The Guardian
Grace Dent – with no thanks to her subeditors at the Guardian, who failed dismally to come to her rescue – got herself into a geographical pickle in her review of a new restaurant from former Elystan Street chef Aaron Potter and interiors stylist Laura Hart.
Normally, such an issue would hardly matter in a restaurant review – but Grace’s intro and the posh-teasing thread that ran through the piece all depended on us being with her in “Belgravia” – a locale characterised in her final pay-off line as “full of snobs, it’s like another planet”.
Unfortunately, she (and/or the subs) managed to transpose the action to Pimlico – Belgravia’s significantly less posh cousin on the wrong side of the railway tracks that lead into Victoria station – beginning with her opening quip that “Pimlico is an area I tend to avoid”. Having made a couple more comments in this vein, she suddenly announced half way through the review that “this is Belgravia, where even breathing is expensive” – and we’re finally where we should be.
As for the restaurant, Grace very much appreciated its “hearty menu” of food that was “thoughtful and fancy – but not painfully fancy”, and with “a heavenly absence of tweezers”. The generosity of the portions clearly surprised her in such elevated environs: “I suddenly remembered how many Lilliputian dinners I had eaten recently… This was the sort of lunch when even my tights felt tighter afterwards.”
Her meal ended on a high note, and at the right address, with a slice of lemon tart: “Just like Belgravia, it was sweet, refined and so beautiful that it made me feel shabby and unkempt in its presence.”
Grace Dent - 2024-11-03
