Headlights slithered across a slick pavement gusting with rain that was peeved
at being left outside. A crowd of young men huddled in the doorway, dressed
in hoods, woollen hats pulled down over their eyes. They rolled their
shoulders, dragged smoke from their palms and took surreptitious beady
glances over their shoulders. It was the sort of faceless, hunched gang
that, anywhere else, would make you knuckle your keys.
But I sidled through them, muttering excuse-mes. A piggy interest flickered,
then died away. These are the keepers of the door of London’s most
fashionable and consistently sought-after restaurant — Nobu, a place
that has just celebrated its 10th birthday. More than Michelin stars or
critics’ plaudits, the paparazzi are the mark of its success. If you’re the
sort of person who measures life and fun and success on a Monopoly board of
available rooms, then their presence on a night such as this is proof of the
restaurant’s abiding social brilliance.
Inside, there’s a young man behind a counter who, to the unknowing first-time
customer, might well be mistaken for the maître d’. Actually, he’s the coat
check. Upstairs, the restaurant is cordoned off by a little bar with a dozen
low seats. Behind a lectern stand the women of the book.
One of them gave me a smile that was all reservation, took my name between her
finger and thumb as if it were a nappy and, with the intense disbelief of an
atheist confronted by a rosary-seller, surveyed the tome of the elect for
some rune that would open Nobu for me. She looked up and offered the best
excuse for not having a table I’ve heard in ages. “I’m afraid”, she said,
with a voice of pure Angostura, “we’ve lost the manager. I don’t know where
you’re supposed to be sitting.” And she beamed at her own
ingenuity, glancing over my shoulder as if searching a distant horizon for
the manager’s return. “Would you wait at the bar?”
I waited at the bar and watched the people who had made it this far. Mostly,
they were Japanese. Why a questing Japanese would want to go to a
Japanese-ish restaurant in London is beyond me (I always avoided the steak and
kidney in Kyoto), but that must be what puts the scrute into inscrutable. After
nearly three-quarters of an hour, the lady with reservations approached and
said that they had found my table, and now I was welcome to it.
No wonder they’d lost it. They’ve packed so many into this low,
unprepossessing canteen of a room that they’ve made it a labyrinth. The
waiters, apparently (or, rather, not apparently — invisibly), are constantly
losing their bearings and finding themselves stuck up cul-de-sacs or
unmarked tracks, hemmed in by the thick vegetation of Middle Eastern
small-arms dealers, knickerless Ukrainian executive-stress consultants,
record pluggers and fashion PRs putting each other on expenses and an
overdressed smattering of speechless visiting provincials, who booked a seat
at the most exclusive room in the nation six months ago and can’t quite
believe that this is it. They are left in their own private Siberias to rue
the truth that the abiding emotion for the socially aspirant is a deep sense
of cheated disappointment.
At this point, I’d like to take the opportunity to remember the waitresses,
waiters and bus boys — because they took so many opportunities to forget
about me. I’m quite sanguine and forgiving about ropey service. It’s one of
my many failings as a critic and my few successes as a human being. But at
Nobu, it was tortuous beyond endurance. After the wait for the table, there
was the wait for the menu, the wait for the water, the wait for the order to
be taken, then the interminable wait between dishes, which came with no
apparent reason and in no apparent order, and were served with a manfully
restrained irritation by the waiter I was constantly waiting for.
After half the food had been delivered, the waitress, experiencing six degrees
of separation from me, food, drink and the space-time continuum, asked if
I’d like to order any more, on spec, as it were, because the kitchen was
packing up. On the service’s plus side, the annoying yelling of something in
Japanese that used to greet anyone who got up to go to the loo (and which
I’m told meant “You’re welcome”, but I reckon was “Here’s a live one”) has
been reduced to an irritated mutter.
Nobu has been one of the great successes of international catering, a complex
and sophisticated concept that has become the fashionable place wherever it
has landed (except, I think, in Tokyo and Canary Wharf). It is the upmarket
version of the Hard Rock Cafe, without the T-shirt.
