The Lockside Café
No.1 Brunel Lock Road
Cumberland Basin
Hotwells
Bristol BS1 6XS
www.lockside.net
0117 9255 800
by Egon Toast
Following on from the recent bombshell that Only Fools and Horses is to be refashioned into some braying horror by our chums on the other side of the pond, I'm afraid I have another bubble-burster for you, oh sensitive Londoners: Sid’s Café from said programme, only the flippin’ icon of cockney breakfastery what’s been beamed into gazillions of houses across the globe for the past 30 years… is actually in Bristol . It can be found a mere cheese roll away from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. And it looks nothing like Sid’s, having had a right old makeover, make no mistake.
And it’s a funny old spot, too: a blimmin’ liminal location, located in the undercarriage of a flyover, seems to free it from your everyday timekeeping norms; akin to those floating hospitality zones in airports and service stations it’s the kind of place to eat steak and chips at three in the morning. As it was, we arrived at an eminently sensible 9am, plonk(er)ing ourselves down amongst brightly-coloured globular furniture – Barbarella meets Tellytubbies, yeah? – and were soon fussed over by our waitress, whose largesse with the foundation brush only gave further credence to that 24/7 retro-future vibe.
The menus, laminated, were duly examinated. I wanted to see how they had modernised the fake Peckham greasy spoon experience for today’s post-ironic arteries, while the distaff, forsaking the Full English that made her the woman she is today, went for some form of drop scone and bacon concoction. Our orders were taken swiftly. Bouncily. Cheerily, even. Rodney would have had a cardiac.
After a brief intermission, my plate of fried bounty arrived, and was all that one could want from a vaguely upscale protein-heavy feast: the bacon streaked, the yolk oozed, and all was steaming and soothing. They also gladdened my greedy soul by providing ample supplies of toast, the hallmark of a dining room that wishes to impart joy to its customers (there are few things more disheartening than an un-mopped slick of breakfast sauce). The pan-cake and bacon abomination was respectable, too, even if it did come with fruit - the sort of Continental affectation that has no place on one’s morning plate, even if you're eating in a spaceship from the 1970s.
So there’s no balding wheezer behind the stove. And it looks like the canteen from the Starship Enterprise. And no apology was forthcoming re: the shattering of capital-city, Lyndhurst-fixated hearts. But it didn't matter, really – the bonhomie exuded by all those involved with Sids 2.0 meant that our ventricles had been glued back together with a hearty dose of what the Bristol Marketing Board has implored me to call ‘West Country cheer’. Gurt lush? Gertcha.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Friday, March 02, 2012
Allpress Espresso, Shoreditch
Allpress Espresso
58 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DP
020 7749 1780
www.allpressespresso.com
by Johnny Cep
I first spied Allpress Espresso from Arnold Circus, an area I liked to circle on my bike when I had one, in 2011. It’s halfway down Redchurch Street and, bar the advertising on the after-hours shutter, appears to be a discreet, knowing and un-Antipodean fixture, oddly enough given that it is in fact of Kiwi origin.
Originally an espresso company set up by Michael Allpress (real name!) in New Zealand, Allpress moved to Shoreditch in 2010 and has since proved monumentally popular, providing most of the restaurants within spitting distance with its beans pre-roasted in the massive machine in the back room which, through the glass, reminds you of those working museums you visited in coaches at school.
As to whether it’s a café or a shop, it’s still undecided. People like its wholesale vibes, slightly under-varnished wooden floor and coffee, ergo, they arrive in droves. Foodwise, they do a good line in ambitious, well-filled sandwiches which require two hands, but the breakfast is much less of a gamble: tidy pastries, granola, yoghurt and compote, or toast which comes with eggs and smoked salmon, salted butter and marmalade or avocado, sliced cheese, tomatoes and a boiled egg, all of which are excellent to boot, even by the standards of London’s modish crush on soda bread.
I went with Dan who had the soda bread, toasted, while I had two soft-boiled eggs. This was a dicey move. I once had soft-boiled eggs at The Wolseley which were underboiled by circa 70 seconds. My two cracked (read: checked) soft-boiled eggs with pre-buttered soldiers here, however, were terrific and pillow-soft. Too much toast for the egg, sure, but I stole Dan’s marmalade, served jazzily in a shot glass, and showed the eggs what’s what.
Just as our plates were being cleared, in walked Ralph Fiennes complete with Young Vic beard, iPhone and massive rucksack. He sat down, nebbishly ordered then par-consumed the avocado, cheese and egg plate. I was going to ask him what he had in his massive rucksack until Dan delivered the crushing reality that I didn’t know him. Bothered, I decided to play with the tap-water-dispenser instead, a novel toy with a push-down button and a tray to catch spillages, and managed to spill my glass on the bar.
There are many, many good things about Allpress Espresso. Chief among them is the coffee. I had a white-long-black which sounds like a dress code but is in fact Kiwi vernacular for an Americano-style coffee which allows you to curate your own water and hot milk. The beans are clean-tasting and sweet compared to Monmouth Coffee which, I feel, burns theirs on occasion. I realise saying this aloud is tantamount to racism but there you go. Other plus points: the doors, which bend open and are deeply cool, and the lack of queue. Clientele move apace thanks to the staff - charming, big teeth – although they take their sweet time to clear the dirties.
Sadly, Allpress also attracts a lot of Media Meetings. The day we decided to go, fair-isle reached critical mass, but those undesirables soon finished their drinks and left, presumably to draw some lines or whatever, leaving us – Ralph, Dan and I - to finish our perfect eggs in peace.
58 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch
E2 7DP
020 7749 1780
www.allpressespresso.com
by Johnny Cep
I first spied Allpress Espresso from Arnold Circus, an area I liked to circle on my bike when I had one, in 2011. It’s halfway down Redchurch Street and, bar the advertising on the after-hours shutter, appears to be a discreet, knowing and un-Antipodean fixture, oddly enough given that it is in fact of Kiwi origin.
Originally an espresso company set up by Michael Allpress (real name!) in New Zealand, Allpress moved to Shoreditch in 2010 and has since proved monumentally popular, providing most of the restaurants within spitting distance with its beans pre-roasted in the massive machine in the back room which, through the glass, reminds you of those working museums you visited in coaches at school.
