whom they might be able to relax around the protocol of it all. We had two bottles of the same wine and come the second, while I appreciate the gesture and that it’s unquestionably safer to stick to the script, I also think it would become the style of the service just to ask if the customer’s happy for it to be poured.

On the whole; superb. The venue’s a cracker, louche and luxurious with a buzzy intimacy, and there’s an appropriate degree of visual theatrics in the centrepiece display of fruits-de-mer. Photos of film stars line the walls and offer a good point of conversation, especially when they juxtapose an increasingly ‘la-la’ Vanessa Redgrave (only afforded her recent lifetime-achievement Bafta, one suspects, while her acceptance speeches are still vaguely intelligible) and the little fella who got an Oscar nod for playing Truman Capote. And speaking of stars, the one that ate with us smashed the 12 Bar later on. I wouldn’t be so predictable as to say after so many glowing reviews of her new record that the world is her oyster (ouch), but I do think bigger stages than this are calling.

Great show, as ever, Anais, and to Ros and Nick – thanks for everything. Again xx

Spreading the Love. On toast.

For those of you no doubt just desperate for the Hymnal to get back to what it was originally designed to do before I publicly stitched my heart on my sleeve with ‘Whining Hub…‘, I’m more than mildly enthused to say I’m in central London tomorrow for dinner at a restaurant with a long-established and excellent reputation for doing it like they own. For that and, I hope, a typically sharp (whatever) appraisal of boozer reinvention in SW8, do please keep it here. For the time being I’m going to have to ask that you to indulge me one more time.

It was my birthday last week (yeah, cheers, not bad, thanks..) and around a splendid evening modestly laid on by, and in the company of, the brethren, the very essence of what my family is about was served up in the form of a Chicken Liver Pate.

A late trip to the mythical dreamland and home of Christmas that is ‘The Farm’ had landed Benson and the missus an unexpected audience with our Aunty Margot. For those of you that don’t know Margot, you absolutely should. I’d not be the least bit surprised if it transpired her heart was actually five times the size of mine. I’ll also contend, in the hope my relatives don’t mind too much, that while life doesn’t owe anyone a living, my Aunty doesn’t owe life a thing. And yet she keeps giving it stuff. I had some last Friday.

She’d handed my brother a sheet of 1970′s copy-paper. Emblazoned on it was the logo of a company long-since defunct (though never forgotten, eh boys?) and a purchase-order for the book of a film that stopped scaring everybody, bar my friend Damien, round about the same time. On the reverse, in my late Mum’s handwriting, was the recipe for a ‘Chicken Liver Pate’ that she’d clearly passed on to Aunty M a number of years ago. Happy and moved, as we all were when we saw it, to be re-acquainted with the old girl’s calligraphy, never have I been so inclined to overlook the artery-aching components of a dish and eat it until it was all gone. As entrée to a meal about which Chef was unnecessarily apologetic, it was magnificent. Not because it kicked arse on toast –  although it really did – but because of where it came from and who’d had a hand in it. Add to that Benson’s call to debut it at an increasingly hard-to-co-ordinate coming together of relations both blood and surrogate and, with the greatest will in the world, you could have kept the other presents. Oedipal as it may sound, I’d as soon have my Mum on granary.

Thanks for listening. And I’ll be back on schedule before you can say, ‘Poor LamBert; he really has gone crackers…’.

Prudence and Pier Pressure

The Seven Dials outlet is one of three that The Tin Drum occupy in Brighton and Hove. It’s a smart, contemporary and familiar formula of cafe/bar/restaurant and an operation, going on the varied clientele, that comprehensively ticks a number of boxes. I’m here, replete and suitably spaced, after a late-ish night and a bacon and egg breakfast and looking no further than a couple of Guinness to see if I can’t shake this lingering champagne cockt-ale hangover. Obviously once they’ve been despatched there’s every reason, if absolutely no need, to order up some bread, olives and houmous and some obligatory chips and dips. Just, you know, as my friend Prudence intimated that of a Sunday she was want to do, to ‘graze’ on. It was all, particularly in terms of the company, very nice, even if a brief lapse in concentration affecting our order highlighted that while serving all day makes a place accessible, for the sake of consistent service there may be mileage in breaking for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner.

