"They begged me to keep it a secret" - Grace Dent's favorite restaurants of 2022
If we're doing the highs and lows of 2022, let's start by bravely looking at the negative. "Terrible food and such small portions" is the bane of today's restaurant scene. Never has so little been so flamboyantly arranged to deceive the eye. Once upon a time, the word “anchovy”, “crumpet” or “prawn” on a menu meant that said ingredient was served in the plural. Now, however, you can expect a solitary anchovy draped over a slice of bread for £9, or a single prawn cut in three. See also pasta in 100g portions and 'skewers', which these days translate to a small piece of protein on a stick for £11. I smiled empathetically all through the price hikes and portion reductions of 2022, until the other week at a Lakeland gastro pub when my chicken parfait arrived with a not much larger Lilliputian crumpet only a £2 coin, for which they charged me nearly £15. At this point I started emitting sparks.
But who wants to focus on the bad news? Here are some of the year's experiences instead which I cherish, the places where I would be delighted if someone offered me a table. For example, The Plimsoll in Finsbury Park, which is the slightly chaotic but priceless uncut gem of the London pub food scene, serving a burger gloriously sloppy, ricotta cheesecake and pints of Guinness It's far from fancy, so for the high class, grab a taste, or tasting menu, at Cédric Grolet at the Berkeley , where for just £120 a succession of handsome French employees deliver Grolet's sweet trompe-l'oeil to your lips: vanilla flower, hazelnut, lemon and its candied scone ure.
If we're doing the highs and lows of 2022, let's start by bravely looking at the negative. "Terrible food and such small portions" is the bane of today's restaurant scene. Never has so little been so flamboyantly arranged to deceive the eye. Once upon a time, the word “anchovy”, “crumpet” or “prawn” on a menu meant that said ingredient was served in the plural. Now, however, you can expect a solitary anchovy draped over a slice of bread for £9, or a single prawn cut in three. See also pasta in 100g portions and 'skewers', which these days translate to a small piece of protein on a stick for £11. I smiled empathetically all through the price hikes and portion reductions of 2022, until the other week at a Lakeland gastro pub when my chicken parfait arrived with a not much larger Lilliputian crumpet only a £2 coin, for which they charged me nearly £15. At this point I started emitting sparks.
But who wants to focus on the bad news? Here are some of the year's experiences instead which I cherish, the places where I would be delighted if someone offered me a table. For example, The Plimsoll in Finsbury Park, which is the slightly chaotic but priceless uncut gem of the London pub food scene, serving a burger gloriously sloppy, ricotta cheesecake and pints of Guinness It's far from fancy, so for the high class, grab a taste, or tasting menu, at Cédric Grolet at the Berkeley , where for just £120 a succession of handsome French employees deliver Grolet's sweet trompe-l'oeil to your lips: vanilla flower, hazelnut, lemon and its candied scone ure.
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