As to whether it’s a café or a shop, it’s still undecided. People like its wholesale vibes, slightly under-varnished wooden floor and coffee, ergo, they arrive in droves. Foodwise, they do a good line in ambitious, well-filled sandwiches which require two hands, but the breakfast is much less of a gamble: tidy pastries, granola, yoghurt and compote, or toast which comes with eggs and smoked salmon, salted butter and marmalade or avocado, sliced cheese, tomatoes and a boiled egg, all of which are excellent to boot, even by the standards of London’s modish crush on soda bread.
I went with Dan who had the soda bread, toasted, while I had two soft-boiled eggs. This was a dicey move. I once had soft-boiled eggs at The Wolseley which were underboiled by circa 70 seconds. My two cracked (read: checked) soft-boiled eggs with pre-buttered soldiers here, however, were terrific and pillow-soft. Too much toast for the egg, sure, but I stole Dan’s marmalade, served jazzily in a shot glass, and showed the eggs what’s what.
Just as our plates were being cleared, in walked Ralph Fiennes complete with Young Vic beard, iPhone and massive rucksack. He sat down, nebbishly ordered then par-consumed the avocado, cheese and egg plate. I was going to ask him what he had in his massive rucksack until Dan delivered the crushing reality that I didn’t know him. Bothered, I decided to play with the tap-water-dispenser instead, a novel toy with a push-down button and a tray to catch spillages, and managed to spill my glass on the bar.
There are many, many good things about Allpress Espresso. Chief among them is the coffee. I had a white-long-black which sounds like a dress code but is in fact Kiwi vernacular for an Americano-style coffee which allows you to curate your own water and hot milk. The beans are clean-tasting and sweet compared to Monmouth Coffee which, I feel, burns theirs on occasion. I realise saying this aloud is tantamount to racism but there you go. Other plus points: the doors, which bend open and are deeply cool, and the lack of queue. Clientele move apace thanks to the staff - charming, big teeth – although they take their sweet time to clear the dirties.
Sadly, Allpress also attracts a lot of Media Meetings. The day we decided to go, fair-isle reached critical mass, but those undesirables soon finished their drinks and left, presumably to draw some lines or whatever, leaving us – Ralph, Dan and I - to finish our perfect eggs in peace.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Special Dispatch: Paper Moon Diner, Baltimore
Paper Moon Diner
227 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
United States
by Joyce Carol Oats
I marked the dawn of 2012 with a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich at Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore. The new year, I’d decided, would be one in which I demonstrated unprecedented self-restraint. And it was for this reason that when the waiter asked me which breakfast meat I wanted in my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich (sausage, ham, or crispy bacon), I said loud and clear, and with maybe a tiny bit of a tone that implied he was suggesting an excessive indulgence: ‘no breakfast meat, thank you’.
This meant that my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich would consist not of two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese, a fried egg and breakfast meat, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup, but only two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese and a fried egg, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup. The dieter’s Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, if you will.
Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner that someone decided to decorate with decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers? Or did someone have a collection of decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers and did that someone think, ‘I need to get a diner to properly showcase this shit’? It’s a perplexing question. But something about Paper Moon Diner -- something about the way happy American families sit at tables in there blithely chewing pancakes under naked toddler dolls suspended from the ceiling with cords like ligatures -- made me feel that asking is not the done thing.
And so I turned my attention, instead, to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, placed before me by the friendly waiter on a thick white diner plate. It was puffy and golden, presented without any garnish but a small steel pot filled with the crucial maple-flavoured syrup, microwave-warmed to aid liquidity. (An important touch: many diner chefs apply the maple-flavoured syrup to breakfast treats in the kitchen, causing an unacceptable sogginess). Cutting in to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich -- for this is a sandwich with the use of knife and fork intrinsic to its design -- I was pleased to note that the texture of the bread was springy and light; surprised to see that the central cheese and egg was not greasy.
The first bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich revealed that it was a pleasant melange of sweet and savoury, with the perfect amount of morning-after champagne-soaking carbohydrate. The second bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich filled my heart with a flood of regret: why had I deluded myself that my lofty refusal of breakfast meat made me any better than any other feckless glutton eating a fried egg-and-cheese sandwich served on deep-fried battered white bread? But third bite of my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich restored my confidence. For although it made me certain that I would never again eat a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich in a diner decorated by someone with a hoarding fetish, there was no question that my life would have been poorer if I had not tried it once.
227 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
United States
by Joyce Carol Oats
I marked the dawn of 2012 with a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich at Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore. The new year, I’d decided, would be one in which I demonstrated unprecedented self-restraint. And it was for this reason that when the waiter asked me which breakfast meat I wanted in my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich (sausage, ham, or crispy bacon), I said loud and clear, and with maybe a tiny bit of a tone that implied he was suggesting an excessive indulgence: ‘no breakfast meat, thank you’.
This meant that my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich would consist not of two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese, a fried egg and breakfast meat, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup, but only two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese and a fried egg, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup. The dieter’s Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, if you will.
Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner that someone decided to decorate with decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers? Or did someone have a collection of decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers and did that someone think, ‘I need to get a diner to properly showcase this shit’? It’s a perplexing question. But something about Paper Moon Diner -- something about the way happy American families sit at tables in there blithely chewing pancakes under naked toddler dolls suspended from the ceiling with cords like ligatures -- made me feel that asking is not the done thing.
And so I turned my attention, instead, to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, placed before me by the friendly waiter on a thick white diner plate. It was puffy and golden, presented without any garnish but a small steel pot filled with the crucial maple-flavoured syrup, microwave-warmed to aid liquidity. (An important touch: many diner chefs apply the maple-flavoured syrup to breakfast treats in the kitchen, causing an unacceptable sogginess). Cutting in to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich -- for this is a sandwich with the use of knife and fork intrinsic to its design -- I was pleased to note that the texture of the bread was springy and light; surprised to see that the central cheese and egg was not greasy.
The first bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich revealed that it was a pleasant melange of sweet and savoury, with the perfect amount of morning-after champagne-soaking carbohydrate. The second bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich filled my heart with a flood of regret: why had I deluded myself that my lofty refusal of breakfast meat made me any better than any other feckless glutton eating a fried egg-and-cheese sandwich served on deep-fried battered white bread? But third bite of my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich restored my confidence. For although it made me certain that I would never again eat a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich in a diner decorated by someone with a hoarding fetish, there was no question that my life would have been poorer if I had not tried it once.
