Restaurant Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  ‘Well, it used to be a drunken Sunday lunch – so drunk plus lunch equals drunch. But now it means a late lunch that could be dinner – so dinner plus lunch equals drunch. So it’s all-day menus in brasseries, that sort of thing. So someone could come in, say, to Balthazar, say at four thirty, with their mates, and order the duck shepherd’s pie for a late lunch, with a few beers, or even a bottle of red, and stay till nine, rather than only be able to have a coffee and a pastry because the kitchen is closed and leaving half an hour later.’

  ‘Right,’ I nod, trying to work out the labour on such a logistical nightmare as having the kitchen open all day and especially on a Sunday. Were there even customers on a Sunday afternoon wandering around Soho after a goat’s cheese salad and fries? ‘Leave that one with me. Ah!’ I say, looking towards the kitchen door. ‘Oscar! Come over here and meet Caroline King.’

  ‘Any relation to Jeremy King?’

  ‘What Wolseley? Delauney? Colbert? Sadly not.’ She smiles. ‘Very lovely to meet you, Oscar. I hear you cook like a bastard!’

  ‘I am hoping that’s a compliment,’ he replies, his ears going pink.

  ‘That’s as good as it gets from Caz,’ she says.

  He smiles. She laughs. Perhaps he is better looking than I thought …

  They both sit down and spend the next ten minutes running through a list of people they know working in the business. Like a conversational establishing shot at the beginning of a film, this minutely detailed exchange of information is designed to decode who you are, who you know and who your friends are. Sitting between them, it manifests itself as a namedropping ping-pong match.

  ‘I bumped into Nick Jones the other day.’

  ‘Such a nice man.’

  ‘Didn’t you used to work for the Soho House group?’

  ‘I was briefly at Cecconi’s.’

  ‘No! I love that place.’

  ‘I saw Maureen Mills in there the other day and that Jo Barnes—’

  ‘What? Best Restaurant PR in town – after me, of course.’

  ‘Do you know those nice girls at Bacchus PR? Anouschka?’

  ‘So nice. Is she looking after Gordon these days? He’s such a cunt.’

  ‘Oh, I really like him. He taught me so much when I worked at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.’

  ‘Oh, when I said cunt, he certainly used to be, but he’s much nicer since he was caught Paddy Pantsdown with that professional mistress coming out of the Dorchester. Very suspicious all of that. Gordon, such a family man, so obviously caught. Do you think he’s gay?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gordon.’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anyway,’ Caz finally pauses for breath, ‘what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘Me?’ Oscar pulls himself up in his seat, smooths the front of his whites and places his elbows on the table. She has his undivided attention.

  ‘Right.’ She clicks her pen. ‘So I’ll speak to Dylan Jones at GQ to see if we can get a photo shoot, that sort of thing. It really helps that you’ve been away in France, so you can come back “having learnt stuff”. Then I’ll try to get you holding half a hog or something in the Observer – they tend to go for the earthier angle – and maybe an interview with ES Magazine; they’ve got pages and pages to fill. How do you feel about telly?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, running his hands through his not-so-blond curls, ‘I always thought that Jamie and Gordon were kind of like the roadmap that we should all follow.’

  ‘Have you met Pat Llewellyn?’

  ‘No.’ He scratches the back of his neck.

  ‘Optomen TV, Naked Chef, Boiling Point, Hell’s Kitchen, Two Fat Ladies – all hers. She is basically the chefs’ kingmaker. If she likes you and sees something in you, then you’re made. She spotted Jamie at the back of Rose Gray’s kitchen when they were filming a thing on the River Caff, and she saw all the shouty, sweary potential in Gordon all those years ago. I’ll set that up,’ she says, jotting something down. ‘It’s hard to sell books if you’re not on the telly. And it’s got to be proper telly. You’ve got to be Gordon, Jamie or Nigella, even Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, otherwise it’s hopeless. A slot on Great British Menu wouldn’t make that much of a difference. It does if you were, say, Paul Ainsworth. D’you know him?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘Well, when he went on GBM his place in Padstow was booked out for months. But in London they need more media saturation. D’you know Michel Roux?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame. Food and Drink is doing well.’ She clicks her pen again. ‘Saturday Kitchen? The One Show? You could do something there. Very big numbers. Jay Rayner name-checked a client of mine three times on there last week.’