The Tin Drum provides its drinkers with table service. They sell it, quite naturally, as hospitality and then bill you for it at 12.5%. Since we were only too willing to hit the bar, this got me thinking. For the record, I’m considerably more comfortable paying for service than I ever was charging for it. As a professional the only circumstances under which I’d be happy to levy a charge automatically would be on higher maintenance group bookings, and very largely to ensure my team would get their desserts as a proportion of an overall bill. It was never nailed on, mind you, and I’d be the calmest man in the room on the odd occasion I was asked that it be removed.

A tip is more rewarding if it’s discretionary and a better, more valuable indicator of how well you’re doing your job. I’ve been known to refuse one of someone who’d had the slightest grounds for complaint. It ought, I felt, to take into account the whole package, not least because at our place they were split evenly, from the shift manager to the chef to the pot-wash. I’ve also graciously declined, or at least gestured to moderate, amounts offered that were out of context with the total meal-ticket on the basis they’d invariably be from regulars who were, by and large, no trouble at all. The culture in this country is fair. For my part, anything over and above your base rate - and how much you put in will pretty accurately determine how much you get out - should be seen as what it is; a bonus.

A service-charge on drinks tends to be perceived differently to that raised on food and never until recently had I been possessed of the energy to consider precisely why. The clincher, surely, is who does the legwork. I know there are certain upscale City establishments – those whose regular punters can probably afford to have the piss taken out of them - that apply a premium to the simple act of producing what you ask for at the bar. Unless it accounts for some seriously dextrous, gold-plated shaker-makin’ this is absolutely unacceptable. On those occasions that we would add service on to a bill, it would be for convenience’ sake that we’d apply a percentage to the sum total, drinks and all. In that we would prepare and then serve them at table, just as we would the food, and given how hard we all worked to an honest end, I was unscrupulous in doing so. I was never convinced those that did object, and they’d normally be leathered, had a good enough reason beyond having seen someone else do it once. I can, however, quite see someone taking issue with being unwittingly coaxed into being made culpable for any overheads. Given The Tin Drum doesn’t need to offer table service unless you’re eating, I’m not sure that isn’t just what’s happening here.

On a wider level, the issue of service, and the subsidy thereof, is really quite an interesting one. A recent trip to the States gave me cause to consider the etiquette there. Rule of thumb is that with each drink you tip your server (often stationary behind the counter) a dollar a time. Two or three dollars at first go, I was reliably told, should mean he or she comes back to you first. The thing is, I don’t want to jump the queue, I just want to blend in. A veteran of the culture compared this strategy with paying the extra for business-class travel. In the same spirit, I know someone whose associate is given to advancing his waiter or waitress a ’per diem’ to secure upfront everything from the best table to the best possible treatment. And I understand that other countries’ hospitality industries are structured so as to make their workers heavily reliant on gratuities, I’m just not sold that this doesn’t translate more strictly as bribery. Yeah, no kidding it works…but to corrupt the principle? I don’t know; you talk about it between yourselves…

But back to Brighton. Prudence got this one and she didn’t give the service charge a second look. I think she was still feeling guilty about the parking fine I’d picked up outside her house. On reflection perhaps The Tin Drum should require a permit; a licence to organise and operate in the manner that it does. I’ll reiterate, though, my permissiveness as a patron. I’ll normally vote with my feet. The truth, however, is that I’m so easily pleased - particularly on a Sunday by the sea - that our waitress could probably have got away with spilling my drink, punching me in the face, French-kissing my girlfriend (if I had one), and still charging me for the privilege. As a professional approach to hospitality, mind you, I’d not recommend theirs. For shame they should at least have acknowledged they’d forgotten to place our food order before mercilessly trousering their customary twelve and a half.  

