Over the past couple of years I've been lucky enough to go to tens of accolade-laden restaurants in the UK, from the twinkle-townish Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester; to the ultimate country pub, The Nut Tree Inn; to the buzzing lively, and nigh impossible to spell, Yauatcha in Soho. Most have been unique in some way, and the brief list of uniqueness could have continued for longer than your attention towards my fledgling blog. So we will continue...
Looking back over the last paragraph I have already acquired a bit of a twinge; you know the one you get when you feel like you're boasting, and that's the thing. By saying I go to great restaurants are you saying: "I love to eat delicious food" or "I go to expensive restaurants"? I fear that it's often taken as the latter, and understandably so. In 1997 Le Gavroche, owned by the current BBC 'man of the hour' Michel Roux Jr, entered the Guinness Book of World Records for serving the most expensive meal per head ($20,945) and the best typically came at a steep price. These places have a reputation for refinery, and high prices, but that's not always necessarily so.
As I hardly need to tell you, the world is quite a different place from 1997, and over the last few years even, or arguably especially, the top restaurants have had to work to fill their tables with offers like the fixed price menu. I'll give you an example, Anthony Demetre's deservedly starred Artubus, does an excellent three course lunch menu for £16.95, and early/late dinner for £18.95, which is less than many a main at the Angus Steakhouse chain restaurants. Now I'm not saying that all the great restaurants have deals, but over the last couple of years many, including the two and three starred restaurants, have followed suit. There is some excellent food out there to be tried without haemorrhaging money, you just need to know where to look.
A good place to start is Toptable and Squaremeal, (with the former doing the legwork for you if you call them), or just checking the restaurant websites for their lunch menu. The likelihood is that many will be at lunch time, but for me that's my favourite time to eat, especially on the weekend. Over the last year or so I've been populating a spreadsheet and map of places that I've been and want to go, including information on who and when has a cheeky lunch offer on the go. This I will share after I have tailored it for public eyes.
It's OK to drink the tap water. This isn't a public statement on safety, or levels of flouride, but relating to the pressure of how you feel you should act when you're in these swanky places. The waiter will not look down on you if you would rather have tap water than pay £8 for a bottle of mineral water in it, and they'll happily pop a bit of lemon in there too if you like. It sounds a bit silly my writing this, but I recall my first visit to a swanky (but coincidentally stuffier) restaurant, Murano, and almost feeling nervous about being there and doing the wrong thing. Nowadays I relax and just enjoy the experience. To me if their service was good then you won't leave feeling judged, if you do leave feeling like that then they didn't do enough to make you feel comfortable. At the end of the day it's all about the food, at least on this blog!
The above applies to drinking. I've never managed to go there and not drink, but if you don't want the Champagne, the aperitif or the desert wine, then that's fine. Hell if you're loopy enough to not want to want to try the usually amazing wines then that's fine too.
I know that this may sound like an elementary lesson on free will, but I've heard so many people say that they end up spending more money than they're comfortable with because they were afraid to say no. Personally I always struggle to say no to something that sounds delicious, but knowing and feeling like I can say takes the pressure off the experience. This, I suppose, links up to the whole reason for writing the Wide Eyed Food Guide: I wanted to start the blog with a few fundamentals points that may help build the picture of accessibility, because that's what it's all about. The only thing that should humble you in a good restaurant is the taste, smell and feeling that make up the experience. Yes, it should be seen as something special to look forward to, and even dress up for, but never to the point where you feel like a trespasser.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Sunday, 16 January 2011
The Wide Eyed Food Guide: An Introduction
Food, it's a disease and it's infectious; it's been slowly taking over my life for years now and like an alcoholic I think that I need an outlet to share my addiction... Well that felt particularly cliched and overdramatic, but the fact is that for the past week I have been debating about how to start my latest blog and it has been the reason for a delay that I'd rather avoid... So here we go, ribbon - check, scissors - check, local politician - check: the Wide Eyed Food Guide is officially open.