Our food started off well. We got a lobster salad, yellowtail with jalapeño
and smoked-salmon tartare with caviar. It was all fine, if a little little.
Then I decided to try sea-urchin tempura, baked coral eggs (nasty on a
plate, nastier in the mouth), snow crab with gunky, mayonnaisey sauce and
chilli peppers (a big, slobbish plate of wan flavour, toothless texture and
a spike of incoherent heat), and the black cod, the most copied dish of the
past 10 years.
I remember having it here for the first time, and what a great joy it was: how
fresh, how beautifully made and carefully flavoured. Now, umpteen thousand
servings later, it was a roughly mongered tranche of dead fish that was
watery and overcooked, without that divine creaminess that comes only with
pristine freshness, all dunked in a brown, cloying, toffee-like sweetness.
It was a signature that had become a logo.
Then there was the selection of sushi, so poorly and hurriedly made that it
would have been suspect in a provincial takeaway. The temperature was
worryingly sweaty, the rice fell apart, the fish was hacked and
ragged-edged, and over everything there was the whiff of cat food.
Finally, a soft-shell crab roll gave up its secret ingredient. It had been
made with a black hair running through it. Extracted by my horrified
brown-haired companion, it curled up on the plate with a cheek-bulging
lasciviousness. That was it. Enough.
I called into the emptiness for the bill. By this time, it was 11.30pm. We’d
started at 9.30. The kitchen was an echoing canyon, but still it took them
an age to return with the machine.
Nobu is probably the most influential restaurant of this century. It has
hundreds of imitators, and it was wonderful. Now it looks past it, clichéd,
as dated as bubble perms, blue eye shadow and matching Louis Vuitton
luggage. The Nobu years are so over.
The bill for two, for a generous dinner, with no alcohol and including a 15%
service charge (which, if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to see if my legs
still worked, I’d have had removed), was £280. That is a
disgusting amount. Disgusting and embarrassing.
But then, fittingly, the food was pretty disgusting and most of the other
customers were embarrassing.
SO WHERE DO THE FASHIONABLE PEOPLE EAT NOW?
IN LONDON
Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, E2 (020 8983 7900) Regulars include
Giles Deacon, Marc Jacobs, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, and the
Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane drops by when in town. Entrance is via the
kitchen (which contains the dishiest chef in town). Afterwards, head
downstairs to the bar and London’s coolest cabaret.
What to wear Giles Deacon or Christopher Kane
IN PARIS
Hôtel Amour, 8 Rue Navarin (00 33 1 48 78 31 80)This is the top
spot for France’s bohemian fashion crowd — Carine Roitfeld, the
editor-in-chief of French Vogue, is a regular in the bar, drinking cocktails
with the team from the super-boutique Colette. On the celeb front, Kate
Bosworth has been spotted here with her new beau, the model James Rousseau.
What to wear Balenciaga minidress or Chloé baby-doll
IN MILAN
Bice, Via Borgospesso 12 (00 1 39 02 7600 2572)This old establishment
attracts some of fashion’s heaviest hitters. This being Italy, food is very
much part of the attraction. Gucci executives come for power-broking over
pappardelle, while the Burberry designer Christoper Bailey can be seen
lunching with Interview magazine’s Ingrid Sischy.
What to wear D&G smoking suit
IN NEW YORK
The Waverly Inn, 16 Bank Street (00 1 212 243 7900) Newly opened by
Vanity Fair’s editor, Graydon Carter, this has swiftly become NYC’s hottest
hot spot. Calvin Klein threw its after-party here during fashion week, which
saw Sophie Dahl, Anna Wintour and Harvey Weinstein scanning the menu. Gossip
is more important than gastro at the Waverly — and its cosy booths provide
it in spades.
What to wear Oscar de la Renta or something colourful by Proenza
Schouler
