First Impressions, then a Club

Last night was one of those rare occasions where being sober on the periphery of pissed-ness was as entertaining as getting goosed amidst a group. By 11pm we were down to a couple of pockets of relative revelry, the two gents who had enjoyed a late-ish dinner politely refusing to be distracted by the racket emanating from the Ben Sherman boys and their new-found friend.

These were some of the worst Michael Caine impressions I’d ever heard. Including my own. Short of “stop frowing….dose bladdy spears…at me”, we were bouncing back and forth between an x-rated paraphrasing of his best known bit from the Italian Job, and an interpretation of something he (if he was  in fact Ray Winstone, not M.C.) may or may not have said as Alfred in one of the new Batman films. It was marvellous to watch, not least because P had only tentatively stuck his card behind the bar on arrival but left having signed off on quite a few; those nights you don’t see coming remain among the best you can have. Their new mate Simon, it turns out, besides being the unabashedly balls out, gin-charged purveyor of the worst (and bluest) impression round the table, has been saving his best for Supper Club.

Supper Clubs, you’re probably aware, are the gastronomic equivalent of a rave and have been springing up across town with unlawful regularity over the last couple of years. Privately hosted evenings at addresses only disclosed (to first timers at least) at the eleventh hour, they’ve amassed a vaguely bohemian, B.Y.O. following of folks looking for quirk quotient and quality without coughing through the nose. With the price per head amounting simply to a “suggested”, tax-dodging donation, these pop-up dinner parties thus succeed in sailing under the radar and, at the same time, illicit excitement among those that lean liberally to the left and who, by their very attendance, are made to feel as if they’re doing something naughty.

Anyway, Simon’s supper club, Fernandez and Leluu, goes down every few days at the Hackney home he shares with Designer partner Uyen Luu. Catering to up to 30 people at a time and drawing on various food themes, each event features a menu comprising of up to seven courses, with this week’s card including a Pork and Shrimp Wonton Soup, Poached Pears and Prosciutto, Paella, and a palette rinsing Coconut Sorbet. What is apparent from their homepage is their passion for food, a flair for presentation, and the fact they seem to be, to borrow a word from the operation’s assistant Head Chef, fucking good at this. Also apparent is an awareness that these dinners aren’t only for social animals – you can opt to sit alone if you’d rather. One gets the feeling though that the best experience is to be gained by getting stuck right in. If you want something to talk about, you can start by engaging your neighbour on your hosts’ taste in interiors. Something about the success of these two, however, suggests the venue is more than part of the equation.

It feels only right now to find out for myself what all the fuss is about. A pub it ain’t, I know, but you know just as well that if it involves food and booze, I’m in.  There are spaces tonight….

For details of how to book follow the above link or go to http://www.fernandezandleluu.co.uk

Raiders of a Lost Art

This won’t take long.

It’s just to reassure you that if I happen to be passing your table, notice your glass is empty, and then offer to refill it for you, there’s absolutely nothing in it for me beyond satisfying myself you have everything you need. Right? Nothing. That knowing, sceptical, often disapproving look you give me that says, “yeah, yeah I’ve heard this song and dance before; I let you bring me something and you charge me service”, need not apply. I know where it’s coming from; as discussed not two posts hence there are some fucking cowboys out there, and having been “served” by too many you’re understandably guarded about playing into my hands and, moreover, what it might cost you. But don’t affront me just because I wear an apron too. (I don’t anymore, actually, but you know what I mean.)

I get paid to do a job. When you’re in my care and so long as I’m at liberty to, any reasonable opportunity I have to make your experience more comfortable or hospitable, I’m going to take it. There is no premium, no catch. Unless you determine otherwise it, like all the sagely observed shit here, comes for free. 

I’ll grant you, my capacity to dignify or do justice to any mildly facetious enquiry, or to overlook the fact you wouldn’t be of the mind/have the balls to say out-loud what you just said if you weren’t pissed, might have dwindled. The lengths I’m prepared to go to help, if only you’d trust and, in turn, respect my motives, are absolutely set in stone. Those that might not believe me, as Sallah might have said to Indiana here, are “digging in the wrong place”.