Monday, February 13, 2012
An open letter
From: T.N. Toost, US Bureau Chief, London Review of Breakfasts
To: All candidates for President of the United States of America
Dear Candidate,
As you no doubt know, The London Review of Breakfasts is the preeminent breakfast review organization in London, and as such is in a unique position to offer you the kind of international attention that you have no chance of finding anywhere else. We have a cadre of fans all around the world, many of whom vote in the most important elections in your country.
Our American bureau is conveniently located in Cleveland, Ohio – a small, sleepy yet important village on the North Coast of America. Because of your election system that almost nobody else in the world understands (save us, mind), Ohio is going to be one of the must-win states.
We therefore invite you to a candidate breakfast to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on a date convenient for you. To help you understand the importance of this breakfast, the last time we invited the candidates to breakfast, in 2008, John McCain, Ron Paul, Hilary Clinton and John Edwards all turned us down, citing scheduling conflicts. Each and every one of them lost the election.
Once we have interviewed each of the candidates extensively we will be in a position to endorse the candidate who will eventually win the nomination and the Presidential election in November.
We are busy, however, so please contact us soon to ensure that your schedule can be arranged to accommodate ours.
We look forward to breakfast with the future POTUS.
Sincerely,
Malcolm Eggs and T. N. Toost
The Ohio primary is on 6 March 2012
To: All candidates for President of the United States of America
Dear Candidate,
As you no doubt know, The London Review of Breakfasts is the preeminent breakfast review organization in London, and as such is in a unique position to offer you the kind of international attention that you have no chance of finding anywhere else. We have a cadre of fans all around the world, many of whom vote in the most important elections in your country.
Our American bureau is conveniently located in Cleveland, Ohio – a small, sleepy yet important village on the North Coast of America. Because of your election system that almost nobody else in the world understands (save us, mind), Ohio is going to be one of the must-win states.
We therefore invite you to a candidate breakfast to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on a date convenient for you. To help you understand the importance of this breakfast, the last time we invited the candidates to breakfast, in 2008, John McCain, Ron Paul, Hilary Clinton and John Edwards all turned us down, citing scheduling conflicts. Each and every one of them lost the election.
Once we have interviewed each of the candidates extensively we will be in a position to endorse the candidate who will eventually win the nomination and the Presidential election in November.
We are busy, however, so please contact us soon to ensure that your schedule can be arranged to accommodate ours.
We look forward to breakfast with the future POTUS.
Sincerely,
Malcolm Eggs and T. N. Toost
The Ohio primary is on 6 March 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Fleet River Bakery, Holborn
The Fleet River Bakery
71 Lincolns Inn Fields
Holborn
WC2A 3JF
020 7691 1457
www.fleetriverbakery.com
by Flora Ashley
There are a few things which drive me into a vicious, murderous rage: tourists who dawdle on Tube platforms; people who sniff persistently; tights which ladder at the heel after a day’s wear; Melanie Philips; and overheated university libraries. Another is cafes which don’t include prices on their blackboard-walled menus.
Why, I ask you, should a relatively low-priced restaurant not inform its customers how much their coffee, cake, soup, and sandwiches will cost? Why so coy? Surely they understand that the transfer of money from customer to shopkeeper is vital to the success of any business? Do they realise that the only person in Britain who considers references to money to be vulgar is Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and she’s a character in a TV series?
Ahem.
It’s because of this strange fiscal bashfulness that I haven’t been to the Fleet River Bakery for more than two years. I used to pop by for coffee whenever I used the LSE’s excellent library. But on the sole occasion that I stopped for lunch, I was so hungry that I didn’t notice the lack of prices on the menu. When I arrived at the front of the queue, I was charged nearly ten quid for a slice of quiche, salad, and something to drink. I lost my temper and stalked out.
I was so afflicted with guilt – my behaviour was ridiculous, and it was hardly the fault of the cashier that the Bakery didn’t list prices – that I couldn’t return. I skirted the Bakery for months, stealing glances at its delicious-looking pastries and lovely coffee from behind the upturned points of my coat collar.
But relief arrived a few weeks ago, in the form of breakfast with ML, a friend who studies at the LSE. I was curious about her choice of the Bakery: had her degree in economics transformed her into a proto-banker so rapacious that menu prices no longer meant anything to her? Or did she agree with my views on menu pricing, and suggested the Bakery because it had changed its policy? So brave in the belief that the staff wouldn’t recognise me with shorter hair, I returned. And I am so pleased I did. I could not recommend the Fleet River Bakery’s breakfasts highly enough.
True, these are not substantial beans-and-bacon-and-eggs breakfasts, nor do they offer porridge, pancakes, nor any of the variations of eggs Benedict. But their focus on pastry means that they produce something so close to the Platonic ideal of the croissant that one can forgive their austere attitude towards choice at the breakfast table. Their croissants are so buttery that they need only to be eaten with jam, and I was halfway through mine before I remembered to smear jam on it. ML’s pain au chocolat was as much chocolat as it was pain. The flat whites came in deep cups, and at just the right temperature: neither tongue-blisteringly hot, nor insipidly cold.
The Bakery itself is pleasingly cosy, with its wooden tables and comfortable chairs squirrelled away into nooks and corners. And ML and I talked away an hour in the basement. She’s considering a career in community radio, and approved heartily of the well-displayed prices on the menu: croissants were £2 each, and flat whites £2.60.
71 Lincolns Inn Fields
Holborn
WC2A 3JF
020 7691 1457
www.fleetriverbakery.com
by Flora Ashley
There are a few things which drive me into a vicious, murderous rage: tourists who dawdle on Tube platforms; people who sniff persistently; tights which ladder at the heel after a day’s wear; Melanie Philips; and overheated university libraries. Another is cafes which don’t include prices on their blackboard-walled menus.
Why, I ask you, should a relatively low-priced restaurant not inform its customers how much their coffee, cake, soup, and sandwiches will cost? Why so coy? Surely they understand that the transfer of money from customer to shopkeeper is vital to the success of any business? Do they realise that the only person in Britain who considers references to money to be vulgar is Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and she’s a character in a TV series?
Ahem.
It’s because of this strange fiscal bashfulness that I haven’t been to the Fleet River Bakery for more than two years. I used to pop by for coffee whenever I used the LSE’s excellent library. But on the sole occasion that I stopped for lunch, I was so hungry that I didn’t notice the lack of prices on the menu. When I arrived at the front of the queue, I was charged nearly ten quid for a slice of quiche, salad, and something to drink. I lost my temper and stalked out.
