TOM JACKSON, JO HUNT80 The Times Magazine
equivalent of Chekhov’s gun) and then, as if
this were not already stressful enough, in walks
Andy’s mentor, the insufferable celebrity chef
Alastair Skye (played with glorious sleaziness
by Jason Flemyng) with... a restaurant critic!
Oh yes, a restaurant critic. The kitchen
goes mental. Andy is furious with Skye for
not warning him that he was bringing a critic
along, his otherwise phlegmatic head chef
yells, “We’re being reviewed on table four!”
like there’s a murder in progress, the critic
tries to assure everyone that she’s just here for
a night out and it’s no big deal, but nobody
believes her, and the wheels come off the
evening in spectacular style.
And I have to say, I was flattered. Everything
else in the film seemed so realistic and rang so
true that I found myself genuinely believing
that chefs still care about one-off visits by
well-known critics. In a post-Tripadvisor
world, where buzz is created on social media
by kids with camera phones eating free food,
and power is spread across 1,000 funny little
food websites with axes to grind, I had been
led to believe that nobody was really bothered
about us old dogs any more.
I know that back in the high old times we
national critics used to cause a bit of a stir
among the staff when we walked in – I recall
a waiter so transfixed by my presence at a
corner table that he wheeled a cheese trolley
out of a first-floor window – but I thought
those days were over.Eating out
Giles Coren
don’t know if you’ve seen Boiling Point
yet, but if you’re even vaguely interested
in what goes on in restaurants (which
your choosing to read this review by
no means necessarily signifies), then
I think you’ll love it.
And when I say Boiling Point, I am
not talking about the 1999 Channel 4
documentary series that launched Gordon
Ramsay and his extraordinary talent for
saying “f***” on the world, and changed food
television for ever. I mean the brilliant 2021
film by Philip Barantini (still in cinemas and
also available on Netflix), starring the always
incredible Stephen Graham as embattled chef
Andy Jones, and being more incredible than
ever. And also saying f*** a lot. You have to
say f*** a lot if you’re a chef. It’s the rules.
The action unfolds on a single night in a
new and already successful restaurant where
tensions are running high from the outset:
Andy is having trouble at home, there is
a health inspector poking about, a table of
arsehole Instagrammers demanding special
off-menu treatment, a racist dad grandstanding
in front of his family by belittling staff, a guest
about to propose to a girlfriend with a nut
allergy (which is surely the gastronomicI
‘A waiter was once so
transfixed by my presence
he wheeled a cheese
trolley out of a first-f loor
window. I thought those
days had long gone’
Burnt Orange