Restaurant Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  The whole thing has come full circle. Cuisine in this country really took off with the arrival of the French chefs who’d fled France after the Revolution. Having removed the heads of the mouths they fed, they moved into the vast baronial halls of this green and pleasant land and got cooking. At that time they were below-stairs staff who rarely, if ever, saw the light of day. But as the finances of the posh were slowly depleted due to death duties and the First World War, so the chefs to the gentry had to find alternative means of employment and started to work in restaurants. Mrs Patmore in Downton Abbey will surely be working in some London restaurant come series seven, eight or fourteen set in 1955. Then, slowly but surely, what had been downstairs’ staff started to stare out through the glass porthole window. Occasionally, they were invited through, to be applauded for their fine work. It was at that moment they saw the pretty girls and the rich men and decided they wanted a piece of the action.

  The Roux brothers were among the first to cross the Rubicon and they opened the door for everyone else to follow. But now the door is closing. I don’t think people are that interested in who’s cooking, just so long as it’s good, the restaurant is fun and the service is quick, slick and not intrusive. Surely there are only so many times you can watch a man dressed in whites scream at another over the soup?

  ‘You’re just bigging yourself up,’ says Andrew.

  ‘OK, then,’ I agree. ‘But tell me who are the hot chefs at the moment?’

  ‘Ollie Dabbous,’ says Oscar. ‘His coddled egg was one of the best things I have eaten in my life.’

  ‘He is great, but you can’t get into his place for months, which is a disaster. The longest waiting list you should have is six weeks. Otherwise you just have the Happy Birthday crowd in, or people who are prepared to wait six months for a bit of grub. It’s the quickest way to lose the buzz. It’ll fly like anything for a year, maybe more, and then die slowly.’

  ‘He is great, though, and Heston. Dinner is my favourite place to eat in London,’ says Oscar.

  ‘I’ll give you that, it’s bloody delicious.’

  ‘I like St John Bread and Wine,’ says Andrew. ‘Fergus Henderson.’

  ‘Yup,’ I nod.

  ‘The Ledbury? Brett Graham? Two stars. Voted thirteenth best restaurant in the world?’ Oscar looks at me.

  ‘I’ve been there once,’ I reply. ‘The food was great, but it wasn’t fun. Did I have a laugh? No. I wanted to relax, chat to my friends, be entertained. I’d rather have a conversation with my guests than have to spend every tenth minute acknowledging the waiter, while he waits for our conversation to expire and explains to us the intricacies of a dish that we have already ordered.’

  ‘I’m with you,’ sniffs Andrew, pouring himself another shot. ‘The places I like are anything Mark Hix does, the Pitt Cue, Meat Liquor, Meat Market, and I love the specials board at Koya – you meet half of London’s chefs there and I love that other Jap, Sushi Tetsu – it’s only got seven seats.’

  ‘Christ!’ I say, holding my head. ‘Where’s the money in that?’

  ‘The scene is split three ways at the moment,’ Oscar pipes up. ‘The first is clean, cooking big flavours, no sauces. Simple, proper stuff like Polpo, Polpetto, etc. Then you’ve got the crazy stuff, Heston, Noma, Dabbous, James Knappett’s Kitchen Table, the blow-your-head-off stuff that you’d have never thought of, and then there’s your classic cooking.’

  ‘But you can have too much crazy humour with your food. I went to elBulli a while ago and I have to say I got more than a little pissed off,’ says Andrew.

  ‘Really?’ replies Oscar. ‘I loved that place.’

  ‘There were elements that were funny and clever and there was craft and good use of ingredients and all that, but the chef had gone mad with the yuzu sauce, so I asked the waiter if the chef had been to Japan recently and he said “Yes”. I felt like saying, “You’re supposed to be a Catalan cook, back off with yuzu. I’m glad you had a nice time in Japan but we don’t want to see your holiday snaps as well.”’

  ‘I’m over Asian confusion,’ says Oscar. ‘It’s all full of salt, sugar and bloody MSG, you can taste the stuff as soon as you dig in.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m out of here,’ announces Andrew.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t have another drink?’ I look up at the other table, at the others who are all knocking back the wine and cocktails and about to get on a par with the remainder of the office party crowd.

  ‘Not here, here,’ says Andrew, refilling his glass. ‘I’m going private.’ I look puzzled. ‘I’ve got a position in a private house, big posh family just outside Henley on Thames. Stacks of money – well, a nice £90,000 anyway – great hours, holidays and, best of all, no bloody pressure.’