I was so afflicted with guilt – my behaviour was ridiculous, and it was hardly the fault of the cashier that the Bakery didn’t list prices – that I couldn’t return. I skirted the Bakery for months, stealing glances at its delicious-looking pastries and lovely coffee from behind the upturned points of my coat collar.
But relief arrived a few weeks ago, in the form of breakfast with ML, a friend who studies at the LSE. I was curious about her choice of the Bakery: had her degree in economics transformed her into a proto-banker so rapacious that menu prices no longer meant anything to her? Or did she agree with my views on menu pricing, and suggested the Bakery because it had changed its policy? So brave in the belief that the staff wouldn’t recognise me with shorter hair, I returned. And I am so pleased I did. I could not recommend the Fleet River Bakery’s breakfasts highly enough.
True, these are not substantial beans-and-bacon-and-eggs breakfasts, nor do they offer porridge, pancakes, nor any of the variations of eggs Benedict. But their focus on pastry means that they produce something so close to the Platonic ideal of the croissant that one can forgive their austere attitude towards choice at the breakfast table. Their croissants are so buttery that they need only to be eaten with jam, and I was halfway through mine before I remembered to smear jam on it. ML’s pain au chocolat was as much chocolat as it was pain. The flat whites came in deep cups, and at just the right temperature: neither tongue-blisteringly hot, nor insipidly cold.
The Bakery itself is pleasingly cosy, with its wooden tables and comfortable chairs squirrelled away into nooks and corners. And ML and I talked away an hour in the basement. She’s considering a career in community radio, and approved heartily of the well-displayed prices on the menu: croissants were £2 each, and flat whites £2.60.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Delaunay, Covent Garden
The Delaunay
55 Aldwych
Covent Garden
WC2B 4BB
020 7499 8558
www.thedelaunay.com
by Malcolm Eggs
Christmas Eve at Paddington Station. People are everywhere. Cases trundle, big hanging clocks flip between digits, hungover men and women trot along platforms, panicked by the strangely widespread notion that eight minutes is not long enough to walk the distance of four carriages.
Me? I am in WH Smith, in a huge queue, waiting to buy a magazine. I wanted to grab it quickly but it is now on the verge of being untenable because, on this entirely predictable bottleneck of a day, they have decided to employ just one till operator. Understaffing! It is the bane of English life. How many times has it led to me waiting in huge, bored crowd at a bar? I want to buy a drink and their reason for existing is to sell it to me but they can't, because of a misguided austerity measure. Or being told in a hipster restaurant, "I'm sorry, but there's a huge wait and everything will be substandard because we have so many customers today". My dear restaurant, I always reply (inside my mind), do you believe in what you do? If so, you should expect to be popular.
I think wistfully back to my birthday, of eating breakfast at The Wolseley's new sister restaurant The Delaunay. It is the epitome of not having an understaffing problem. When I arrived at 11.31am I was consulted by no less than three staff on the implications of missing the breakfast menu (several egg-based dishes, they established, were still available to me courtesy of the a la carte menu). After being led through to a spacious and classy room (dark wood-panelled walls, monochrome marble floor tiles) I sat, spellbound, and watched the restaurant's remarkable - almost naval - systems at work. What were the ranks and roles? There were at least seventeen staff compared, at this time of day, with thirteen diners. Some wore black suits, several wore waistcoats and others were all in white. A few had aprons. The majority wore light grey ties, while two or three sported darker ones that seemed to give them huge amounts of authority. I saw a dark-tie quibbling with a light-tie about using the wrong sort of tablecloth.
Five of them attended to me during my breakfast, which was eggs Arlington (£8.50) - i.e. what most places call eggs Royale, or Benedict with smoked salmon in place of ham. My over-riding impression was of its neatness. Several sheets of smoked salmon were shaped - by a team of salmon shapers, no doubt - into a thick orange wheel whose edge at no point breached the muffin perimeter. A tidy circle of yellow Hollandaise shone out from its centre. The effect was of a kind of triple brunch eclipse. The whole thing towered to around six inches high. It tasted very good. The egg was perfectly poached. The salmon tasted reasonably well - if a touch cost-effectively - sourced. If the muffin was homemade, I salute them for replicating the delicious qualities of a mass-produced muffin so accurately.
On my right, two ladies with necklaces on the outside of their rollneck jumpers discussed whether or not to have the schnitzel. Almost everywhere else, waiters huddled in pairs or threes. They would confer and glance around; then one would suddenly break free and deliver a message to someone eighteen feet away, who would respond by hotfooting it to a knife that needed wiping. Mini-processions marched to tables carrying trays of coffee, teapots, wine, cocktails...
"Next please." I am roused from my daydream by the woman at the till. She calls me forward and I pay for my magazine. During the time it takes Christmas, New Year and early January to occur, I will stand in several more queues caused by willful understaffing. Often I will think back to The Delaunay and wonder if it could be the model for a different, happier version of England. I conclude that this would definitely be true for the 'customers', and probably for the 'dark-ties' as well.
55 Aldwych
Covent Garden
WC2B 4BB
020 7499 8558
www.thedelaunay.com
by Malcolm Eggs
Christmas Eve at Paddington Station. People are everywhere. Cases trundle, big hanging clocks flip between digits, hungover men and women trot along platforms, panicked by the strangely widespread notion that eight minutes is not long enough to walk the distance of four carriages.
Me? I am in WH Smith, in a huge queue, waiting to buy a magazine. I wanted to grab it quickly but it is now on the verge of being untenable because, on this entirely predictable bottleneck of a day, they have decided to employ just one till operator. Understaffing! It is the bane of English life. How many times has it led to me waiting in huge, bored crowd at a bar? I want to buy a drink and their reason for existing is to sell it to me but they can't, because of a misguided austerity measure. Or being told in a hipster restaurant, "I'm sorry, but there's a huge wait and everything will be substandard because we have so many customers today". My dear restaurant, I always reply (inside my mind), do you believe in what you do? If so, you should expect to be popular.
I think wistfully back to my birthday, of eating breakfast at The Wolseley's new sister restaurant The Delaunay. It is the epitome of not having an understaffing problem. When I arrived at 11.31am I was consulted by no less than three staff on the implications of missing the breakfast menu (several egg-based dishes, they established, were still available to me courtesy of the a la carte menu). After being led through to a spacious and classy room (dark wood-panelled walls, monochrome marble floor tiles) I sat, spellbound, and watched the restaurant's remarkable - almost naval - systems at work. What were the ranks and roles? There were at least seventeen staff compared, at this time of day, with thirteen diners. Some wore black suits, several wore waistcoats and others were all in white. A few had aprons. The majority wore light grey ties, while two or three sported darker ones that seemed to give them huge amounts of authority. I saw a dark-tie quibbling with a light-tie about using the wrong sort of tablecloth.
