Just so you won’t look a fool when next dining with Stephen Fry, I’d like to
clear up the common misconception that roundabouts are a British invention.
Their origins are actually French and American. I have a feeling the first
American one was in Chicago, although don’t quote me — certainly not to
Stephen.
Having come up with the roundabout, the French and the Yanks didn’t know what
to do with them. The French couldn’t get their heads round the idea that you
had to give way to make them work, so they became circular jams of
arm-waving frogs, all accusing each other of being the sons of pig-faced
whores, which is a pretty safe accusation in rural France. The Americans
simply drove over the top of them, believing that God had decreed roads to
be straight, not deviant.
Roundabouts are as much a state of mind as of engineering. I like to think of
them as little indicators of social evolution. Some people are linear,
up-and-down folk, like the Americans. Others are more spatially
sophisticated and culturally rounded. The natural British deference and
politeness is perfectly suited to the roundabout. And although we may have
failed to invent it, we can at least lay claim to the mini-roundabout, which
first appeared on British roads in the 1960s. I reckon this is the only
example of Britain taking someone else’s invention and miniaturising it.
Incidentally, America’s first mini-roundabout didn’t open until 2001 in
Dimondale, a residential suburb of Lansing, Michigan. And you can quote me
to Stephen on that.
Having come up with the micro-roundabout, of course, the Brits had to go too
far. If one was good, maybe two would be better. At the junction of Lillie
Road and North End Road, in glamorous Fulham in west London, they’ve put two
mini-roundabouts back to back, or side by side, or facing each other. They
are the work of the devil. Reasonable simplicity is replaced by gnostic
confusion. Do you go round one one way and the other the other, like cotton
in a sewing machine? Or do you treat them like a traffic island? What
happens if you only want to use one and not the other? The geometric
possibilities of two mini-roundabouts are a Gordian chaos. It is a
marvellous parable on the closeness of reason and confusion, civility and
selfishness.
This little 200 metres of Fulham is the only bit that has stubbornly resisted
gentrification. Packs of hoodies still roam, unpersecuted by yellow signs
warning that plain-clothed, armed-to-the-teeth,
seven-in-the-back-of-the-head Brazilian-neutralising policemen are operating
in this area.
This is where the Hosteria del Pesce has set up its truly astonishing
restaurant. Some say they are famous in Italy and wanted to open a branch in
trendy, Italophile London. Somebody must have seen them coming and sold them
this site.
The Blonde and I took Jeremy Clarkson (again) and Jamie, the American who
can’t feed himself. I couldn’t remember the name under which my editor had
booked the table, so, foolishly, I stood in front of the little maître d’,
saying: “Mr Al Qaeda? Miss O’Lini? C Naplesanddie? Wait, it’s on the tip of
my tongue.” “Let’s check,” said the maître d’, with a gorgonzola grin,
opening a reservations book the size of a Presbyterian Bible. We both stared
at the page. It was blank, bar one entry. “Ah, Mr Al Dente. Welcome.”
We were led into a room designed by Mr Dan Tay. It was Stygian black — perfect
for people with ugly dates, or ugly people with pretty dates. It probably
had decoration, but I couldn’t see any. The plates, though, were bright
enough to land Harriers on, with those jolly Portofino patterns that were
popular in the 1970s.
It was the hottest day of the month, and a flaming torch, the sort used to
flush out werewolves, sat on the table casting menacing shadows. We started
with a plate of mixed raw fish. This was a pelican’s crop of tasteless tuna
tartare, an even blander white fish, a pair of runty rock oysters that
looked like ancient chewing gum, a brace of slimy scampi and a naked prawn,
whose clammy texture brought the phrase, “I think we’ve found it, Mr
Bobbit”, inexplicably to mind. After the first course, we moved to another
table with a floodlight. And being the only customers, we had all the
waiters to ourselves — unfortunately. Collectively, they managed to ask
everything twice and forget it thrice.
Next, I had curly pasta with sea bass and lemon sauce. It was grittily
undercooked and tasted of warm Q-Tips poached in Sherbet Dib Dab. The maitre
d’ took me to meet the main course. There were two turbot the size of
saucers, one sea bass, two scorpion fish, half a tuna, a beaten swordfish
head and a couple of dwarf lobsters. Personally, I wouldn’t have been
showing this to anybody.
A great deal of what the menu promised, the kitchen was unable to deliver. But
the eternally cheekily conspiratorial maître d’ kept winking and saying we
should trust him. Never trust an Italian who says, “Trust me.” You’ll end up
either pregnant or eating a scorpion fish that tastes invisible — or minute
fillets of turbot that look and taste like a leper’s glove. Everything came
with potatoes and tomatoes — or tomatoes and potatoes. It was like a Cole
Porter appreciation society. When the Blonde asked for vegetables, she was
offered salad. Eventually, some overboiled courgettes, carrots and potatoes
arrived as a special favour, “just for you”.
Even though it was innocent of custom, the room was busy with waiters,
hostesses and chefs, chatting, smoking and talking on the phone. We moved
table again — into the street, where you could, if you wished, smoke a
hookah. I asked for the dessert menu, without anticipation. “Trust me, I
have a surprise for you,” replied the maître d’. Stop winking at me, I said,
with more force than I’d intended. “Okay,” he winked. What came was one of
those Italian confections that you get in expensive beachside restaurants,
and the sort of thing I can’t bear: hollowed-out fruit with gobbets of
approximately flavoured sorbet inserted in them.
I asked for the bill. The maître d’ didn’t ask me to trust him. The plate of
raw fish was £39. The starter-sized pasta £20 — that’s twice as much as
Giorgio Locatelli charges. A glass of Gavi, so ordinary they only named it
once, was £8. A bottle of water, £4. With 12.5% service charge, our bill was
£342 — for a pitifully meagre, spectacularly badly prepared and oafishly
served dinner in the U-bend of Fulham on a honkingly polluted road with too
many roundabouts.
Hosteria del Pesce is exuberantly, majestically, operatically awful. In every
department, it effortlessly scores nil. And it came as a rather refreshing
joy that Italians can still do hospitality this badly.
Hosteria del Pesce
No stars
84-86 Lillie Road, SW6; 020 7610 0037.
Dinner, Tues-Sun, 7pm-midnight
