62 the spectator | 29 february 2020 | http://www.spectator.co.ukLIFEdo not know why people do not say
‘second-hand furniture’ any more.
Perhaps there is no virtue to buy-
ing second-hand furniture, and if you
are not buying something new, there
must be an apology crow-barred on to
that decision, with spin. It is performa-
tive dining, as at the ludicrous Spring
at Somerset House, which has an
entire ‘surplus produce’ menu called
Scratch. (Pre-theatre only; the hour of
the dead.)
Handling says he wanted to ‘prove
zero-waste food can be beautiful’ and
the menu opens with a small mani-
festo called: Why Waste Waste? ‘This
menu,’ it says, ‘is built on the founda-
tions of showcasing food waste, utilis-
ing the by-products and leftovers of
Adam Handling Chelsea Restaurant
on Sloane Street.’
So, for readers new to sustainabil-
ity, it is not food from bins. Handling
is right: it is beautiful. I haven’t eaten
at the Sloane Street restaurant so I
cannot say, but I like to imagine that
Handling has created something par-
ticularly lovely to prove his point.
The Skins, Skins and More Skins
is handsome but it felt like a gargan-U
gly Butterfly is a zero-waste
restaurant and champagne
bar on the King’s Road,
Chelsea. The ‘champagne bar’ addi-
tion is so awful as to be pantomime
villainous — I think of zero-waste dia-
monds and zero-waste wars — but
perhaps they need this kind of duplic-
ity to seduce the punters, who move
so slowly towards wisdom? ‘Zero-
waste’ isn’t an advertising catchphrase
designed for Chelsea and its constitu-
ent tractors and immaculate blondes,
unless they are very drunk. It is from
Adam Handling, who has six venues,
including the Frog in Hoxton and
the sustainable deli Bean & Wheat in
Old Street.
Ugly Butterfly is pretty, because
anything ugly in Chelsea would shriv-
el through lack of identification. There
are white brick walls with cradled wine
bottles crawling up them like babies;
pale wooden floors; rugs from old
coffee sacks; single flowers in glasses;
cushions decorated with butterflies;
paintings of bombs decorated with
flowers; and spindly old- fashioned café
furniture, which is called ‘up cycled’. Ituan chicken scratching, and that is not
a necessary thing, for me at least. I am
slightly afraid I would leave a tooth in
it; and what would Handling do with
that? Upcycle it into a light switch?
The leftover cheeseboard doughnuts
were glorious though; the ‘Feast Fair-
ly’ black pudding scotch egg — from an
egg considered too small for a Chelsea
breakfast egg — is likewise marvellous.
There is something fierce about
this food, as if it exists to seduce,
but I have always liked angry food.
The oxtail and cheese toastie is salty,
doughty, spoiling for a fight. The beef
and bone marrow cottage pie with
meat from Wagyu beef shin is small,
intensely flavoured and slightly over-
baked, as it should be, with a hefty blob
of potato I read, happily, as a rebuke.
The chicken and sage agnolotti with
chicken fat, meanwhile, is wondrous.
Ugly Butterfly only serves cham-
pagne — or water, which I am sorry
does not come from a trough, but I
once spent a weekend with Saxon re-
enactors, and slept on a sheepskin rug,
and carried a bucket of water up a hill.
Handling says he is willing to oper-
ate Ugly Butterfly at a loss, so his
restaurants can be sustainable. It is
heartfelt, then, and from a very gifted
chef. I am slightly worried that Ugly
Butterfly is empty. Perhaps such mar-
keting doesn’t work in capital’s west-
ern fashion row; perhaps he shouldn’t
tell anyone it’s a zero-food waste res-
taurant; perhaps it could be a surprise
for people so drunk on champagne that
they will forget it is a zero-waste restau-
rant. Even so, you should try it.Ugly Butterfly, 55 King’s Rd, Chelsea,
London SW3 4ND; tel: 020 7730 7161.Food
What waste!
Tanya Gold
There is
something
fierce about
this food, as
if it exists to
seduce, but I
like angry foodBefore the Covid-19 scare I
never thought that one particular
Spanish proverb would come in
useful. It goes: ‘Los ojos con los
codo.’ This hardly seems to make
sense, ‘Eyes with the elbows’, but
the great 19th-century traveller
Richard Ford explains in his
Gatherings from Spain that the
sun’s glare on the dusty land
may inflame the eyes, which
must never be rubbed with the
hand, only with the elbow, lest
ophthalmia and blindness set in.
He also recommends blue gauze
spectacles, which I must out.
Now, with the coming of
the coronavirus, the public-
spirited sneezer will use a padof paper tissues in her hand,
or sneeze into the crook of
her elbow, rather than into her
hand, which might then infect
Underground carriage poles or
escalator handrails.
It is impossible to use the
point of the elbow on the eyes;
you can’t reach. I mentioned
the crook of the elbow, but the
Oxford English Dictionary seems
to limit the reference of elbow
to the pointed, angular part. The
elbow is literally the bend (bow)of the ell (which gives us the
obsolete measurement), though
the Old English word had an
n in it: eln. That word is related
to Latin ulna (which we use
technically for the bone beside
the radius). What the inside angle
of the elbow is called, who can
say? My husband was useless
when I asked him, going on about
the antecubital fossa. Some call
it the elbow-pit, but the OED is
ignorant of this term.
Someone who hasn’t a clue is
often said not to know his arse
from his elbow. Richard Ford
doesn’t give the acknowledged
Spanish equivalent, but it
is confundir el culo con lastémporas — can’t tell his arse
from his ember days. Ember
days are more recondite than
elbows, being quarterly fast
days, to wit: the Wednesday,
Friday, and Saturday following
the first Sunday in Lent,
Whitsunday, Holy Cross Day (14
September) and St Lucy’s day
(13 December). The origin of
ember is most straightforwardly
found in the Old English ymbren
meaning ‘revolution of time’.
But scholars tell us that ember
might after all be a corruption of
Latin tempora.
Digging up reliable
etymologies takes a lot of elbow
grease. — Dot Wordsworthmind your language
Elbow‘I can’t get on the housing ladder.’Food Dot_29 Feb 2020_The Spectator 62 26/02/2020 11:03