Five of them attended to me during my breakfast, which was eggs Arlington (£8.50) - i.e. what most places call eggs Royale, or Benedict with smoked salmon in place of ham. My over-riding impression was of its neatness. Several sheets of smoked salmon were shaped - by a team of salmon shapers, no doubt - into a thick orange wheel whose edge at no point breached the muffin perimeter. A tidy circle of yellow Hollandaise shone out from its centre. The effect was of a kind of triple brunch eclipse. The whole thing towered to around six inches high. It tasted very good. The egg was perfectly poached. The salmon tasted reasonably well - if a touch cost-effectively - sourced. If the muffin was homemade, I salute them for replicating the delicious qualities of a mass-produced muffin so accurately.
On my right, two ladies with necklaces on the outside of their rollneck jumpers discussed whether or not to have the schnitzel. Almost everywhere else, waiters huddled in pairs or threes. They would confer and glance around; then one would suddenly break free and deliver a message to someone eighteen feet away, who would respond by hotfooting it to a knife that needed wiping. Mini-processions marched to tables carrying trays of coffee, teapots, wine, cocktails...
"Next please." I am roused from my daydream by the woman at the till. She calls me forward and I pay for my magazine. During the time it takes Christmas, New Year and early January to occur, I will stand in several more queues caused by willful understaffing. Often I will think back to The Delaunay and wonder if it could be the model for a different, happier version of England. I conclude that this would definitely be true for the 'customers', and probably for the 'dark-ties' as well.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The University Women’s Club, Mayfair
The University Women’s Club
2 Audley Square
Mayfair
W1K 1DB
020 7499 2268
www.universitywomensclub.com
by Seggolène Royal
In the United States, from whence I hail, the word “university” is synonymous not with learning or advancement, but with breakfast. Eighteen year-olds across America leave the bosoms of their families to go to “college,” living in dormitories and having to look after themselves for the first time with no parents to supervise. Those dorms feature dining halls where the students have paid to take part in meal plans which allow them unlimited amounts of food per meal. Half buffet-style, half food court, in my day you could get any variety of foods at a moment’s notice, from pizza to burgers to boeuf bourguignon, although today the better schools probably have sushi bars and gluten-free options.
Breakfast is the meal of champions, however, and that is where we all packed on the infamous Freshman Fifteen. An amuse bouche of yogurt, an appetizer of Lucky Charms, French toast with scrambled eggs and bacon for the main, a side order of waffles, and for dessert a granola bar on the way to class. I look back to those breakfast days of 1996-7 and feel at once revolted and nostalgic.
Given this implacable association between breakfast and university, it seems appropriate to discuss the breakfast on offer at the University Women’s Club in Mayfair. It was founded in 1886 by Gertrude E.M. Jackson, a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge, who got together some of her best friends from school and decided to start a women’s club to rival the men’s clubs from which they were barred. After moving around to several different addresses, in 1921 the ladies of the UWC adopted the present building, which has the distinction of having been used as a model for the house in Dorothy L. Sayers’s 1936 detective tale The Haunted Policemen.
I was able to visit the UWC earlier this month thanks to my alma mater, Barnard College, which has worked out a special arrangement: when visiting London, we can go and stay there for a discounted rate. The rooms are spartan but comfortable, the dining room cheerful and elegant. I did not run across any haunted policemen. Left to my own devices in a cushy upstairs hallway, I took a few minutes to commune with the Victorian founders, whose photographs hang on the richly striped walls. Those august women stare out in sepia, unsmiling, unaccustomed to arranging their features for a camera. What were their breakfasts like, I wondered?
Indeed, what are breakfasts like in English university dining halls? I have some vague supposition that they are overseen by stern-faced dons in gowns, Lucky Jim meets “Oliver!”. I was not to find out. When I went, the University Women’s Club was uniquely peopled by the American alumnae of Seven Sisters schools, who seemed to be there on some kind of reunion. They compared notes on former schoolchums:
“Do you remember Dorothy? Dorothy Feinberg, is her maiden name?”
“Dorothy Baumberg?”
“No, Feinberg. Nancy was in Cushing, we were in Cushing together.”
“Oh, well, I was in Strong, that’s why I didn’t know her.”
Cushing? Strong? A Google search reveals these to be the names of residence halls at Vassar College. These women would have graduated back when, like Barnard, Vassar was an all-girls school. I was the youngest person there, except for somebody’s granddaughter, who wore a black velvet bow right on top of her head, a calf-length black dress, and black lace-up boots. She looked exactly the way the Victorian founders’ granddaughters must have looked.
I read the paper and smiled at my fellow diners as they discussed their respective hometowns: Boston, New York, DC. The waitress indicated a buffet where I could serve myself. The breakfast was not as copious as it would have been at an actual university, but it was sufficient. For £6.50, there were croissants, various cereals, including muesli, Rachel’s yogurt (reason enough to make a person move to England), a bowl of fruit, toast, coffee, several kinds of juice, and tea. Unfortunately, given that I have developed a gluten allergy since my university days, I had to skip the toast and the heavenly-looking jams in favor of muesli in yogurt with honey. (Yes, there is gluten in muesli, but not as much as in toast, or so I tell myself.) The muesli was quite good, except that it was filled with enormous chunks of dried yellow fruit the size of small dominoes. If you like that mystery yellow fruit, this must be a huge bonus. I however prefer a more even ratio of dried fruits to grains. I isolated the offending fruit in a corner of the bowl: no harm done. The coffee was perfectly nutty and the milk warmed. When I left, I took a banana for the walk to class.
2 Audley Square
Mayfair
W1K 1DB
020 7499 2268
www.universitywomensclub.com
by Seggolène Royal
In the United States, from whence I hail, the word “university” is synonymous not with learning or advancement, but with breakfast. Eighteen year-olds across America leave the bosoms of their families to go to “college,” living in dormitories and having to look after themselves for the first time with no parents to supervise. Those dorms feature dining halls where the students have paid to take part in meal plans which allow them unlimited amounts of food per meal. Half buffet-style, half food court, in my day you could get any variety of foods at a moment’s notice, from pizza to burgers to boeuf bourguignon, although today the better schools probably have sushi bars and gluten-free options.