Here’s to you, Ms. Gooch. And, for the record, I like you very much  xxx

http://www.tindrum.co.uk

Whining Hub of the Year

The Cock in Hemingford Grey didn’t need me to become the Good Pub Guide’s National Dining Pub of the Year. My best work had been done before then. It’s entirely accurate, I think, to say that by the time I left, round about the time the award was confirmed, I was no longer the driving force. Never, at any point, did I stop caring; I had far too much respect for my employers and was too attuned to the fact that, outwardly, my performance reflected on us both. But I’d long ceased to be energised by the job, not only exhausted but increasingly temperamental, and that’s surely when you know it’s time to go. In the end I’m not sure I wasn’t carried, pissed, over the finish line.

Anyone who knows me and, more particularly, my state of mind recently, may reasonably regard this admission as part of an ongoing assault on my own self-esteem. They’re probably right.  As I’ve said previously, though, I’ve never really regarded being nice to people as a skill. Any success or popularity I might have enjoyed while I was in charge (and please note the word “might”, since it’s used as deliberately as I’ll ever use any word) I’m sure had less to do with being a good manager, being organised, or anything predictable like that, than it did with being possessed of a few manners. You couldn’t please everyone of course – you never will, eh, Don? –  and there were those that eyed me with suspicion until the very last. Here I console myself with the notion that an ingrained professionalism and a healthy conscience form an agenda with which not everyone can identify. For them - and by “them” I mean the certain  indisposable ”characters” required to lend a pub or restaurant its local colour - there invariably has to be something else going on, something more deep-rooted or unpleasant. At the heart of it, though, hospitality really is that simple; people will forgive anything if you’re nice to them. Giving them as few things as possible to forgive you for is the other half of the battle. It is, on reflection, the satisfaction of this half that I’ll consent to regard as a genuine achievement and the reason I won’t entirely absolve myself of responsibility for any resulting decoration.

For the large majority of my tenure as manager I had, as my Head Chef, possibly the most odious, unpleasant bastard I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. He was a shit. The closest I got to figuring out why, I think, was to consider his privileged background and the fact that he’d fallen in love with someone not only from the wrong side of the tracks, but the wrong side of the Atlantic. He was, quite tragically, stuck here and he resented it. But he was the worst manager of people I’ve ever seen. The way in which he’d persistently throw his weight around, talk to and about my staff – one of whom was traumatised to the extent that I was obliged to rota tactically – the way he’d belligerently contrive to handicap or undermine a sitting depending on which side of bed he’d rolled out of, and the way he’d generally behave like a three-year-old girl, meant that losing already elusive sleep over his psychological make-up was a categorical waste of time. (What made-up his physical constitution, by the way, was much more apparent…) What with me being about as natural a confrontationalist as George from Rainbow, and resolutely refusing to issue my bosses an ultimatum along the lines that it was to be him or me - and beyond painting us all white -the challenge then was how to deflect the blast and prevent it reverberating across the restaurant floor.

You might argue that the method of least resistance employed was perhaps what made for such hard work. Again, you’d probably be right. What I haven’t mentioned, however, is that the prick could cook. And, while I’m as confident as ever that people would return time and again specifically to be served by my team, you don’t garner public-nominated ”dining pub” recognition on a national level if you don’t offer good food. So, how to deliver consistently good, cheerily presented output without customers getting wind that its creator was hell-bent on making life as difficult as possible for everybody concerned?

Oddly, I was able to talk him into shouting mostly at me. One thing of which I was keenly aware which my waiting staff weren’t necessarily – nor, I imagine, would they have been prepared to entertain at less than £6 per hour - was that in a high-pressure environment like a busy kitchen the issue is very rarely personal. Post-service, we would ’have out’ the fact that he’d essentially just had to work a bit faster for the three hours that constitutes the crux of a Saturday night, after which he’d usually talk himself round to acknowledging he had overreacted. We got into a habit also of holding meetings roughly every five months to retrace our steps from the previous one, the upshot of which would invariably be that, in all the excitement of the day-to-day, he’d overlooked the fact his brain was just wired wrong. Everyone could breathe a bit easier, for that afternoon at least, and regardless of the sense with which it was done the situation was duly managed. We wouldn’t proceed without incident of course, and as time drew on there would be as much give on my part as there was take - ”you’re a fucking baby”, I recall once being quite pleased with - but the carnage was regulated. Privately and behind closed doors. 