  ‘When did you decide that?’

  ‘A while back.’

  ‘You’re going back below stairs?’ I ask. ‘Like Downton?’

  ‘It’s not bloody Downton, and anyway, I can always come back into the game in a couple of years. And who knows? I might save up some cash and get my own place.’

  Good luck to him, I think, as I have another stiff swig of my martini. I’d like to see how Andrew fares when he has his own place, so he is not in the shit, but cleaning it up.

  1–2 a.m.

  Rentokil turned up at Le Restaurant and immediately set to work jet-cleaning the drains and sweeping up the effluent. Barney and the gang all lent a hand in the initial clean-up but were eventually told to leave it to the professionals. So by the time they make it to Le Bar, they are parched and a little un-fragrant. They join the other table and Adam makes sure they have enough beer.

  ‘How’s it all looking?’ I ask Barney, trying not to sit too close to him.

  It is amazing how a stench that strong clings to your clothes. When I first started working in kitchens I had a girlfriend who complained I smelt of onions whenever I turned up at her place. It was a nightmare. I used to spend hours in the shower after service trying to get rid of the smell of food, scrubbing under my fingernails, washing my hair. But I could never get rid of it. Even as I lay there, cleaner than a disinfected whistle, I could whiff the aroma of frying emanating from my skin. It was as if I had been irradiated and the stench of the kitchen had somehow inveigled itself in my bone marrow or my DNA at the very least.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ says Barney. ‘They’re on top of it already and they’ve managed to unblock the drain.’

  ‘Was it fat?’

  ‘Yup,’ he nods. ‘Not a massive fatberg, but just enough to screw us over. Anyway, most of the stuff has gone back down the drain and now they are cleaning and disinfecting.’

  ‘How long do you think?’

  ‘At least another three hours, maybe the whole night,’ he says, licking his lips as he eyes his bevy.

  ‘Tuck in!’ I say, patting him on the back. ‘And thank you all for such a great job. Very kind of you.’ I look at the rest of the table. ‘Thanks, guys, for all your hard work.’ They all stare at me; their eyes are haunted and glazed with tiredness. There is nothing like a double shift followed by some shit shovelling to really finish you off! ‘Here,’ I say, digging into my pocket. I hand round £50 each, which I think is probably enough; it’s never good to be too generous in this business, as it doesn’t take long for everyone to think you’re a soft touch, to see you coming, and for them to take the piss.

  In the meantime, Andrew and Oscar have moved on from the perils of Asian fusion and the joys of going private, and are now discussing the merits of a consultancy and, indeed, a supermarket range.

  ‘You can make quite a bit on these deals,’ says Andrew, whose elbow has now slid to a 45-degree angle. He must be on at least his fourth or fifth tequila shot, but, despite the relaxed arm, the rest of it doesn’t appear to have touched the sides. ‘I mean, I’m happy to take Tesco’s dollar.’

  ‘You would?’ Oscar’s head wobbles with alcohol and incredulity. ‘Tesco? The devil incarnate? The great big gobbling vampire squid on the face
of farming?’

  ‘We can’t all live next to farmers’ markets and eat steak that had fucking parents and membership to the Groucho Club,’ says Andrew. ‘Some people have less than twenty quid a week to spend on food.’

  ‘But Tesco’s?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind hopping to bed with Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘You wouldn’t mind hopping into bed with anyone,’ comes a languid voice laced with Marlborough (College). I’d recognize those posh tones in the morgue.

  ‘Caz!’

  ‘Hey, darling!’ She flops a skinny buttock down on the banquette, and, entirely encased in black, she looks like a stick of liquorice. ‘You’ve met Jason, Jason Stone?’ she says, flicking a hand in the general direction of the tubby little critic who’d been chomping on our best-cooked steak less than twelve hours ago.

  ‘Hi, Jason.’ I smile, pulling my service industry face out of my back pocket and popping it firmly back on. I wish Caz wouldn’t do things like this. Just when everyone is beginning to let their hair down, relax, she brings along someone whose arse you are supposed to lick. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, belching through the back of his teeth and wobbling slightly on his soft-soled shoes. The man is slaughtered. He can barely speak. Andrew budges up the banquette and pats a seat next to him.