Breakfast is the meal of champions, however, and that is where we all packed on the infamous Freshman Fifteen. An amuse bouche of yogurt, an appetizer of Lucky Charms, French toast with scrambled eggs and bacon for the main, a side order of waffles, and for dessert a granola bar on the way to class. I look back to those breakfast days of 1996-7 and feel at once revolted and nostalgic.
Given this implacable association between breakfast and university, it seems appropriate to discuss the breakfast on offer at the University Women’s Club in Mayfair. It was founded in 1886 by Gertrude E.M. Jackson, a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge, who got together some of her best friends from school and decided to start a women’s club to rival the men’s clubs from which they were barred. After moving around to several different addresses, in 1921 the ladies of the UWC adopted the present building, which has the distinction of having been used as a model for the house in Dorothy L. Sayers’s 1936 detective tale The Haunted Policemen.
I was able to visit the UWC earlier this month thanks to my alma mater, Barnard College, which has worked out a special arrangement: when visiting London, we can go and stay there for a discounted rate. The rooms are spartan but comfortable, the dining room cheerful and elegant. I did not run across any haunted policemen. Left to my own devices in a cushy upstairs hallway, I took a few minutes to commune with the Victorian founders, whose photographs hang on the richly striped walls. Those august women stare out in sepia, unsmiling, unaccustomed to arranging their features for a camera. What were their breakfasts like, I wondered?
Indeed, what are breakfasts like in English university dining halls? I have some vague supposition that they are overseen by stern-faced dons in gowns, Lucky Jim meets “Oliver!”. I was not to find out. When I went, the University Women’s Club was uniquely peopled by the American alumnae of Seven Sisters schools, who seemed to be there on some kind of reunion. They compared notes on former schoolchums:
“Do you remember Dorothy? Dorothy Feinberg, is her maiden name?”
“Dorothy Baumberg?”
“No, Feinberg. Nancy was in Cushing, we were in Cushing together.”
“Oh, well, I was in Strong, that’s why I didn’t know her.”
Cushing? Strong? A Google search reveals these to be the names of residence halls at Vassar College. These women would have graduated back when, like Barnard, Vassar was an all-girls school. I was the youngest person there, except for somebody’s granddaughter, who wore a black velvet bow right on top of her head, a calf-length black dress, and black lace-up boots. She looked exactly the way the Victorian founders’ granddaughters must have looked.
I read the paper and smiled at my fellow diners as they discussed their respective hometowns: Boston, New York, DC. The waitress indicated a buffet where I could serve myself. The breakfast was not as copious as it would have been at an actual university, but it was sufficient. For £6.50, there were croissants, various cereals, including muesli, Rachel’s yogurt (reason enough to make a person move to England), a bowl of fruit, toast, coffee, several kinds of juice, and tea. Unfortunately, given that I have developed a gluten allergy since my university days, I had to skip the toast and the heavenly-looking jams in favor of muesli in yogurt with honey. (Yes, there is gluten in muesli, but not as much as in toast, or so I tell myself.) The muesli was quite good, except that it was filled with enormous chunks of dried yellow fruit the size of small dominoes. If you like that mystery yellow fruit, this must be a huge bonus. I however prefer a more even ratio of dried fruits to grains. I isolated the offending fruit in a corner of the bowl: no harm done. The coffee was perfectly nutty and the milk warmed. When I left, I took a banana for the walk to class.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Breakfast from America: Christie’s Cabaret, Cleveland, Ohio
Christie’s Cabaret
1180 Main Avenue
Cleveland
Ohio
OH 44113-2325
USA
+1 (216) 574-6222
[NSFW!]www.christiescabaret.com
by T. N. Toost
Gina sat down with us and immediately started talking about her life – how she taught mentally disabled kids, how she had a very smart 11-year-old son, how she picked up a couple of shifts here on the weekends to make ends meet. She made more here, she said, than teaching. I thought she was bluffing about her Masters degree until she started talking about taking her son to Occupy Wall Street because it was a unique opportunity to show him what could be historically important protests – “sort of like the real Tea Party, Hoovervilles, or any of the Marches on Washington over the last fifty years.” To her, all of these protests were about normal people with normal lives who did something extraordinary (“in the real sense of the word”), then went back to their lives, thus truly participating as Americans in the Washington/Cincinnatus mold. OWS was something that she wanted him to experience, and as she talked her leg pressed against mine and I commented on it.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said, leaning in and grinning seductively in the half-light.
Then we talked about the restaurant, and America. Like she said, it wasn’t rocket science. Everything was thoroughly considered and organized for specific reasons, each of which understood and manipulated human nature in order to get generally predictable results. One group, generally the minority, took advantage of and exploited the masses, but the masses only subconsciously felt their exploitation. Indeed, most of the time they thought that they were privileged just to be there. I was surprised; as a woman, then, did she ever feel exploited? Never! Nobody, she explained, could ever be exploited against his or her will. It was people like me who were the dupes, she and her peers were the ones in charge, and we, as dupes, didn’t even realize it. She was part of the ruling class, taking peoples’ money at will, struggling, getting rejected, and, when someone owed her money, an entire phalanx of hulking brutes existed solely to materialize out of the shadows and bully debtors into coughing up cash.
I felt my eyes opening.
I was about to ask her about the Greek debt crisis and whether she thought Perry or Cain had a chance against Romney when our Christie's Omelets came. Beau was talking to an Asian girl, an accountant, and she and Gina got up to powder their noses while we ate. The omelets glistened with grease, looking like monstrous wet burritos. At first bite they were amazing. The thick-cut bacon came in curled-up squares, spilling out of the sides; the vegetables were pliant; it exploded with cheese and the eggs – of course we had to get eggs – were wrapped tightly around the filling, keeping everything hot and moist. The second bite, though, was a little less impressive, the third less still, and after the fourth bite I was starting to wonder if I could eat any more. Five minutes later I pushed the plate away, leaving a good quarter of the omelet on the plate along with a thick layer of orange grease.
Then there were breasts in my face, Gina’s breasts, and they pushed against my forehead, my nose, my chest, my stomach, my legs, leaving a trail of perfume which washing could never expunge. It only lasted a moment, though, and I left unsatisfied. They promised much, but in reality we were the ones being impoverished by a minority just for the privilege of chasing a dream. Feeling slightly nauseous, we paid and walked out; the entire way home, my bowels rumbled, dissatisfied with the omelet and with something less tangible.
