A new thriller: the mental list

Can a bar owner pull off his dream and offer 350 wines solely off the top of his head? ‘I had a nightmare in which I wandered around the dining room like Basil Fawlty’ ‘I hope I can deliver a wine that will fit someone, rather than what they think they wa

A no-list wine list? I’ll admit I was doubtful when I first heard about Ed Thaw’s plans to reopen his Shoreditch wine bar and restaurant, Leroy, last week without a written list of wines that diners could read and choose from. Instead, said Thaw, he would be the walking, talking wine list.

“I bought all the wines,” said Thaw of his cellar’s 300 to 350 bins (he hasn’t counted how many exactly), “So yes, I do have them all in my head. It’s a challenge.”

The only no-list wine list I have previously encountered was in a small restaurant in Portugal about 20 years ago. It did not have a 300-bottle strong range. It consisted of a stout woman shouting: “Wine. Yes? No?” So I was curious to find out more about Thaw’s proposition: would it freak diners out? Test their trust? Help them to make more adventurous choices? And how would people feel right now about a system that involves more talking (and breathing) in close proximity to their table? “Risk of transmission applies equally to me, so I’m not planning on being that close for that long!” said Thaw when I raised this last point.

As part of their post-first-wave reopening, all restaurants have had to think carefully about how they manage every detail of service. For some, this has meant dispensing with longer wine lists, which back in the day would be handled by multiple diners, replacing them with shorter, disposable lists.

Anyone who feels frustrated by the practice of “topping-up” – whereby staff invisibly glide over to refill your glass as you continue to chat – can now expect to be indulged if they ask to self-pour. Meanwhile, some establishments are looking to deepen their range of half-bottles, for those customers who feel safer buying into a whole sealed package.

The shake-up has catalysed other changes, too, and it turns out that Thaw’s no-list wine list has been on the cards since before the Covid crisis. “It’s something I’ve thought about for a while,” he said. “There’s a deeper reasoning behind it. What is the purpose of a wine list or a hospitality experience? I would argue that it’s about taking someone to a better place, or a higher place, and that everyone has different needs.

“Restaurants are like tribes, and I’m not suggesting this would work for everyone. It’s a pretty niche offer but I’m hopeful that I can deliver a better experience, a wine that will fit someone, rather than what they think they want. A lot of people approach the list by thinking, ‘I don’t know what I like, but I like malbec.’ I think we can do better than that.”

Thaw sounded confident, a man clearly happy talking to people, who says he is used to steering a path through people’s awkwardness around money, “I say, ‘How wealthy are you feeling today?’” When it comes to talking about styles of wine, “music is important to me – and to the atmosphere in Leroy. Why not use music as a reference point for wine? For example, techno and riesling. Or you can have funk in music and funk in wine.” He also pointed out that even the most familiar of wines can be made in different styles: “Some sancerres can be thin and steely, others are not.”

Thaw is not the only one travelling this route. Naughty Piglets in Brixton has also made the decision to go listfree: look up the wines on its website and you find instead a mission statement: “Get tipsy, drink terroir. All our wines are chosen carefully… our team has great wine knowledge and will help you pick what you feel like.”

The proposition made me reconsider my own approach to wine lists. I realise that I make several passes over any written list. First pass: judgmental – can I trust this list, or do I need to go into damage limitation mode? Second pass: financial – in what rough range do I need to operate to satisfy both budget and taste? Third pass: looking for safety-first backstop wines. Fourth pass: roving around for anything else that might catch my eye. Only once this is done will I mine the knowledge of a sommelier, if there is one, to help me weigh up my shortlist, ask about wines I don’t know or if they think there is anything I might have missed.

In the end, Thaw adjusted his plans and opened last week with a short, printed, by-the-glass list offering two sparkling wines, four whites, two “skin” (a rosé and an orange wine) and four reds – plus a QR code, to satisfy trading standards requirements, which takes diners through to a simple bottle list with prices. But it remains an interesting shift – offering listed wines as a safety net and pushing the emphasis towards the personal recommendation, rather than having the sommelier act as an optional interpreter of the written word. It’s a balance that I’ve already seen work well in shop-restaurants such as Vinoteca, or Humble Grape in Battersea, where a customer can choose from a list, browse the shelves or, as I have often done – after first getting a grip on the type of wines and range of prices on offer by reading the list – ask a member of staff who knows the wine to pick from the shelves for them.

“The service part of a great restaurant experience should be like watching someone play football really well,” says Thaw. “It should feel like there’s time and space. Although before reopening I did have sleepless nights and a nightmare in which I wandered around the dining room like Basil Fawlty failing to keep anyone happy.”

I called Thaw again after opening night to find out how things had gone. “Surprisingly well,” was the report. Most of his customers, apparently, were using the QR code to select wines they had seen for themselves, others were interrogating his knowledge to delve in a different way. “But the main thing is we cut right back on the physical paper, which is something I felt quite strongly about.”

Who thinks that masks will take over from shoes as the article that tells you most about a person. During the Johnny Depp trial he has consistently rocked a piratical bandanna (the equivalent of tooled cowboy boots) while Amber Heard has preferred silk red

bandannas to contrast with her black court outfits (Louboutins). The black nylon ones with the stoppers are for the smooth pro cyclers (slim-fit lace ups) and those ubiquitous turquoise paper ones are for the “don’t care, just found this on the side” lot (whatever shoes you’ve had on for the past six years).

Spare a thought for the peculiar plight of Nicola Peltz, recently engaged to the Beckhams’ son Brooklyn? Peltz is the daughter of a billionaire and it’s rumoured the couple are planning two weddings – estimated cost £4million – which means at least four

dresses. However, the mother of the groom is, in case you’ve forgotten, a dress designer. In the engagement picture Peltz is wearing a Victoria Beckham yellow dress (reduced to £725), so although she can in theory wear anything on her special day, in reality she has no choice at all. It’s a first-world problem, but still.