Page 16 - Delicious - UK (February 2020)

What makes a

good restaurant?

There’s so much more to dining out than simply scoffing, paying the

bill and heading for the door. The places in which we seek company
and sustenance reflect what we value, as well as where our lives have

taken us and where we’re heading. And, says Debora Robertson,
if you can see and hear while you’re tucking in, even better

estaurants have been the Quaglino’s and the Atlantic Bar to from life. None of these is constant.
canvas on which I have Hakkasan, Zuma and The Wolseley. All reflect the arc that you’ve
R painted the most important Glittering pleasure domes, all. travelled, the peace that you have
scenes of my life – from falling in or haven’t made. When I was 34,
and out of love to job interviews, DINING OF A MORE MATURE NATURE? I wanted bling, because it persuaded
forging friendships, playing over Today, in my 50s, I walk round me that I was special. When I was
family dramas, exchanging the corner to Testi (calm down, 44, I wanted blinis, because they
scandals and deciding who will live it means jug), our local Turkish made me feel sophisticated. At 54,
and who will die (oh, sorry, that restaurant, for kebabs and I just want martinis, because I’m
was an episode of The Sopranos). grilled onion salad, or to Wolf, a certain of what’s in them and of
When I was in my early 20s, neighbourhood Italian, for a plate what that potion can do: blunt the
consuming platters of oysters amid of charcuterie and some pappardelle. day and polish the night.”
the clatter of Les Deux Magots in Or we hop in the car and head to Blunt the day and polish the night.
Paris, or devouring Sunday morning Xi’an Impression, a tiny Chinese How perfect is that? It’s not only
eggs benedict on the Upper West restaurant in the shadow of Arsenal what I want in a cocktail, but also the
Side of New York, restaurants stadium, a place where the waiter prime job requirement for a husband.
opened up the world to me. reminds us to keep the receipt so he Having spent my 20s trying the
As newlyweds in London, my latest, the most recherché, the
husband and I often went to a little I want someone to coolest, now I have no interest in
bistro in the heart of Marylebone show-off places. I don’t want to
that he’d gone to since he was a take my coat, find me queue. I want someone to take my
boy. We’d turn up, Bruno the owner a seat and fix me a coat, find me a seat and fix me a
would hug us and find us a corner. drink within five minutes of arrival,
We moved. He retired. It closed. drink within five just as I would if you came to my
You never know when it’s the last minutes of arrival house. I want to be enveloped in
time you’ll go to a place. But in that the warm embrace of a well-run
year after we married, the Bistro du can make sure we have something restaurant, enjoy its dazzle, and the
Village, with its coq au vin and different next time, even though delicious sense of possibility. For me,
crème brûlée, was as important to we always order the biang biang Noble Rot in Bloomsbury epitomises
me as our little kitchen full of newly noodles and smacked cucumbers. all of that; it is a masterclass in
unwrapped Le Creuset and Spode. In a piece last year in The New Perfect Neighbourhood Restaurant.
If I wasn’t in the bistro, I was York Times, columnist Frank Bruni,
traipsing to the newest places, the paper’s one-time restaurant SOUND AND FURY? NO THANKS
enjoying everything the Nineties critic, wrote: “What you want from I hate loud music, its effects jarringly
and early Noughties London restaurants, it turns out, is a proxy amplified by the modern aesthetic
restaurant boom had to offer, from for what you want from love and of hard floors and walls. Professor