A nightmare that became a dream
Before I give you the good news, here's a short horror story.
It was the morning of 23 August 1970. I was on a hunt for my first breakfast in London. The previous night I starved because I was unfortunate enough to have arrived from the USA after 10pm and nothing was open. By 8am, I was seriously hungry. At the first café I saw, I ordered a cheese roll and a cappuccino. What I got was a thin, sweaty, globular, almost rancid slice of a yellowish substance surrounded by a bread roll the consistency of loft insulation. Cappuccino was unheard of, but coffee made with 95% chicory was all the rage at the time. Yuk!
In those years, Continental food seemed exotic and glamorous compared with the dull and disgusting stuff offered over here. Today, 24 years later, the world's view of British food is practically as bad as ever. That is a pity, because the perception no longer matches the reality. If a Martian on an intergalactic gastronomic tour had sampled some of the UK's restaurants in the 1970s and then again in the 1990s, he could be forgiven for believing he had landed in a totally different place. There has been such a wholesale change in the food culture here that it is nothing short of a major gastronomic revolution.
Our restaurants today have a variety and flair that caters for every conceivable palate and budget. This country has even developed its own cuisine, Modern British, which can easily hold its own against French or Italian.
Curiously, as Britain moves forward, other countries previously famed for their gastronomy are showing signs of terminal decline. Last spring I took my family to Paris and found restaurants famed for their steak frites unashamedly using frozen french fries. In the past I could always count on finding family-run cafés on every corner serving fresh, inexpensive food. Now I am guaranteed only a McDonald's, or equivalent, in their place. Unbelievably, the advertising campaign dominating the whole of Paris was for Nestlé's Instant Cappuccino. This was not the Paris I remembered.
The tourist boards should recognise what a competitive advantage Britain now has and delay no further in trumpeting the news of the revolution to the world. It is said that this year's Michelin guide has been the best for London's restaurants since it was first published here. So, even the French have finally begun to recognise our gastronomic revolution. . . and that is really saying something. But what is even more significant than our explosion of starred establishments is the fact that we now have some of the best "popular" restaurants in the world - restaurants for the common man, families and tourists, restaurants that will probably not even get a nod in the Michelin guides of this world. They are the definitive proof that the revolution has come.
Add to this cornucopia the fact that the range of wines on offer in our restaurants puts other countries to shame in comparison, and you will begin to understand why Britain's eating places have become unique. In theUSA you are likely to be offered French or US wine, while in France it's French or French. But over here you might be offered wines from as many as 35 countries.
Don't forget too, that restaurant prices have come down so much in the last few years that we are no longer considered expensive in relation to other countries. And the proliferation of table d'hôte menus together with the inexpensive lunches on offer by the usually unaffordable haute cuisine temples are a boon to all food lovers on a budget.
Finally, standards of service over here are now equal to the best anywhere (did we Americans have anything to do with that, I wonder?).
Add all this up and you will see that the restaurant and food scene over here has become, under our very noses, one of the most creative, most exciting and most buoyant industries around. Bon appetit, or as we former New Yorkers like to say, enjoy! o