LamBert’s Log: Hardship Enterprise

I bought three pints in Cambridge on Saturday night for £8-something. Having had to acclimatize fast to the comparative cost of London ligging, I was inclined to ask someone to pinch me. Much as it feels like the right time to be based in the Smoke, and as much as one is keenly aware that the privilege of existing down here comes at an inflated premium, it felt bloody good in respect of the above to get out of town for the weekend.

As Pub Companies report the increasingly frequent passing of businesses once their bread and butter, and having had an opportunity to establish practical, first hand context of provincial pricing versus PubCo pressures, I’m minded more and more to commend the onus placed by an ex-employer – with whom I got comprehensively clattered over the weekend – on keeping the cost of suds sensible. As the person responsible for sourcing his pub’s cask product it was drilled into me from the outset to push breweries hard for the best possible price. Not so as to compromise them, it must be said, nor to increase our margins of profit, rather to keep retail prices at a level that we might sustain them, and so as to hold ground from which we were confident about, and genuinely perceived to be, offering good quality AND value (I rattle on about those two, don’t I? Anyone would think I’d never stood a round in my life…).

Dealing direct with breweries tends to be easier and, as a service, a sight more reliable.  In regard to quality, you know exactly what you’re getting. Despite their own numerous considerations r.e. the cost to them of energy and raw materials, to say nothing of the growing concern surrounding the price of fuel and the hit they take just getting the stuff to you, you could invariably navigate any protestations producers might make against your demands by taking, say, 6 tubs at a time. They get to drop off a job-lot for sale in what, in terms of my old place, was always a local shop window (beers were all from the surrounding area) and the price points maintained ensured the brews’ careful conditioning went a long, long way.

Compare that to a tied house. Is it any wonder wet-driven pubs are folding at a pace when they’re obligated to buy stock at up to 60% over the odds? No it’s not. Just as it’s no wonder normal folk fear the pricing-pinch that’ll come with any landlord’s levy to try to perm a worthwhile profit. If they can’t now have a fag to calm the nerves born out of surrendering £3.50 plus for a pint without going outside, I’m half tempted to talk them down to Tesco’s myself. Even if the outlay did warrant it, chances are the cask from which the beer’s been drawn has been kicking around some delivery depot for time beyond which its producers could now confidently endorse its contents.  No exaggeration either; I’ve gathered first hand that as a PubCo tenant/licensee, one must somehow earn one’s stripes before being allowed access to, or to purchase from, the best available pool. What a game.

The pub at which I was pleasantly surprised here was a brewery-owned pub. A local brewery with an established presence in London, renowned for making their own ale accessible on-site, but whose product we would regularly overlook based on their lack of flexibility when it came to its outsourcing. A good example to start with then? In light of the horribly narrow Saturday night turnout there, betraying an extraordinary class of beer along the bar but which may have been narrower still if not for it being offered so economically, a pertinent one for sure. There has to be a sense, whatever the terms of a pub’s ownership, that steps are at least being taken to account for the considerations and constraints of the customer. A sense, if you will, of community. And I’m talking PubCo to Tenant as much as Tenant/Landlord to Lush. Lose that and get set to lose a lot more.

Romancing Alone

Is the notion that, as a business in London, you can operate with total honesty and integrity and still be commercial, a romantic one? Because that’s what I’ve just been told. And I won’t believe it.

After a reasonably well-documented period away from it all, I took some work recently with a Pub and Restaurant I’d approached on the strength, yes, of its cost-effective proximity to my new home, but mainly of a handful of solid consumer experiences. I’d been made to feel vindicated in my choice by an inaugural, often excruciating, but worthwhile company induction which spelled out, in no uncertain terms, the principles on which the business had been founded. These incorporated, in no specific order, Individuality (check – this place is quite brilliantly designed), Integrity (you’d hope so), Neighbourhood (alluding to the importance of its local community), Detail (going the extra mile), and Progression (being possessed of a forward-thinking adaptability) as cornerstones of what they were about. As cornerstones of what I’m about, give or take an adjective or two, they all rang pretty true.  Significantly for me the owners, who talked genuinely about longevity as a key priority in their pursuit of ‘local institution’ status, not only told it like they meant it but came across as really decent guys.