Happily for the guys that continue to work at The Cock, Chef was summarily canned not long after we’d parted ways. Secretly I like to think the inevitable came after I left because I was the only one braced to deal with his horse shit. Of course, this isn’t true. I know that the owners, who will always be good friends, are conscious that it took as long as it did to oust him. As far as I’m concerned they needn’t be. On the face of it such solid reputations don’t stick to places that struggle to operate coherently from one day to the next. Also, in overseeing an expanding business and therefore being unable to be on site on a daily basis, they would rely heavily on me for informed and responsible updates that things behind the scenes were running as smoothly as they ought to be. Mindful as I was of a messy fall-out and loathe to give them a problem to deal with if it was one I thought I could handle, I was arbitrarily inclined to put these concerns ahead of those of an excellent staff and a better working atmosphere. In this I can’t help feeling I came up short. For that, and the treatment which for too long certain individuals may have had to endure, I’m really quite sorry. The truth, nevertheless, is that the same staff continued to work there just the same. More than that, they continued to work hard for me. Why? Because I’m a good leader? I doubt it. Because The Cock, as a deserving “National Dining Pub of the Year”, is owned by two of life’s true gentlemen? Probably. Perhaps it was just their turn. Could it have had anything to do with my being a decent bloke? Because I’d settle for that…

www.cambscuisine.com

Young at Heart

I began a recent post with a comment along the lines that appearances can be deceptive and you should never judge a book by its cover. You shouldn’t but you can. No, you can. There’s an interior ”style” and colour scheme, for example, to which you can invariably match a designer, much the same way you can pair off couples or, more appropriately, match a dog to their owner. It combines hot pink and black, zebra or leopard print, ornately framed mirrors, iconic photography and plenty of crushed velvet. Without wishing to personify or, heaven forbid, finger the perpetrator, she knows damn well who she is and I can see her pants through her trousers. Which are far too tight.

Cafe 34 in Henley-in-Arden is decked out just so. I only stopped in for a coffee while I debated whether to tweet or blog (the pre-eminent dilemma for any social-media whore) about some nauseatingly self-satisfied restaurant signage I’d just passed across the road. As it turns out, a strong caffeine hit in this updated opium den persuaded me to do both.

But for the fact I never grow tired of hearing about the time my friend B picked his wife up a birthday cake-hat and a vase disguised as a hand-bag from a store with the exact same visual “aesthetic”, I might have repaired to a less salubrious looking bakery which was offering tea and a custard tart for £1.99.  The music was preposterous; the sort of banging garage punctuated frequently enough by the words “let’s go” that you start to wonder whether that might not be such a bad idea. Nobody there was young or deaf enough to pertain to be enjoying it.  The only other thing more peculiar than the  choice of soundtrack was the business name. You’d imagine the 34 would allude to their address wouldn’t you?  They’re at 86b…

“Glam” is the word that came to mind as the one they’d want you to use in relation to this place. They offer simpler fayre like sandwiches and salads - and not without a flourish, I’m sure - but it’s the cakes they clearly want to be famous for. I won’t deny they’re fabulous. Nor will I deny that they’re the embodiment of why excessively made-up women or pungently cologned men might sometimes be labelled ‘tarts’. I’ve had cupcakes from New York’s feted Magnolia Bakery and, despite the queues and hysteria created around its various film and TV endorsements, there isn’t a whiff there of anything other than honestly baked goods. All I could smell here was the coffee and cheap perfume.

So to the main reason I was impelled to write at all today. The Bluebell  is an award-winning pub/restaurant across the street. I’ve heard and read excellent things, even if I do wish businesses like this would stop referring to themselves as gastropubs; it won’t be long before ’gastro’ becomes synonymous with ’theme’. Above the words ‘The Bluebell’ on the sign outside are these two; “You’re welcome”. Of course they mean, ‘…any time’ or ‘…to come in’. My immediate reaction when I saw them, however, was to question why anyone who hadn’t previously disgraced themselves here wouldn’t be. I’m welcome? I didn’t ask. How about, rather than advertising it, you just prove as much if and when I come for lunch? A warm welcome creates a stronger first impression if you’ve not been promised one. And that’s definitely preferable to anyone assuming that by the same declaration the Bluebell might be pandering to anyone who has already eaten here. That is, in a (you’re glad we’re here, aren’t you? We said you’d like it, didn’t we? Well..,) you’re welcome’, vein.

