Restaurants

James Pembroke

There are awards for everything in our everyone’s-a-winner society; the meek have long since inherited the earth. But there is one area of British life that remains uncelebrated despite the best efforts of its providers. You can tell your great-grandchildren that you witnessed the launch of the Hilarious Loo awards.

This idea came to me as I opened the door to the gents in the Fuzzy Duck, in Armscote, to be greeted by a blast from a symphony by Queen. It accompanied my tinkles and helped blast my hands dry. At Christmas, I discovered Framptons of Bath has gone one further and converted beer barrels into urinals. It turns out there’s no end to the humour required for our second-most private function.

The naming of the WC has troubled us all when asking for directions: ‘lavatory’ (so long one might not make it); ‘loo’ (unintelligible to foreign staff); toilet (déclassé but dependable).

So the kids at the Hilarious Loo Sign agency have solved this by giving Ladies and Gents cheeky names with no relation to their principal purpose. In the basement of these establishments, we shuffle (legs crossed) past ‘Cows’ and ‘Bulls’, or ‘Beaux’ and ‘Belles’, in total bewilderment. Accidents can and will happen. This year’s first prize goes to London’s best fish restaurant, Bonnie Gull in Foley Street, for its impossibly funny toilets: ‘Clams’ and ‘Winkles’. Laugh? I nearly wet myself.

Despite its annoying name and musical loos, the Fuzzy Duck is a brilliant place to stop en route to Stratford, where every last shop employs a Bard-onym – Hathaway Tea Rooms etc. Fuzzy knows how to exploit its own canard, and so we ordered Quack and Bubble (confit, bubble and squeak, and a duck egg), Scotch duck egg and duck spring rolls. The last really was the winner: crunchy and not too sickly sweet, but I’d stay clear of the underdone Scotch egg. There are lots of tables in the back garden. And if

you can’t face staying in Stratford, book one of its rooms. I didn’t check but I’d put money on its doing away with numbers in favour of ‘Teal’, ‘Mallard’ and the rest.

Bocca di Lupo is the best mediumpriced Italian restaurant in central London. Are there any left? Poor Enzo Apicella of Meridiana, who died last year, lived long enough, sadly, to see the demise of London trattorie, brought on by the homogenisation and internationalisation of all restaurants.

Maybe waiters in hooped jerseys and candles in Chianti bottles amount to some sort of racist abuse against the blessed peninsula. So many restaurants these days are like VIP airport lounges that it must be a bid to justify their inflated prices.

That Bocca di Lupo can afford to keep its prices down, a mozzarella’s throw from Piccadilly Circus, is miraculous. The atmosphere is straight out of the Via Veneto in Roman Holiday. (Don’t let them seat you at the bar; book a table a month ahead in the main dining room.) The menu is as buzzy, offering small and large versions of dishes from every region of Italy. You can’t go wrong; the waiters won’t let you. And the wine list is perfectly good value, until our guest strayed into the deep end – another reason for not taking people out to dinner.

The Fuzzy Duck, Ilmington Road, Armscote, Stratford-upon-avon CV37 8DD; www.fuzzyduckarmscote.com; 01608 682635

Bocca di Lupo, 12 Archer Street, London W1D 7BB; www.boccadilupo.com; 020 7734 2223; small plates £2.50-£10, large plates £14-£20