  ‘Hey, dude, sit down.’ Andrew has an irritating ability to think he is Californian when pissed. He imagines himself in shorts, with a deep tan and a surfboard under his armpit; instead he’s in whites, with a matching skin tone and an Oyster card in his back pocket. ‘How’s it goin’?’ he persists.

  It transpires that it is ‘goin’ fine and dandy’ in the world of Jason Stone. In fact, I’d go so far as to say ‘terrific’. After a very fine one-star lunch at my establishment, he then went on to a champagne reception at the Landmark Hotel, where he knocked back some very delicious Laurent Perrier bubbles and followed a dim-sum-carrying waitress around a party, where he got to speak to the charming Russell Norman, the very witty Fernando from The Ivy and a nice bloke from the Ritz. He also bumped into Caz, who was propping up a pillar in her black dress, trying to ponce fags off anyone who was going outside, and who eventually persuaded him that he should ‘go on’. So they’d had dinner at Little Social and then they’d had a cocktail at Dean St Townhouse and, just in case either of them had a little space leftover for anything extra, they’d popped in here.

  ‘It was one of those awards when the usual suspects all won,’ proclaims Caz, fossicking around in her handbag for what I am not yet certain. ‘I mean, Colbert won restaurant of the year, I ask you.’ She hiccups slightly and pulls out a red lipstick, which she then proceeds to apply with remarkable precision bearing in mind quite how plastered she is. ‘I mean, it is a lovely place – last time I went in there Nigella was in one corner, Joan Collins was next to her with full shades action, and hunkered down to the right were Pippa AND Carole Middleton!’

  ‘Did you see her arse?’ asks Andrew.

  ‘No.’ Caz gives him one of those pitying looks posh girls reserve for Jeremy Clarkson. ‘But it is so terribly predictable,’ she continues. ‘The food is nice. That toasted sandwich is lovely.’

  ‘It’s fried in butter,’ says Jason. ‘Anything fried in butter is good. You’d be amazed how much butter you lot put in the food.’ He points a wavering finger down the table. ‘Grilled fish? Shove on some butter. Bit of steak? Shove on some butter. Butter. Salt. Sugar. All your food is slathered in the stuff. No wonder all us critics get fat. Most of us can only eat one meal a day because all your food is so packed full of calories.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be holding back today,’ I suggest.

  ‘No,’ he grins, patting his rather mobile stomach. ‘And I’m off to Plymouth tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s in Plymouth?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he says. ‘Just call me the restaurant critic’s Shabbos goy.’

  ‘Their what?’ Caz’s face crumples up like the back end of a pug. She’s cut back on the botox in these austere times. ‘What is it with you critics and your Yiddish?’

  ‘What do you expect? Eating and moaning – what better job is there in the world for a nice Jewish boy like me, than to moan about food?’ says Jason.

  ‘Yeah, but what’s a bloody Shabbos goy when it’s at home?’ asks Caz, checking her lips in the back of a spoon.

  ‘A Shabbos goy is a person who helps us out on the Sabbath, turning on a light or whatever, a sort of dogsbody, which is what I’m going to be. I’ll be the bloke to test drive all the places, travelling to Plymouth to eat a Chinese, so those other illustrious souls don’t have to.’

  ‘Really?’ asks Caz. ‘I thought that was Jay Rayner?’

  ‘I am sure if I did ever manage to winkle out a gem, they’d all come running.’

  ‘You lot always go to the same places anyway,’ I say.

  ‘Never to return!’ adds Caz. ‘The critics descend like a plague of locusts, along with the foodsters and bloggers and it is literally like nailing a supermodel. They’re in, they’re out, they notch it up on the bedhead and they’re on to the next thing. What we in the trade like is a nice loyal clientele who keep on coming back.’

  ‘Here, here,’ says Oscar, raising his glass of vodka and tonic. ‘AND you nearly always agree with each other.’

  ‘We don’t,’ says Jason.

  ‘You do,’ says Caz.

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘Well,’ starts Caz, ‘you always give anything that Chris and Jeremy open a good review; those two are untouchable and it’s only because you all want to get tables at The Wolseley and Scott’s. Breakfast at The Wolseley is always soooo full of fashion PRs and journalists, it’s a joke.’

  ‘You’d know, Caz,’ I say, taking another large glug of my martini. ‘You’ve practically got your own table.’

