The Times
Charlotte Ivers dined fashionably early at a cool new restaurant, an experience that left her as “frazzled” as the waiter, given that the tables were limited to 60 minutes (90 minutes if you sit at the counter), her boyfriend was 18 minutes late, and they had to negotiate their way through a tricky list of unfamiliar wines which “like all natural wines were perfectly nice if you like the taste of hay dissolved in vinegar (which I do), and perfectly horrible if you don’t”.
“There’s some great stuff” on the menu, she said, praising a “lovely, hearty oxtail ragout with rice” and a “chic” tomato salad on a bed of figs and crumbled Spenwood cheese.
But “I can’t report on the bread treacle ice cream because at 86 minutes we were told they needed the table (sorry, slice of bar) back. ‘But you could eat it standing up?’ says the waiter hopefully. Sorry. Life is too short, and doing that would make me wish it was shorter. He says he’s sorry, and looks it. He offers a free glass of dessert wine, then seems immediately to forget we accepted the offer. We don’t push it — he’s frazzled.”
Charlotte’s conclusion: “It’ll be really good. But go in a year or two.
Charlotte Ivers - 2024-10-06