Naturally there’s the distinct possibility no one’s going to register this and, even if they did, that they’d give it a second glance. But there’s method to any decision surrounding a corporate i.d. and I’m unconvinced this one’s been properly thought through.  Just as I’m unconvinced the pub’s ”oners”(sic.) are likely to win any prizes for the propriety of their website content. I just think it’s shaky ground, particularly if the greeting is any less tepid than toast. You’re going to be judged on that regardless of what it says over the door.

What it does say above the door, of course, without saying it, is that this is a gay pub. So cue up Carole King - I’m just going to grab my dog collar.

No to Sweet, No Pretender

There have been times in the past it has occurred to me folks must have a built-in radar to detect the odd occasion you might be ham-strung by the unforeseeable; those on which, for whatever reason, you might not be at your best and they stay away. I remember once inadvertently under-staffing a sunny Saturday lunchtime in Summer and bracing myself for a hammering. We sat a breezy 29. In retrospect it felt to me that on Friday the King’s Head was having one of those nights. The low turnout, I’ve decided, was karma. 

As regards the prelude to today, though (see Right, You’re Bard), I hold my hands up; I had my head turned. Turned by the accusatory asides and unfavourable comparisons being drawn in the bar between King’s Heads past and present. Turned enough that, uncharacteristically, I began picking my own holes before all the facts were in. I just about salvaged it, I hope, in surmising that we all have our slower sittings. The quietly agitated staff clearly and quite simply weren’t used to it.  But this was what wasn’t quite sitting right; I had it wrong.

Today, the Man – a cross between Tony Hart, the 7th Marquis of Bath and Jimmy Saville – was back behind the bar and lunch was all the better for it. This was the real King’s Head, you felt; smart, smooth-running and smiley.  A 12.30pm booking for three made just the night before could be accommodated either in the ‘lounge’ or the bar. The restaurant was full, although our anointed time was no issue. Starters arrived promptly; one pressed Farmhouse terrine with the usual chutney and toast (£6.50), one grilled Evesham Asparagus with (perfectly) Poached Duck Egg and Hollandaise (£6.95), which was shared. Both were excellent. Roasts , a nicely pink Beef with a great big Yorkshire and tender Pork with Crackling and Apple sauce (£13.95) were generously acquitted with roasties, buttered ( I think slightly honeyed) carrots and a large sharing side of  spring greens. The gravy came in for particular praise from Benson, who enjoys a jus, although he was unconvinced by my assertion that redcurrant jelly was its secret weapon. In hindsight so was I. I’d had a pint. Chicken Breast was ’sat’ on Caesar salad for twelve quid and, on a mild afternoon, offered a well executed alternative  to the full Monty. Dessert was declined; by this point, and in a good way, we were spent.

So, the prologue was largely hot air, then? Not all of it. I still maintain more money should be set aside for the upkeep of a really splendid interior - the bar top looked even cheaper from where I was sitting - and less for the presentational pamphlets that give such an inept impression of what, on today’s evidence, is a tightly run ship. They should shed any allusions to out-dated awards and trade on the strength of the here and now; it’s more than good enough. Service was bright and efficient. Beers, while they seem not to vary, are a mixture of the lame and the local but are kept well, and the building’s a belter, the stripped back charm even running to the toilets. The location is beautiful and I’ve no doubt the walk detailed in the company literature takes you through some quite wonderful countryside. As I say, if only they offered specific direction as to whether, once you’ve stepped outside, you’ve to turn left or right.

www.thekh.co.uk

Right, You’re Bard

Shakespeare’s folks are reputed to have had their wedding breakfast at The King’s Head. I’ve long been familiar with Aston Cantlow as a destination even though I’d not been before tonight  - one of my pub guides would invariably fall open where it featured – and I was chewing over a lunch booking for this Sunday. First impressions were all good; beautifully maintained Tudor exterior, a tastefully unfussy interior and a professional welcome. I lined myself up a pint (Purity’s Pure Gold, 3.8%), stuck ‘one in the bin’, and began to soak it up.