  ‘Jay Rayner?’

  ‘Let’s not go there?’ She smiles.

  ‘I’d quite like to be Rick Stein,’ Oscar suddenly pipes up.

  ‘What? And have a fish restaurant on the south coast?’ I look at him. This is news to me, I am not sure it was such a wise idea to drag him back from France if he’s only going to bugger off south as soon as possible.

  ‘No!’ Oscar laughs. ‘I just quite like the way he is on the telly. Sort of serious and good and not gimmicky. I like Angela Hartnett as well,’ he adds.

  ‘Yeah, well, she has a USP, doesn’t she?’ says Caz.

  ‘She does?’ asks Oscar.

  ‘She’s a woman,’ replies Caz.

  Andrew comes bursting out of the kitchen like some escapee bull from Pamplona. His head is down, his nostrils are flared and he is exuding fury. He marches towards the table, carrying a rice pudding soufflé in one hand and a pumpkin tortelli with sage and chestnuts in the other.

  ‘Call me old-fashioned,’ he snarls, his face red and steaming, as he slams the plates on the table, ‘but I tend to have a run-through of a few dishes before service, just to see if the kitchen is on its toes.’ He looks up. ‘Darling!’ he says immediately, his whole body language changing as he spots Caz. ‘I didn’t know you were here! How long have you been here? How are you?’

  Caz gets up from her seat and wraps herself around him, giving him a kiss on both cheeks. As I watch them embrace, a rather disturbing thought springs to mind. Could they? Have they? Surely Caz is not one of the Gavi de Gavi gang?

  ‘This looks great,’ says Oscar, cutting the tortelli in half. ‘Moist, firm and,’ he pops it into his mouth, ‘well-seasoned.’ He moves on to the rice pudding. ‘Er,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ Andrew spins round to look at him.

  ‘Well, it’s—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not risen properly. You either need more egg white or longer in the oven.’

  ‘He’s right,’ I say, before Andrew has chance to inhale.

  ‘I should get back into the kitchen,’ Oscar announces, getting swiftly out of his seat. ‘It’s not long before service. Do you want me to do another soufflé, chef?’

  Andrew is slightly taken aback by Oscar’s compliancy. ‘Yes, great,’ he says, before getting up from the table and giving Caz’s hand a squeeze. ‘See you soon.’ He kisses her again, clipping the edge of her mouth as he says goodbye. Yes. I think the answer to my question is: Yes. Poor Caz. She’s joined a long rather inebriated queue. ‘Here,’ he says, handing her the deflated rice pudding.

  ‘No, thanks.’ She recoils as if the plate might actually make her ill which, for someone who has obviously not had a carb since Tony Blair was elected on 1997, might well be the case.

  ‘It’s good, I promise.’ He smiles at her. She nods away, almost unable to swallow, before she slowly reaches for her pen.

  ‘So, back to La Table.’ She smiles at me and pushes the pudding a little further away.

  ‘The takings are not good enough. I need more traffic, I need to turn my tables and get some people in. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘OK. How much are you willing to give away?’

  ‘Booze, food, the lot.’

  ‘Because, you know, you h
ave to give a bit away to get things going. Nick Jones is always very good at that. He does a lot of soft openings to get the word of mouth. He’s always very generous with his product. And it works.’

  ‘He can afford to be generous – he’s got a whole bloody empire to be generous with.’

  ‘We have some options.’ She sounds sweetly optimistic. ‘We can have a new brunch menu? Or a drunch menu? And we can fill the place with fab people and get that going? Or we can have a new cocktail? Or a free Bloody Mary before twelve, that sort of thing? We could do a Matt Roberts carb-free lunch for the ladies in January, post-Christmas bulge, that sort of thing? You’ve got that posh school near you. That might work? How about celebs?’

  ‘I like celebrities,’ I confirm.

  ‘Enough to pay for them?’

  I hesitate. ‘How much?’

  ‘There are levels. Some will come for a free lunch, and they’ll let you pap them on the way out.’