1180 Main Avenue
Cleveland
Ohio
OH 44113-2325
USA
+1 (216) 574-6222
[NSFW!]www.christiescabaret.com
by T. N. Toost
Gina sat down with us and immediately started talking about her life – how she taught mentally disabled kids, how she had a very smart 11-year-old son, how she picked up a couple of shifts here on the weekends to make ends meet. She made more here, she said, than teaching. I thought she was bluffing about her Masters degree until she started talking about taking her son to Occupy Wall Street because it was a unique opportunity to show him what could be historically important protests – “sort of like the real Tea Party, Hoovervilles, or any of the Marches on Washington over the last fifty years.” To her, all of these protests were about normal people with normal lives who did something extraordinary (“in the real sense of the word”), then went back to their lives, thus truly participating as Americans in the Washington/Cincinnatus mold. OWS was something that she wanted him to experience, and as she talked her leg pressed against mine and I commented on it.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said, leaning in and grinning seductively in the half-light.
Then we talked about the restaurant, and America. Like she said, it wasn’t rocket science. Everything was thoroughly considered and organized for specific reasons, each of which understood and manipulated human nature in order to get generally predictable results. One group, generally the minority, took advantage of and exploited the masses, but the masses only subconsciously felt their exploitation. Indeed, most of the time they thought that they were privileged just to be there. I was surprised; as a woman, then, did she ever feel exploited? Never! Nobody, she explained, could ever be exploited against his or her will. It was people like me who were the dupes, she and her peers were the ones in charge, and we, as dupes, didn’t even realize it. She was part of the ruling class, taking peoples’ money at will, struggling, getting rejected, and, when someone owed her money, an entire phalanx of hulking brutes existed solely to materialize out of the shadows and bully debtors into coughing up cash.
I felt my eyes opening.
I was about to ask her about the Greek debt crisis and whether she thought Perry or Cain had a chance against Romney when our Christie's Omelets came. Beau was talking to an Asian girl, an accountant, and she and Gina got up to powder their noses while we ate. The omelets glistened with grease, looking like monstrous wet burritos. At first bite they were amazing. The thick-cut bacon came in curled-up squares, spilling out of the sides; the vegetables were pliant; it exploded with cheese and the eggs – of course we had to get eggs – were wrapped tightly around the filling, keeping everything hot and moist. The second bite, though, was a little less impressive, the third less still, and after the fourth bite I was starting to wonder if I could eat any more. Five minutes later I pushed the plate away, leaving a good quarter of the omelet on the plate along with a thick layer of orange grease.
Then there were breasts in my face, Gina’s breasts, and they pushed against my forehead, my nose, my chest, my stomach, my legs, leaving a trail of perfume which washing could never expunge. It only lasted a moment, though, and I left unsatisfied. They promised much, but in reality we were the ones being impoverished by a minority just for the privilege of chasing a dream. Feeling slightly nauseous, we paid and walked out; the entire way home, my bowels rumbled, dissatisfied with the omelet and with something less tangible.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Patisserie Valerie, Marylebone
Patisserie Valerie
105 Marylebone High St
Marylebone
W1U 4RS
020 7935 6240
www.patisserie-valerie.co.uk
by Mack Muffin
Patisserie Valerie was formed in Soho’s Frith Street in 1926, by the pâtissière Madam Valerie – a formidable woman, by all accounts, on what the history books now describe as ‘a mission to introduce fine continental patisserie to the English’. How delightful. How impudent. How French.
Since moving to Old Compton Street in a va te faire foutre to the Luftwaffe, twenty or more franchises have sprung up in the capital alone – with only the one on Marylebone High Street, to my mind, maintaining the left-leaning, quasi-intellectual ambience of the original.
It was for this and other similarly pretentious reasoning that led me to spend every afternoon there while writing my first novel, a laptop being the only clue to my contemporariness. I was otherwise the picture of pre-War Rive Gauche chic; a twenty-first-century Hemingway, but with a northern accent.
Two hours was, happily enough for this workshy writer, the optimal time to type a bit and consume un café American, but what enticed me first to Patisserie Valerie – pre-novel, pre-pretention – was the breakfast.
Nevermind the anachronistic eastern European staff in 20s garb, or the fact that sitting outside renders any cooked meal too cold to eat halfway through – something about the breeze in Marylebone, perhaps change in the air – the scrambled eggs are divine. Buttery, creamy, sloppy; no word in the Earth language, ē sounding or otherwise, can do justice to the perfect marriage of taste and texture in those eggs.
Nevermind having to add the butter sur la table to triangulated toast – really, who does that? – or the redundant sprig garnish, or indeed the impossibly enormous plates that make for an amusing game of pass the parcel, shunting anything not immediately of use (sugar, par exemple) to adjacent diners. The eggs are divine.
I should say were, as my most recent trips to the chain – not to Marylebone, I might add – have dealt what can only be described as a crushing blow, far worse than anything those pesky Nazis could muster, to Madam Valerie’s ‘mission’. One can only hope that in Marylebone, at least, Madam’s legacy, and my atavistic artistique pretention, lives on.
105 Marylebone High St
Marylebone
W1U 4RS
020 7935 6240
www.patisserie-valerie.co.uk
by Mack Muffin
Patisserie Valerie was formed in Soho’s Frith Street in 1926, by the pâtissière Madam Valerie – a formidable woman, by all accounts, on what the history books now describe as ‘a mission to introduce fine continental patisserie to the English’. How delightful. How impudent. How French.
Since moving to Old Compton Street in a va te faire foutre to the Luftwaffe, twenty or more franchises have sprung up in the capital alone – with only the one on Marylebone High Street, to my mind, maintaining the left-leaning, quasi-intellectual ambience of the original.
It was for this and other similarly pretentious reasoning that led me to spend every afternoon there while writing my first novel, a laptop being the only clue to my contemporariness. I was otherwise the picture of pre-War Rive Gauche chic; a twenty-first-century Hemingway, but with a northern accent.
Two hours was, happily enough for this workshy writer, the optimal time to type a bit and consume un café American, but what enticed me first to Patisserie Valerie – pre-novel, pre-pretention – was the breakfast.
Nevermind the anachronistic eastern European staff in 20s garb, or the fact that sitting outside renders any cooked meal too cold to eat halfway through – something about the breeze in Marylebone, perhaps change in the air – the scrambled eggs are divine. Buttery, creamy, sloppy; no word in the Earth language, ē sounding or otherwise, can do justice to the perfect marriage of taste and texture in those eggs.