There’s clearly a local following here, plenty of people on first-name terms and a generous social etiquette in evidence. One splendidly-coiffeured Cassanova remained ’in the chair’ for the duration of his first pint and stood a drink for anyone who acknowledged him. That he sported skin like leather implied most of his time is spent on fairways outside Faro and one sensed he was getting his while he was on home soil. The effect was to generate a genuine sense of community.

It was only once the early birds began drifting home and the diehards, regarding the dwindling attendance, began lamenting the passing of the King’s Head’s hey-day that things got interesting. The hubbub assumed the usual and vital blend of the speculative, the assertively erroneous, and the positively ludicrous.  The problem seemed to be that this was no longer a drinker’s or “wet” pub. The question was raised as to why diners now seemed to get priority; “It’s the margin, you see? Food’s where the money is….”. Correct. ” I do think, though… “, oh, here we go, “..that if you got the drinks side right…I mean, you need to get the food side right too,..but if you got the drinks side right, people would travel”. I’m going to have to stop you there, Dave. Only if you get the food right is it going to be worth approaching the bank for your start-up costs. The notion of a “wet” pub, whilst it’s romantic and there are isolated examples that continue to toil away, just isn’t viable anymore . For a catalogue of reasons. Let’s go with the smoking ban, the comparative cost-effectiveness of drinking at home, rising product and labour costs, poor management and stroppy publicans, just to get the ball rolling. Throw in aswell the fact that the authorities tend to look down on drink-driving these days and I’m not sure even if you did build it that “people would travel”. Shame mind. One of my favourite and aptly weather-beaten old regulars had some blindingly irresponsible, near-catastrophic yarns to spin about being walloped behind the wheel.

So, what about the prospect of the King’s Head as a “dry” pub? Eight o’clock on a Friday night and the restaurant was less than half full. I recall checking the pub’s web-site and noting that it was Warwickshire’s Dining Pub of the Year. The smartly produced, disastrously compiled flyers on the side said the same. A closer look revealed the recognition was last gained in 2008. This doesn’t, of course, mean the arse has completely fallen out of it in the two years since but, as I’ve said before, claiming to be something you no longer are beyond a reasonable point is going to raise eyebrows. An attempt to take credit for being named one of the “Top Ten Pubs within Walking Distance of a Campsite” may just smack of desperation. Not least because, as far as I’ve seen, the author of the ‘guide’ that coined them so seems rarely to leave the house these days, let alone stick the Thomson Glenelg on the tow-bar. 

It might well have kicked off after I left. Between the local conversation, however, and the gradually fading background noise it felt somehow unlikely. Why? Well, I’d been deterred sufficiently to defer making arrangements to return. The clincher, oddly, was the entirely out-of-place laminate counter-top that bore my weight. An economy measure compounded by the splurge on shiny literature which recommends a local walk without telling you which way to go (quite bizarrley it does go on to tell you which ordnance survey map you should have brought with you). I’m going to come back, of course. It goes against Hymnal principles simply to presume the food warranted the low turnout. The menu looked alright and everybody has their quieter nights. Something just wasn’t sitting well. I’ll, er, I’ll get back to you… 

www.thekh.co.uk

Sausages and Cash

Last time I was at a Davy’s winebar was in Greenwich about 8 years ago. The country was being battered by gale force winds and all train services out of London had been suspended. Drag. Without a ‘provisional’ and zero inclination to seek alternative means to leave, it was like being told there was no school that day. I was on the cusp by about 2.30pm with my right forefinger curled over a Cuban. The rest’s hazy history.

Bangers Bar and Grill in Moorgate belongs to the same firm and, not unlike its maritime HQ, echoes of a 19th century speak-easy where the proletariat would come to drink champagne and eat oysters because they couldn’t afford the good stuff. Beers are served in pewter tankards and they retail snuff. The walls are hung with agricultural-looking curios which look like they’d cause someone a genuine mischief.  And although the disenfranchised tend to kick it outside of the Square Mile nowadays, the updated standing of champagne as the Cock of liquid consumables means the model has never been more relevant to EC2. It feels right it should be here.  

