Restaurants
DIVINE SERVICE
I’m desperate to be served.
I passed Lockdown 2.0 with a heavy heart. And stomach. Heavy from the continuous lunches and dinners I have been cooking and serving my gluttonous family, I have performed these duties gracelessly and resentfully.
I just kept asking myself, ‘How do waiters do it?’ A third of their customers are sure to be rude, a third indifferent and the final third incomprehensible.
And then they get me, with my lifelong love of waiters. I egregiously suck up to them – even more than I do to my wife and children. I am simply desperate for them to like me. I maintain that the Olympic Gold Medal for Service goes to Italy; Sir George Smith, the former chairman of the Savoy group, concurred:
‘ Dans la salle, les Italiens; dans la cuisine, les Français.’
The legendary Peppino Leoni, the founder of Quo Vadis, believed the French were proud because they had been a unified nation longer, whereas Italians had been ‘dominated by foreign countries or native feudal lords… And had learned to be servile without loss of pride.’
However, in that last week of freedom before lockdown when I ate out for lunch and dinner every day, there were some real surprises.
Some of the worst service in Britain is in pub restaurants: disenchanted students and divorcees slam your plates down. Yet Venetia, the owner of the Talbot Inn near Shaftesbury, was born to soothe.
Josephine, John and I had just marched 13 miles across Cranborne Chase and were in bad need of cherishing. Venetia sprang to the door as we came in, put us at a table right next to the huge fire, and came back with our drinks within seconds. Mary Poppins was a slattern in comparison.
I had delicious liver and bacon, washed down with a bottle of Château Bel Air. I rejoiced in this ultimate country
pub until we started to worry about getting back to our beds at the Crown Inn, two miles yonder at Alvediston. Venetia’s sensors were peaking; she bounded up to us and offered to drive us back. She was the only person serving; so we weakly demurred. But she got her way, and I salute her. How incredibly kind.
My second extraordinary, lifeaffirming moment was meeting a charming English sommelier – I never thought those three words would juxtapose – at La Trompette.
The food there is now stratospheric but just go for Donald. Of course he guided me to wines I can’t afford but I was in love. I would have bought a gallon of Château d’yquem had he suggested it. All his choices were excellent: a minerally Muscadet with the oysters and a deep Langhe Nebbiolo with the venison. We treated Louise-who-never-says-thankyou, and even she was beguiled.
My third shock was at A Wong, the best Chinese restaurant in London. Bonnie, our waitress, took away all the stress from me by choosing all our dishes. She rightly sensed I was a little tired and emotional after celebrating with the editor on the back of the recent testimonial by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, founder of Air Mail: ‘ The Oldie is an incredible magazine – perhaps the best in the world.’ Well, Bonnie, that’s how I think of you.
Talbot Inn, Berwick St John, Shaftesbury, SP7 0HA; tel: 01747 828222; www. talbotinnberwickstjohn.co.uk; main courses £13.50-£16.50. Cottages to rent.
La Trompette, 3-7 Devonshire Road, London W4 2EU; tel: 020 8995 8097; www.latrompette.co.uk; 3-course lunch £35
A Wong, 70 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1DE; tel: 0207 828 8931; www.awong. co.uk; dim sum from £3.50