  ‘Don’t be rude to me,’ she says, putting her hand in front of her face. ‘I’ve had a bad day. Quite apart from your launch, which you barely managed to turn up to, I had to fill a restaurant for bloody Adrian bloody Gill, which no doubt he’ll slag off anyway. And then I had a phone call from another place I look after who told me that some cheeky sod of a hack was taking the piss and ordering £200 bottles of wine and shoving it all on the bill. Honestly, you give them a three-course dinner with a bottle of house red or white AND a bloody aperitif, and they start getting all grand and ordering expensive bottles of wine and expecting the restaurant to foot the bill. So I’ve had a blazing row with him and I am fucking never working with that tosspot ever again. And I haven’t been paid.’

  ‘Who hasn’t paid you?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, some restaurant,’ she says, shaking her head.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This really sleazy man who has some crap place around the corner from here. I’ve done more than three months’ work for him and he’s not going to pay me.’

  ‘But that’s not allowed.’ I am feeling a little protective of Caz. She’s a one-man band and she hasn’t got backers or investors to help her out. If she doesn’t get paid, she’ll have to cover her expenses and wages out of her own pocket. ‘How much does he owe?’

  ‘Seventeen K. I’m pretty sure he’s some drug-dealing fuckwit and he told me to back off today and that he was never going to pay me. He was quite threatening and there’s absolutely bugger all I can do about it.’

  ‘But that’s terrible and illegal. All that work.’

  She sighs. ‘Shall I have a cocktail?’

  Caz and Jason spend the next few minutes perusing the cocktail menu. I am not sure if either of them is really capable of vision, because they both laboriously go down the pages with their index fingers and then, incapable of deciphering the print or indeed making a decision, they both plump for a vodka martini. Not that either of them needs any more.

  ‘Shall we go clubbing?’ Caz suddenly suggests, wrinkling up her nose and cracking a smile. ‘Club? Club? Club?’ she asks each of the boys around the table, pointing at them
with her sharp index finger. They are all far too terrified to demur. ‘We could go to the Arts Club?’

  ‘I am not sure they’d let half of us in in our whites,’ I say. ‘And the rest of us smell of sewage.’

  She looks puzzled. ‘Yes, I was wondering … didn’t really want to say, but what is that weird smell?’

  ‘We’ve got a few drain problems.’

  ‘Ew!’ She pauses. ‘We could go to that club around the corner, your local, where they let you in the back door? That one? They wouldn’t mind you and your stinking chefs, you’d blend in nicely.’

  ‘Ah. There’s a slight problem with that.’

  Being part of a community works quite a few ways. So we lend L’Italiano milk and butter and whatever stuff they’ve run out of, on the condition that they pay it back eventually and that their waiter doesn’t come ambling through our restaurant during the middle of service, bottle of milk in hand, ogling the pretty girls at the same time. We’ll also give various other owners of various other bars and restaurants in the surrounding streets a few free drinks here and there in Le Bar, just to keep everyone happy. In return we get a few free drinks around and about, as well as access to a few clubs.

  In the olden days when I was a bit younger and firmer and could pull a WAG, we’d finish our shift and call up our mates at China White and they’d let us in through the kitchens. In the capital, as in any city, there’s a whole subsection of urban night owls who only begin to get going at around two in the morning and who all know each other. We know the bars that stay open late, the places where you can still get a drink at five and how to get into most places for free. It is a mutual back-scratching exercise and in theory it works. If we all keep scratching, that is.

  However, a few months ago I tried out a couple of bouncers at Le Bar. I don’t know what I was thinking, really, because it’s not that sort of place, and we’ve never had that many problems there, nothing like tonight even. But anyway, I thought it might look good. I was hoping for a doorman vibe, a little bit Scott’s, a little bit Wolseley, a little bit kidding myself, because what I got was a couple of monosyllabic cage-fighters looking for a fight and an outlet for their steroid abuse. So I terminated their services, only to find they had friends in lots of places who didn’t like me ‘dissing’ their mates. As a result, I can no longer take my lame arse dancing at the local club and I am not welcome at the pole and lap the other side of Regent Street. And there is even a small coffee bar just down the road that won’t take my custom. None of it is any bad thing – there are only so many times you can go to places like The Box and watch a man anally ingest a wine bottle and still keep your dignity. But I am quite pissed off about the coffee, though, as they have some very nice buns and one of the best baristas in town.