  ‘What? You tip the press off?’

  ‘Of course. Those Spotted slots are always good for that. Daily Mail Online, that sort of thing. Some you can give a free birthday party for, and then they bring their friends and you pap the lot in and out, and, although it costs you more in the long run, you’ll get a better spread in Hello!, or OK!, or something afterwards. And there are others you provide transport for. So a cab there and back plus a free night out. Or more expensively a cab there and back plus free dinner and a two grand appearance fee.’

  ‘Two grand!’ I lean back in my chair. ‘Who would I get for two grand?’

  ‘Oh, you know, a couple of models. An X-Factor winner – they’re about two grand. You can go higher. We could involve specialist celebrity bookers, if you want.’

  ‘How much higher?’

  ‘I heard the other day of one skinny model who now needs two First Class flights back from New York for her and her friend, as well as another twenty grand for her to pop in.’

  ‘Is she that very pretty, very thin model?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she nods. ‘She probably wouldn’t eat you out of house and home either, there’s always that bonus!’

  ‘There’s that. How about getting some actual critics in to review the place? People who know about food!’

  ‘I can suggest it,’ she smiles. ‘But they’re tricky bastards. They’re like bloody horses: you can take them to a restaurant but you can’t force them to review it. I used to think alcohol was the answer. I’d take them to lunch and get them plastered, but it almost never worked because they were too pissed to remember what they ate anyway.’

  ‘Didn’t that happen to Giles Coren?’

  ‘At Royal Hospital Road? Well, so Jan Moir says. I think he rang up to check on some details of the ingredients in the twelve-course tasting menu he was writing about. It was before they had it all online.’

  ‘I love his stuff. He’s my go-to critic.’

  ‘And mine.’

  The door to the restaurant swings open and in comes a massive flower arrangement, of white orchids with bamboo twirls.

  ‘Oh, thank God you are here!’ declares Jorge, running to get the door. ‘I thought we’d lost you, Suzanna.’

  ‘What, dead? No. The traffic is bloody awful,’ comes a quiet voice from behind the arrangement. ‘Is everyone Christmas shopping already? It’s chocker out there.’ She plonks the large, very modern, very edgy-looking display on the bar. ‘Hi there,’ she continues, turning around to find me. ‘This OK?’ She gestures towards the bar. ‘I thought I’d hold back on the holly and the ivy and all that red until a bit closer to Christmas? You lot are too classy to go off too soon. I’m thinking 16 December? Is that OK for you? Or would you rather I did it sooner?’

  Suzanna, the florist, is one of those expenses that you forget to factor into your business plan, but who is, of course, essential. You can’t have a restaurant without flowers. You need the big display on the bar and something on the tables. These need changing at least twice a week, otherwise they droop and look sad and so does the restaurant. Suzanna is charming, not hugely expensive (I pay her £52,000 a year to do all three of my places, although Le Bar only has a large bar display – no one really cares about the florals when they’ve had a few drinks) and extremely hardworking. She’s up at three every morning and trawling through Covent Garden market getting the best hydrangeas when the rest of us are crawling home. She does at least another four places around Mayfair and, amazingly, always seems to come up with a different style and form for each.

  ‘Perhaps next week for Christmas?’ suggests Jorge, mindful of the profits. ‘We always sell more champagne when we’re closer to Christmas.’

  ‘OK,’ nods Suzanna, with a sigh. ‘Can someone help me get the table decorations out of the van?’

  While Mikus and Luca help Suzanna with her arrangements, Caz packs up her papers and puts on her camel-coloured coat.

  ‘So, lots to think about,’ she says, hurling her handbag over her shoulder.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I reply.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she smiles, ‘I’ve got this.’ She hands me a piece of paper with a telephone number scribbled on it. ‘Don’t ask me how because I won’t share.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Only Marina O’Loughlin’s husband’s mobile number!’

  ‘No!’ We both look at it as if it were gold dust.

  Well, it is actually gold dust. Restaurant gold dust. Marina is one of London’s top restaurant critics; she used to work for Metro and has recently moved to the Guardian. And the most irritating thing about her is that no one knows what she looks like.