For those of you who know me, and of whom I hope will be helping to buoy my initial read-rate (thanks), I love to write, and I love food, so what a more perfect marriage than a juxtaposition of the two, and in a year when I am fully intending to explore both London, and stuff that I can be passionate about. Since finishing my last blog, Liam in the Latin, I have been desperate to find a new project to apply myself to. Considering the fact that I spend my whole day planning my dinner, my week planning something adventurous to cook/eat on the weekend, and any time in-between looking for any meagre excuse to go out to see what the real experts can create, then I may as well be putting it down somewhere. So with this in mind, it's probably more of a surprise that I have managed to avoid doing this for so long.
I believe that good food is a privilege and not a right, and should us be treated with both awe and respect; almost with the attitude of a child, embracing, and deconstructing, new tastes, smells and textures for the first time. I think that we're so incredibly lucky to be in an age where global is the new local, and the previously unattainable is conveniently available. During our frequent trips to some of the countries top restaurants, Oli and I were both struck by how dismissive and unimpressed many of the other diners looked, almost like it was a chore. The supreme skill, passion, attention and love that had gone into each and every one of those dishes were almost humbling, and to me anything other than captivation is almost disrespectful. The Wide Eyed Food Guide, to us, is to approach eating and cooking with the appreciation that it deserves.
So with regards to context, this blog is about food and London; seeing as that's where I live. And what a wonderful place to live as a foodie! What may have once been the failing, I believe, is now its saving grace. With the absence of a strong culinary identity, London's lack of definition by a particular cuisine has turned it into a mixing pot of food (excuse the pun). My objective is to seek out great food, to learn about it, to talk about it, to understand it, and, of course, to write about it.
For those of you who know me, and of whom I hope will be helping to buoy my initial read-rate (thanks), I love to write, and I love food, so what a more perfect marriage than a juxtaposition of the two, and in a year when I am fully intending to explore both London, and stuff that I can be passionate about. Since finishing my last blog, Liam in the Latin, I have been desperate to find a new project to apply myself to. Considering the fact that I spend my whole day planning my dinner, my week planning something adventurous to cook/eat on the weekend, and any time in-between looking for any meagre excuse to go out to see what the real experts can create, then I may as well be putting it down somewhere. So with this in mind, it's probably more of a surprise that I have managed to avoid doing this for so long.
The Wide Eyed Food Guide is already not exactly what it was supposed to be; originally the brainchild of myself and my friend Oli, the plan was to write about great food in great places, but without pretension. Unfortunately, the other half of the 'Wide Eyed Food Guys' is now about to bugger off across the Atlantic to find his fortune in the New World for the next six months, which leaves me at home with the baby.
What this does mean, is that I now have the creative reigns to expand this as I please, and with so much to do in the area that I live in (Hoxton), I doubt I will be without all kind of experiences to write about. But firstly, and much more importantly, I never start out a blog with some kind of mission statement or objective, and although this time there's not really a destination, there will be an overriding theme to my writings. This theme, or flavour if you like, is as follows:
I believe that good food is a privilege and not a right, and should us be treated with both awe and respect; almost with the attitude of a child, embracing, and deconstructing, new tastes, smells and textures for the first time. I think that we're so incredibly lucky to be in an age where global is the new local, and the previously unattainable is conveniently available. During our frequent trips to some of the countries top restaurants, Oli and I were both struck by how dismissive and unimpressed many of the other diners looked, almost like it was a chore. The supreme skill, passion, attention and love that had gone into each and every one of those dishes were almost humbling, and to me anything other than captivation is almost disrespectful. The Wide Eyed Food Guide, to us, is to approach eating and cooking with the appreciation that it deserves.
So with regards to context, this blog is about food and London; seeing as that's where I live. And what a wonderful place to live as a foodie! What may have once been the failing, I believe, is now its saving grace. With the absence of a strong culinary identity, London's lack of definition by a particular cuisine has turned it into a mixing pot of food (excuse the pun). My objective is to seek out great food, to learn about it, to talk about it, to understand it, and, of course, to write about it.
Regardless of whether anyone actually reads this or not, I can't wait to get writing about, and sharing, these food experiences, and, as I've found in the past, if my ramblings do find their way onto someone's reading list, then thank you for reading.
Liam
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