The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Table talk
A menu described as a ‘gastronomic intersection’ isn’t as painful as it sounds
Michael Deacon at Osh in Knightsbridge
WHEN YOU’RE STRESSED out of your mind, getting ready to open your new restaurant, it’s probably the least of your worries. All the same, it has to be done. Your website needs to explain what your restaurant is like. What are you going to say?
Personally, I think I’d follow the Kingsley Amis strategy. In I Like It Here (1958), the hero, Garnet Bowen, fantasises about launching his own, no-nonsense brand of beer. Across the top of his posters would be written ‘Bowen’s Beer’. And across the bottom would be written ‘Makes You Drunk’.
That’s how I’d advertise my restaurant. No frills. No mucking about. Straight to the point. ‘Chez Deacon. Serves food in exchange for money.’
The kind of people who actually run restaurants, however – and in particular, the kind of people who run restaurants in London – tend to prefer something a little more grand. They want a description that does justice to their vision, their ethos, their philosophy. As you’ll often find by visiting their websites, and clicking on the word ‘About’ – or, more ominously, ‘Story’.
Take the website of Fucina, a restaurant in Marylebone. Across the top of the homepage is written the following. ‘Our ethos is natural. Our spirit is Italian.’ Sounds like the slogan from an aftershave ad. Spaghetti… pour homme.
Then there’s The Game Bird, in St
James’s. According to its website, The Game Bird ‘is a contemporary tale about relaxed, informal dining’, which boasts ‘a “theatre of the senses” menu’ and ‘oozes cool sophistication’. Its ‘intimate dining booths’, meanwhile, ‘whisper seduction’. I must admit, I’m not sure I’d like to be seduced by a piece of furniture, especially if it’s oozing something, but each to his own.
One of the most lyrical ‘Abouts’ is found on the website of Ella Canta, a Mexican restaurant on Park Lane. When the head chef plans the menu, it reveals, ‘the folklore and future of Mexico dance together in her mind’. When she cooks, ‘she is sensuality’. And when she serves up, ‘an artist spirit moves her hands’. Poor woman. Poltergeists can be such a nuisance.
This week’s restaurant, Osh in Knightsbridge, does food from Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries. That, however, is not how its website puts it. It prefers to describe the menu as ‘a gastronomic intersection’. Sounds painful. (‘Yeah, writing a restaurant column has been terrible for my weight. The surgeons had to perform a gastronomic intersection.’)
So what’s it like, this culinary T-junction? Well, for one thing it’s pretty loud – in more senses than one. The wall behind me was done out in zebra-style stripes, except with red instead of black. I felt as if I were eating in Del Boy’s bedroom. The music, meanwhile, was a strange blend: at times noisy and pumping,
With each mouthful I could feel great bear-like tufts sprouting from my chest
at others meandering and ambient. Imagine a rave inside a womb.
The menu was large and varied. My friend and I started with a little bowl of tiger prawns in a deliciously crunchy coating. Then we had chebureki, a bit like a pasty, filled with spiced mince. Actually, ‘filled’ isn’t the right word, because the contents mostly seemed to be air. Lamb shashlik was two skewers of slightly spongy lamb presented on a flatbread that looked like a chamois
leather, and tasted tough and dry. One dish we really liked, though, was the warm aubergine salad with chunks of soft cheese and a coriander dressing.
Running out of room to try everything I wanted, I came back the next week to sample the ‘traditional Uzbek osh’, the dish after which the restaurant is named. This was slow-cooked lamb, served in a bowl with pilau rice, carrots, peppers, chickpeas and spices. It was, as you can imagine from the list of ingredients, extremely filling. Food for a big man. I’m not a particularly big man, but eat this a couple of times a week and I’m sure I’d soon become one. With each mouthful I could feel great bear-like tufts of hair sprouting from my chest and forearms. I find the word ‘hearty’ horribly twee, but, no getting away from it, hearty is what osh is. Big, torn hunks of meat, the vegetables unexpectedly soft and tender, and the spices low-level: not hot, just simmering.
One thing I’d have to say against Osh (the restaurant, rather than the dish) is that it can be a little on the expensive side – as I found when I glanced at the pudding menu, and saw an entry that read, simply, ‘Grapes, 6’. I checked with the waiter, and yes, it was literally just some grapes. What would make a serving of grapes special enough to cost £6? Maybe they wash them in unicorns’ tears. Instead, I ordered the meringue cream and fruit cake, which I liked: a hefty wodge of purest, sweetest gloop, bulked up with juicy strawberries and blueberries.
Osh is all right. Lots of different dishes to choose from. Nice use of spices: subtle, aromatic, gently teasing. Friendly staff. Neither my friend nor I could say we were entirely blown away, though. Still, you do get quite a few Russians in Knightsbridge, so perhaps Osh will appeal more to them. And, with their money, £6 for a serving of grapes is probably a snip.
What would make a serving of grapes cost £6? Maybe they wash them in unicorns’ tears