The Times Magazine 53one actually is, or in fiction writing, where to
presume to articulate the words and thoughts
of any member of a different sexual or ethnic
orientation than one’s own puts one at risk
of all sorts of barmy leftist hellfire, so it now
goes with restaurant criticism.
Only the other week, my opposite number
on The Guardian got dragged naked through
the social media gorse bush by her hair for the
grisly racist atrocity of reviewing a Burmese
restaurant while not being Burmese. Worse
still, she didn’t take a Burmese person with her
to find out what she ought to think about the
food she was eating, which was what all my
colleagues on other papers now always do
when eating food cooked by anyone they are
not related to. It works up to a point, but then
they get slain anyway, for patronising the person
they dragged along to be their cultural fig leaf.
Twitter went absolutely Tonto (to take
but one imaginary Native American sidekick’s
name in vain) about this entitled northern
British white woman saying she had had a
nice meal in a restaurant that wasn’t just a pie
in an alley with a torpedo of White Lightning,
which is all her background truly allows her
to form opinions about. And even below the
line in the actual Guardian, the consensus was,
“Why should I care what she thinks about this
food if she isn’t an SEA?” (Which I think is
modern for “southeast Asian” but tastier to
the militant left because an acronym.)
And this is the climate into which I, an
Anglo-Polish Jew of 52, am expected to file
restaurant copy, week in, week out. So you
see what I’m saying? If fish and chips dies
out then I will be in trouble, because fish
and chips is about all I can cover without
displaying “white explorer syndrome” and
triggering full-on mental breakdowns in the
under-35 section of “Food Twitter” (which is
all of it).
But I might get away with Richoux. I don’t
know who owns it, but it’s a spraunzy coffee
and cake shop in St John’s Wood (with an outlet
also on Piccadilly), which my grandparents on
both sides patronised for 50 years and which
to this day caters exclusively for grumpy
old Jews like me. You can’t possibly fault
my motivations for going there, so I’ll just
nip online to reserve a table and... Oh.
Gone. Gone for ever (like H Coren Edible
Oils). Failed in lockdown apparently and sold
off along with the other branches, which were
all closed down apart from the Piccadilly one,
which has been revamped and relaunched and
opened just the other day.
So here I am. Whoever owns it now has
brought in a couple of fancy goyim from such
posh restaurants as Moor Hall and L’Enclume
(not sure how culturally appropriate that is)
and, according to the bumf, plans to “pay
homage to the grand brasseries of Paris”.
But how you’re going to do that with jumbo
prawn cocktails, Welsh rarebits, Caesar salads,
burgers, random bits of sushi and a “yummy
vegan salad” is beyond me. Perhaps wait for
people to order them, then sneer and say, “Wedo not serve zees. May I suggest ze legs of frog
followed by ze brains of calf ?”
To look at, with its flamboyant cake display
at the front and long thin dining room lined
with pale green banquettes, Richoux 2.0 feels
less like Bofinger or Chartier than a kosher
Pullman carriage. And the sweet, young, timid,
entirely clueless staff wouldn’t have known a
cassoulet if they found one sloshing about in
their Nikes.
My mate Gerry, a tourist from California
I had brought along to see what the people
the place is surely aimed at would think of
it, ordered the large wobbly cubes of tuna
and watermelon with lime and mint (£9.95)
followed by the steak and chips (£19.95) and
a massive pink gin and tonic in the sort of
glassware my people back in northwest London
used to keep on the hall table to store their
hotel matchbook collections. I left him to it.
For my part, I ordered a small Richoux
chopped salad (£8.95) of rather slimy Gem
lettuce, avocado and squishy “sun blush”
tomato, with slices of cold, wettish, faintly
fishy-tasting extruded tofu (unless it was the
“chicken” the menu claimed) and a scattering
of picked human head scabs (or chicken
skin?), which didn’t do a very good job of
being “reminiscent of old-school Parisian
cafés”, to quote the rubric again.
More deracinated still was the Baby Gem
salad topped with chewy strips of crispy duck,
caramelised cashew nuts and more of those
giant watermelon dice (£8.95). I can’t think of
any national cuisine that would want to take
responsibility for that, least of all France’s.
And as the rest of the menu was a load of
brunchy egg things, American steaks and
sandwiches, I ordered what turned out to be
easily the worst of the 15 or 16 vegan burgers
I have eaten since I decided last year that
hamburgers were a waste of cow (£11.95).
Some have been very good, but not this. This
was much worse than, say, the McDonald’s
one. It was a pea protein patty (not always
disastrous) of grim, slippery shroomyiness in
a sweetish brioche with a grotesque synthetic
foam of something more like a tartare sauce
than mayonnaise, as if some sickly ruminant
had barfed its cud into a Filet-O-Fish.
And as for the only “French” dish we tried,
I’m sorry, but some little shards of bacon
scattered over your ramekin of Bird’s Eye
frozen petits pois do not a “peas à la française”
(£3.75) make. I guess, next week, this middle-
aged Anglo-Jewish non-explorer had better try
to find a fish and chip shop while he still can. nRichoux
172 Piccadilly, London
W1 (020 3375 1000;
richoux.co.uk)
Room 6
Food 2
Service 4 (Not rude
or clumsy, just
hesitant and silly.)
Score 4