In practical effect, I quickly found out, these values were being interpreted fairly creatively. Where to start? The drinks. How much? Jesus. I know this is London, and an unspeakably cool corner of it at that, but the cost just to be here is reason in itself, if you mean what you say about your role in the community, not to serve double measures as standard. That the only means to let unsuspecting customers know the score here is the tiny notice high on the wall behind the bar rather suggests they’re aware that to do so is more than a bit underhand. Any temptation to fore-warn people  is tempered by the fact that it sounds like you’re apologising for it. Add in the cost of a whole bottled mixer –  retaining what won’t fit in the glass to be used in the next one, naturally – and any punter could count themselves fortunate if two proper drinks came in at less than £10. And stocking bottled Soda Water in order, presumably, that you can charge for it, smacks of an obtuse and deliberate reticence to sidestep the slightest chance to cream a few quid extra.

In terms of the food, the quality wasn’t really in question. The value, though? And the kitchen’s propensity to produce it in good time that the customer wasn’t crying out, frustrated, for something, anything, to chew on? Another matter entirely. A main meal in any establishment really ought to be served complete i.e. without needing to be supplemented by side orders, and priced accordingly. Not so here. Well, not always. That was another thing. The portion sizes were so inconsistent you couldn’t confidently offer advice as to how best to order. Trying to do so might involve such thankless, arbitrary considerations as who was cooking and what side of bed they’d rolled out on. The real issue though, was the apparently intentional ruse to omit obvious accompaniments – no starch with the calf’s liver, say – so to make sides essential and ratchet up the spend per head necessary to balance a dish. Also, withholding bread rations until AFTER a table has ordered is as transparent a ploy as exists to optimize on the volume each table orders. Heaven forbid someone should have a slice of bread with butter and resolve to forego starters.

Obviously, some of the issues are operational, the result of procedures that appear to be dictated by pressure from the Top, not only to get ‘em in and get ‘em out, but to take ‘em for everything they’ve got while they’re there. So much for being ‘progressive’ in an effort to find intelligent solutions to problems – and the wait for food presented a big problem –  and about as much for longevity. Never mind where they might be in ten years time, I couldn’t see anyone who wasn’t utterly fixated on the flatteringly busy here and now. So long as they can continue to point to their being in London to excuse the automatic 12.5% service charge levied, like it or not, against tables whose waiter or waitress is just that bit too cool to smile.

All of which simply scratches the surface, and says nothing of the fact that the aversion of certain staff members to picking up crap off the floor at the end of the night had led to a serious problem. A problem which, just as I’d begun to simmer and wonder whether I might be over-reacting, then scampered square into my hand. You’ve got to be kidding – I’ve eaten here, for Christ’s sake. Means to an end or not, I’m ill-equipped to stand by, listen as folks talk a good game, and then watch them summarily fuck it up. I left. And I left them in no doubt as to why. Don’t tell me this is operating with integrity. Don’t use the fact that ‘this is London’ to manipulate a clientele you’re helping convince can expect no better, and who flock to you without the frame of reference a decent local competitor would provide. And don’t imply, whether you mean to or not, that the concept of carrying one of these businesses forward with an accurate, an accurate, take on the admirable set of rules you’ve deluded yourselves you swear by, AND make good money doing it, is romantic. Because I’ve done it, and I could do it again. In London. Tomorrow.

Heads Up – The Blue Hour

Those of you that call in regularly, and bless you – I love you, will notice The Hymnal’s had a change of header. The image featured is by kind permission of Brian Ferry (no, not that one) whose blog, The Blue Hour, you can find a link to below.

The photography here is extraordinary. It’s the texture of the images that I love, their colour and clarity, and the way in which the keenest of eyes and some kick-ass hardware combine to draw you all the way in. The best examples are those captured within the environment The Hymnal takes such intense pleasure spending its time, and which is why a mention can justifiably command column inches here. Not that I’m obliged to qualify what I choose to publish, although I do feel obliged to give the man a shout out for letting me use his stuff.

I suggest you go check it out.

With thanks to Brian