Jay Rayner isn’t worried about being popular.
Then again, given how hugely unpopular one or two of Cape Town’s most notorious food critics are, I guess that comes with the territory.
(They will still turn up at the opening of a letter, as long as you promise them a free meal and the chance to be nasty about it afterwards.)
You can catch up on some of Jay’s past scathing reviews here, but we’ll focus on his latest takedown below.
Writing for the Guardian, Jay responded to an invite and decided to visit Ashburn SW7, Inside the Holiday Inn, 97 Cromwell Road, London.
Or, as it’s more commonly known, the restaurant inside the Holiday Inn where many people stay the night before they fly out of Heathrow. That’s important, because most of the people who stay there don’t really have much of a choice, and don’t want to risk a run through London’s traffic in order to catch an early morning flight.
Right off the bat, Jay’s gone for the jugular:
Ashburn SW7 is a dirty stain on its postcode. It has a kitchen completely incapable of executing the menu that has been written for it. If dinner here was the start to your trip, the only good that could come from it is the certain knowledge that after this, the only way would be up.
Ah yes, this is what we came for. More, Jay:
…inside the marble-slabbed lobby is dominated by the stutter and groan of aged wheelie cases being dragged to their resting place. The restaurant is a carved-off space up a couple of stairs to one side, dominated by faux bare-brick columns, faux-wood floors and an air of foetid despondency. Men sit alone, with 250ml buckets of wine, pawing at iPads and fumbling absent-mindedly for chips served in mini-chip pan fryers…
Take the “classic” caesar salad. Please, I beg you. Take it. This one includes strands of sweaty undercooked bacon, and half an overly boiled egg with a thick, dark-green ring around the yolk of a sort that comes from overboiling…
The beef rendang, advertised as being made with “exotic spices”, is a mud-coloured slippery splatter of a stew, with a blunt hint of tired spice…
We drink a couple of glasses of mediocre wine, one of which we are given for free because ours is the first booking made through Open Table. I accept this freebie. It does at least take away some of the taste.
To finish, he’s still in an unforgiving mood:
I went to a Holiday Inn and had a shocking meal. I opened the barrel and shot all the fish. But the fact remains: there are too many barrels out there and many more fish in need of shooting. Money has been spent here on the room, staff and ingredients. The result could, if anybody cared enough, be good. But clearly nobody has either the talent or the basic good manners to see to it.
In short, if you ever find yourself spending a night at this particular Holiday Inn, you would do well to avoid grabbing dinner at this spot.
Any restaurant owner who sees Jay walking through the door will also need their staff to be on their best behaviour.
One more thing – even though it’s from a few years back, a shout-out to Gordon Ramsay’s daughter for this cracker:
[source:guardian]