I ain’t going to lie to you, I was talking most of the way through lunch. Two things stood out, though. The maturity and professionalism of the waiting staff and my sesame seed bun. Firstly, whilst there was a beguiling ease about the way we were spoken to there was a sense also that a bit of gushing subservience on their part might, here as much as anywhere, be likely to ’make these rich pricks dig a bit deeper’ when it came to rounding up the bill. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course,  and I’m not sure I didn’t just recognize that any server sharp enough to refresh the claret jugs without being asked stood to make a killing.

The bun bothered me, though. I don’t think I’ve seen a sesame seed bun used commercially for the 20 years or so since I was last at Wimpy. Their domestic use, I’d imagine, is now limited to hastily arranged barbecues and mainly because they tend to come in packs of 50. Having taken the time to stipulate their steak burger be ‘handmade’ it occurs to me a deliberate decision was taken here. I’m just not convinced something more rustic or herbed wouldn’t go down just as well if not better. Pigsy was again in attendance and duly, because one of us had to, had Cumberland sausage and mash. These were excellent and, with neither main course coming in over £11, we got our money’s worth. It was a working lunch so we drank water but there was Whitstable ale available had we wanted it, and a predictably well-chosen wine menu with an astute, if narrow, emphasis on the most popular varietals.

You can see Bangers being an easy place to fall into after a busy day on the finance floor. I can only imagine but I would guess its vaulted recesses and relaxed candlelit vibe provide welcome respite from the unfathomable grind above stairs. The port and ‘poo’ heavy product-list on the flipside, though very accessible in terms of pricing, still offers plenty of scope to show off, while the concept itself serves discreetly to retain a sense of the City’s heritage; an old- school trader with a red sock still on his FTSE.

www.davy.co.uk/bangers

Rayning it In

Restaurant Review, The Observer Magazine, Sunday May 2nd 2010

Jay Rayner was at Bristol Lido this week. I can think of few things less appetising than the prospect of lunching at a table with a view of the general public in trunks. Or, for that matter, of sharing dining space with anyone who can’t. Such an outlook seems not to have hindered our correspondent’s experience. Even if the blinds had been drawn, however, there remain elements of it that could have hindered mine.

Like me, Mr Rayner professes to being able to get a fairly definitive sense of place from a restaurant’s atmosphere, the attitude of its staff and/or the writing of its menu. What distinguishes the Lido’s menu as a ‘corker’, he says, are words like ’wood roast’, used in regard to the cooking of grey mullet. Not a bit ironically, it’s his appreciation of such terminology that would incline anyone partial to menus that give it to you straight, to ‘wood roast’ his. 

It’s not so much this term specifically as it is the ones he implies he’d similarly like to find as means to set you salivating. ‘Cotton-sheeted’ and ‘sun-kissed’ are expressions that sound to me chef might only be able to conjure with one hand down his or her whites (a whole other headache of health and hygiene). Their accuracy as a pre-fix is pretty much irrelevant. Their use in an environment which neighbours an outdoor swimming pool, regardless of its cosmopolitan Clifton locale, strike me as being ill-at-ease and unduly showy in a restaurant whose prices are comparitively modest. I mean, I’ve not been, but I can see the picture. You tell me; is ’cotton sheeted’ going to make a £7 starter stand out more or less than at a place where, more simply described, you’re not forced to enjoy it whilst watching Marjorie from Montpelier do her 30 lengths? The only thing ’sun-kissed’ is going to make me think of is whether or not Marjorie remembered her factor 50 before treating the gallery to her breaststroke legs.

That our man so enjoyed himself is an absolute credit to Bristol Lido and its staff. What a pleasant surprise it must come as to those expecting simply to pass the time while the kids splash around. Being as accessible as it is in terms of cost though I would implore them, as I would any establishment of this kind or similar, not to buy into the benefits of lyricising too creatively. You’ll sound like a wanker. Or, to pinch Rayner’s headline, as if you regularly ‘win by a length’.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/02/bristol-lido-restaurant-jay-rayner

http://www.lidobristol.com/restaurant-and-bar.php