Nevermind having to add the butter sur la table to triangulated toast – really, who does that? – or the redundant sprig garnish, or indeed the impossibly enormous plates that make for an amusing game of pass the parcel, shunting anything not immediately of use (sugar, par exemple) to adjacent diners. The eggs are divine.
I should say were, as my most recent trips to the chain – not to Marylebone, I might add – have dealt what can only be described as a crushing blow, far worse than anything those pesky Nazis could muster, to Madam Valerie’s ‘mission’. One can only hope that in Marylebone, at least, Madam’s legacy, and my atavistic artistique pretention, lives on.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Special dispatch: Gusto, Cape Town, South Africa
Gusto
117 Hatfield Street
Gardens
Cape Town
South Africa
+27 (0)21 461 7868
by Flora Ashley
This morning Cape Town was brought to a grinding halt by an hour-long power cut. Never the most productive of workers, Capetonians – who have a deserved reputation for dropping everything and heading to the beach at the merest opportunity – looked out of the window, saw that the weather was gloriously sunny, and decided to call it a day.
The tourists looked happy. Not because the city was on an impromptu holiday, but because – at last! – this was Africa. Here was the ‘real’ Africa – or, if they’re American, Ah-frica – of unexpected and unexplained blackouts. If only a cow or two – or even just a goat and some chickens – would wander through the CBD then the experience would be complete.
However much they seem to like Cape Town, one always has the impression that tourists are a little disappointed by how... familiar the city feels with its rows of Victorian terraces, hipsters and artisanal coffee shops. Suddenly their flack jackets (what do they keep in all those little pockets? Malaria tablets? Emergency quinine rations?) and head-to-toe khaki outfits seem strangely out of place.
My friend E and I saw two particularly mournful Germans while eating breakfast at Gusto on Saturday. We were sitting in the pretty courtyard of a Georgian building, and half of the blackboard-walled cafe was taken over by earnest white, middle-class women with their yoga mats, and I wanted to shake the tourists by the shoulders and shout, ‘Cheer up! This is an essentially Capetonian experience! An anthropologist could not ask for a better case study!’
Gusto is in a part of town which has been heavily gentrified – even five years ago I wouldn’t have walked around the area – and serves ‘whole’ food. It does lunch and breakfast, and on weekends sells organic veg. Having pulled back from a slide into urban decay, the city is now littered with similar cafes specialising in seasonal cookery; Cape Town is yoga- and smoothie-mad; and there are more food bloggers than is sensible.
Our breakfast could easily have been served in Melbourne or San Francisco. On the other hand it reeked of Cape Town: from our cappuccinos made from Origin beans (truly the only coffee for the cool Capetonian), to the aggressively frothy apple and orange smoothie, to the food. This was not the kind of place that does bacon and eggs with beans and bubble.
E had poached eggs with roasted tomatoes and goats’ cheese: the eggs perfectly runny, the tomatoes charred and just this side of squidgy. (I say nothing about the cheese. I think it’s vile and an abomination.) I have a tremendous weakness for French toast, and it came with flaked almonds, cinnamon, and crème fraîche. It was almost perfect, but I don’t understand the vogue for making French toast with sourdough or ciabatta: it goes tough and tastes too much of bread instead of eggy deliciousness.
We ate, in short, with gusto. (Sorry.) And even the Germans – who had sighed and wondered why they’d travelled so far just to have croissants and coffee for breakfast – perked up and decided to walk down the road to Parliament, no doubt in the hope of spotting a coup d’état.
117 Hatfield Street
Gardens
Cape Town
South Africa
+27 (0)21 461 7868
by Flora Ashley
This morning Cape Town was brought to a grinding halt by an hour-long power cut. Never the most productive of workers, Capetonians – who have a deserved reputation for dropping everything and heading to the beach at the merest opportunity – looked out of the window, saw that the weather was gloriously sunny, and decided to call it a day.
The tourists looked happy. Not because the city was on an impromptu holiday, but because – at last! – this was Africa. Here was the ‘real’ Africa – or, if they’re American, Ah-frica – of unexpected and unexplained blackouts. If only a cow or two – or even just a goat and some chickens – would wander through the CBD then the experience would be complete.
However much they seem to like Cape Town, one always has the impression that tourists are a little disappointed by how... familiar the city feels with its rows of Victorian terraces, hipsters and artisanal coffee shops. Suddenly their flack jackets (what do they keep in all those little pockets? Malaria tablets? Emergency quinine rations?) and head-to-toe khaki outfits seem strangely out of place.
My friend E and I saw two particularly mournful Germans while eating breakfast at Gusto on Saturday. We were sitting in the pretty courtyard of a Georgian building, and half of the blackboard-walled cafe was taken over by earnest white, middle-class women with their yoga mats, and I wanted to shake the tourists by the shoulders and shout, ‘Cheer up! This is an essentially Capetonian experience! An anthropologist could not ask for a better case study!’
Gusto is in a part of town which has been heavily gentrified – even five years ago I wouldn’t have walked around the area – and serves ‘whole’ food. It does lunch and breakfast, and on weekends sells organic veg. Having pulled back from a slide into urban decay, the city is now littered with similar cafes specialising in seasonal cookery; Cape Town is yoga- and smoothie-mad; and there are more food bloggers than is sensible.
Our breakfast could easily have been served in Melbourne or San Francisco. On the other hand it reeked of Cape Town: from our cappuccinos made from Origin beans (truly the only coffee for the cool Capetonian), to the aggressively frothy apple and orange smoothie, to the food. This was not the kind of place that does bacon and eggs with beans and bubble.
E had poached eggs with roasted tomatoes and goats’ cheese: the eggs perfectly runny, the tomatoes charred and just this side of squidgy. (I say nothing about the cheese. I think it’s vile and an abomination.) I have a tremendous weakness for French toast, and it came with flaked almonds, cinnamon, and crème fraîche. It was almost perfect, but I don’t understand the vogue for making French toast with sourdough or ciabatta: it goes tough and tastes too much of bread instead of eggy deliciousness.
We ate, in short, with gusto. (Sorry.) And even the Germans – who had sighed and wondered why they’d travelled so far just to have croissants and coffee for breakfast – perked up and decided to walk down the road to Parliament, no doubt in the hope of spotting a coup d’état.
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