Spectator Life

Smart Italian restaurants in cultural destinations are like buses: you wait ages for one and suddenly two come along at once. I recently praised Locatelli at London’s National Gallery. Returning to the city, it is the turn of Cicoria at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden; a joint under the aegis of Angela Hartnett, well-known for her upscale restaurant Murano in Mayfair, her casual chain Cafe Murano and her frequent appearances on the box. Surprisingly few of the world’s great opera houses have given much thought to catering, although things are improving. I ate very well recently at Madrid’s Teatro Real and you can push the boat out with caviar at the Met in New York.

There’s no shortage of catastrophic predictions for New York City under Zohran Mamdani’s leadership. While we probably won’t see breadlines, the wildly expensive, exhaustingly derivative restaurants that dominate the New York food scene are likely to become more dominant. Mamdani’s big pledge on food is to “make halal eight bucks again.” But it’s a “false promise” of street-food affordability according to Heritage Foundation economist Nicole Huyer. She says Mamdani’s economic program, which includes higher taxes, steeper leasing regulations and a pledge to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030, will effectively make restaurants even more expensive.

I am in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. I am standing in a historic complex of madrasas and mosques, courtyards and dusty roses and I am staring at the “oldest Quran in the world.” It is a strange and enormous thing: written in bold Kufic script on deerskin parchment; it was supposedly compiled by Uthman ibn Affan, the third Caliph of Islam, who was murdered while reading it. And so it is, as I linger here and reverently regard the Book, while scrolling my phone for more fascinating info, that I discover the world’s oldest Quran is actually in Birmingham. Yes, that’s right, Birmingham, England. It’s probably in some obscure library, lodged between a thesis on post-colonial emojis and a flyer for Falafel Night.

The New York Times recently released its annual list of America’s Top 50 restaurants – and the perfectly predictable honorees highlight just how beholden the restaurant industry is to the tastes of a would-be cosmopolitan class. The casually refined, vaguely ethnic-fusion cuisine that you stumble upon even in America’s most provincial places is rife. From New York to Los Angeles and everywhere in between, America’s restaurant industry has never been more diverse. Yet somewhat counterintuitively, it’s also never offered more of the same. Often, these restaurants propose some mix of French staples (think mother sauces, patisserie) or Italian comfort food (pasta, pizza) fused with Latin, Asian and/or Middle Eastern flavors.

Jean-Louis was leaning out of his second-floor window. “Bonsoir, Dan!” I could hear the rumblings of a social gathering behind him – no music, just a cacophony of French voices battling for supremacy. I bonsoired him back and that would have been that, only my dog took the opportunity to evacuate by his front gate. “Montes boire un verre!” Jean-Louis was clearly drunk, but after 12 years of cordial nods, I momentarily allowed myself to believe I’d cracked the inner circle of village winemakers. And so, poop bag in hand, I politely accepted. Right away, it was clear that the vibe was off. Everyone had stopped talking and was looking at me as I stepped into the kitchen.

To mark the arrival of Carbone in London and the imminent opening of Straker’s in New York, The Spectator’s Angus Colwell spoke with writer Gage Klipper about the differences between British and American restaurants, whether bad-boy chefs are back in – and which eateries couldn’t exist anywhere else. ANGUS COLWELL: Shall we talk about Carbone, which has just arrived in London? GAGE KLIPPER: For sure. I’m a certified Carbone hater: New Yorker, born and raised, but for me, Carbone just never really fit the New York vibe. It’s the Instagram person’s idea of what New York fine dining should be. Of course, they cater to this old-school, showy New York sensibility, but it’s not really New York in any real sense.