  ‘Apparently she always uses this number.’

  ‘You’re brilliant!’

  ‘I know.’ She smiles. ‘Also there’s a new boy at the Standard, d’you know that?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stone. Jason Stone. I am having someone get a photo for you so you can add it to your collection. Expect it sometime today.’

  We have collection of crit-shots sellotaped under the front desk, so should anyone try to slip into the restaurant having booked under a false name, hopefully Anna at the front desk will spot them. That’s the theory, anyway.

  I escort Caz out into the street. The pavements are busy. The Christmas shopping mafia are out in force. It is still a grey day but the fog appears to have lifted.

  Caz leans in to kiss me, smelling this time of coffee and her recently applied lipgloss.

  ‘Question?’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you and Andrew, ever …?’

  She takes a step back and looks at me with a mixture of surprise and irritation. She opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted by the arrival of a tall, leggy, long-haired blonde.

  ‘Gina!’ I exclaim, practically electrocuting myself with my own surprise.

  ‘I was told I’d find you here,’ she replies.

  ‘No need to ask you the same question!’ declares Caz, pulling her coat collar up and marching off down the street.

  12–1 p.m.

  Gina is a lot taller than I remember her to be, but then I suppose it was dark and we were both sitting down and really rather drunk.

  ‘Very nice to see you again,’ she says, pursing her pink lips and flicking her long blonde hair. Wearing black trousers and a black polo neck, with a long leather coat, she looks a little edgier than my usual sort of girlfriend and surprisingly good in natural light. Not that she is a girlfriend, obviously, having only met her last night.

  ‘Yes, likewise,’ I hear myself saying, like something straight off Austin Powers. I open the door. ‘Come in.’

  Inside, the room is ready. The tables are laid up, the fresh flowers are in place, the carpet has been hoovered, and there is a sense of anticipation in the air; the show is about to begin. I look around at the team. Each of them deals with their pre-performance nerves a little differently. Luca is polishing glasses, Jorge is fussing behind the bar, Mikus is straightening the chairs, while the other three are shuffling from one
foot to the other at the back, staring somewhat vacantly at the revolving door, waiting for Jorge to open up.

  Anna is the only one who’s still really got her head down. Dressed in a dark red shirt and tight black pencil skirt, she is sitting at the front desk, manning the phone. Having spent the last hour or so confirming the reservations for lunch today, she is now dealing with callbacks explaining late arrivals or emergency cancellations.

  Despite our calling to confirm policy, we’ll still get a few people who won’t show up, or who cancel at the very last minute. Mostly their excuses are good. A birth. A death. An accident. Some dull transport problem or a business meeting that’s gone awry. Mostly it’s business.

  The business lunch is our bread and butter. We’re the sort of place that people book when someone else is paying. And we’re good at it. We’re impressive enough to soften up a client but not too hugely expensive for their accounts department. The only problem with business lunches is they all want to start and finish at the same time. Everyone’s keen to be in at one and out by two thirty at the latest, which puts a massive strain in the kitchen. So we try and stagger the arrivals, offering a twelve forty-five booking here or a one fifteen there, but typically we’ll just keep you waiting at the table. So the waiter will dither about getting you the menu and he’ll spend a little extra time talking you through the specials. He’ll have a joke about the table: who was here last night, what they did, how often they come – anything to keep you entertained so you don’t notice you’ve been sitting on your plump arse for fifteen minutes without anyone taking your order. If only you’d taken the suggestion of a one-fifteen table, you could have saved yourself, and indeed us, all that bother in the first place.

  It is at lunchtime, in particular, when the maître d’ comes into his own. Because of the huge time constraints, he has one eye on the room and the other on the kitchen. He knows how many orders have gone in, and how long he has to wait before he can hit the kitchen with more. He’ll pop over, he’ll chat, he’ll tell you some story, he’ll remember when you were here last time. What a blast you had. A good maître d’ is worth their weight in gold, frankincense and myrrh. And they are hard to find, so once you’ve got a good one you are not keen to let them go. The salary isn’t bad, £40,000–£50,000 a year plus tips, but for a maître d’ with a reputation, a following, it can be an awful lot more.