When I say that going to see Daniel Barenboim playing Beethoven’s piano
sonatas at the Royal Festival Hall is not the sort of thing I usually do, I
don’t mean it in the sense that I don’t like Barenboim or Beethoven. Or the
Festival Hall, for that matter. Just that Barenboim rarely gives these kinds
of concerts and I’m usually not that organised to book tickets for this kind
of show early enough to stand any chance of securing seats. By the time
normal people get around even to thinking about buying tickets for anything
– a show, a movie, a plane trip – the world’s squadrons of alert bookers
have swallowed up every ticket available.
Most of these alert bookers are women. Women like my wife. Women are
genetically wired to be capable of organising the buying of tickets well in
advance. Either that, or men were out of the classroom when the teacher
explained this aspect of life. Which is why men are still buying Christmas
presents on Christmas Eve – from garage shops (“I hope you like it, honey.
It’s one of those tree-shaped car fresheners! Mmmm… Just smell that piney
forest fragrance!”); or visiting the travel agent the night before the
family is due to leave for its summer holiday – just in time to secure the
last available hotel rooms left on the planet for August. (“Hey, everyone!
Guess where we’re going on holiday tomorrow morning? That’s right, Basra!”)
Go to the theatre or to a recital tonight and ask any woman in the audience
when she made her booking and she’ll reply: “Let’s see… Yes, it was July
2003.”
The concert was fab. Barenboim spanked out four sonatas and then walked around
the stage for ages thanking us for our applause, as if we’d all done him a
big favour by turning up. Listening to four snappy sonatas is the musical
version of those grazing menus so fashionable among chefs. (“Just a few
sonata titbits for me, Daniel. I couldn’t possibly manage a whole symphony.
Let’s see, we’ll have the Sonata in C minor, Op 13; the A Flat, Op 26; the
G, Op 79; and how about a portion of Sonata in A, Op 101 – all to share
among the party.”) So when my wife and I left the South Bank at the
civilised time of 9.20pm, I suggested that we grab a bite at the Landau,
Andrew “Mr Grazing Menu” Turner’s swanky new restaurant at the Langham
Hotel.
Naturally, not possessing Fallopian tubes, I hadn’t thought to book four
months in advance. So I phoned the restaurant from the Festival Hall and
entered into a waltz with a telephone call-routing system before a human
voice finally said: “Tonight? For how many? Two people? Let me check.” Then
he abandoned me to the recorded voice, which recited opening hours,
signature dishes and the news that “the dress code at the Landau is
effortless elegance”. Eventually he returned. Yes, as it happened, he could
fit us in, but he would need my credit card number. Why? Because it was less
than 24 hours to the booking and there was a minimum cancellation period of
24 hours to avoid the no-show fee. It’s like being read your rights by the
police when you enter a store just in case you should decide to shoplift.
When we arrived 20 minutes later, maybe 4 of the 30 or so tables were
occupied. Was that palaver a smart way to risk losing potential diners to a
near-empty restaurant?
The Langham is pitched bang opposite the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place.
The BBC probably used to televise things like Barenboim concerts, but you
can’t imagine producers fighting to do that in prime time now. Today’s young
Turks in the commissioning department are more likely to want Barenboim as a
contestant on Strictly Come Dancing or on a new show where two teams vie to
construct anagrams out of the names of celebrity guests. (“And tonight’s
celebrity anagram name is Daniel Barenboim. Daniel Barenboim. OK teams, you
have two minutes to compose as many anagrams as you can think of using the
letters contained in the name Daniel Barenboim.” Team A: “Oleander bambini…
abominable diner… bilinear abdomen… adrenaline bimbo… banned airmobile…”)
The Landau, like most restaurants nowadays, treats you as if you have just
arrived from crossing a desert, like that scene in Lawrence of Arabia in
which Lawrence reaches the officers’ mess in Cairo with a thirst like a
camel’s and demands lemonade. Your backside is still hovering two inches
above the leather banquette when an approaching waiter presses: “Still or
sparkling?”, lest you are in imminent risk of dehydration. “OK, OK,
sparkling,” you stammer in reply, caught off-guard. The brand of water the
Landau serves is called Voss, I think. It comes from Norway and arrived at
our table in a tall glass cylinder shaped like a giant specimen bottle; the
sort of thing King Kong might use if he were ever required to provide a
urine sample.
This is not the sort of place that offers you bread. This is the sort of place
where the waiter says: “I have prepared for you a selection of bread.” You
have? Just for us? Oh my! He told us the provenance of the butter. And of
the salt. It’s from the Himalayas, which was a relief – phew! – because if
there’s one thing guaranteed to send me running from a restaurant, it’s when
the waiters ruin the meal by serving non-Himalayan salt. Doesn’t European
salt just drive you so mad?
My wife, feeling no professional pressure to experiment, ordered the Cornish
crab and the Dover sole, which comes to the table pre-boned (possibly in
Kathmandu), and cooed with pleasure at her choices. Faced with tasting menus
that comprised five, six, seven or eight courses, I went for the minimum,
because five times is as much as I can bear to hear a waiter detail every
ingredient on the plate and explain how it was cooked. The reason waiters do
this is to trumpet the chef’s talents. For diners it’s a useful way of
finding out what they will be actually putting in their mouths, since it is
so often hard to tell. Food in these kinds of restaurants, especially the
stuff they dish up on the tasting menus, tends to arrive as teensy colourful
blobs that have been geometrically positioned on large rectangular plates,
so that it looks like you’re staring at an edible circuit board. Bits of
this and pieces of that are all delicious enough, but they are also
anti-social. It’s food that hogs your attention. You have to concentrate.
It’s like sitting next to someone at dinner who seizes your head and swivels
it back towards them if you dare to chat to the person seated on your other
side. This is what I ordered: cream of pink Paris mushroom with winter
truffle and Comté cheese ravioli; seared bluefin tuna with mango and Niçoise
olives; Scottish halibut, etc, etc; roast breast of Challans duck, parsnip
purée, blah, blah; chocolate fondant with zippadee-do-dah.
You know what the problem with this kind of food is? It’s that it tends to
attract people who go to restaurants to eat pretty, well-cooked food without
necessarily wanting to eat very much of it. The more expensive a restaurant
(the Landau’s tasting menus range from £55 to £70 but dining à la carte is
no guarantee that you’ll eat for less – reckon on getting out for £150 for
two only if you’re dieting), the more likely it is that the patrons will be
people who are so used to fine dining that they are beyond being impressed
by anything that’s put on their plate. Unless it’s Monica Bellucci – naked.
Don’t you find this can be a dispiriting atmosphere to eat in?
Seated at the next table was a rich expatriate who was discussing trusts and
diamonds with her female financial adviser. They gushed to the waiters about
the food, but they had only picked at their plates. Maybe it smelt really,
really good to them. Or maybe, being a pair of well-organised women, they
had made their reservation so long ago they hadn’t foreseen that they
wouldn’t be peckish by the time their booking came around. Or maybe
the Himalayan salt just killed their appetite.
The Landau
The Langham, 1c Portland Place,
London W1 (020-7965 0165).
Breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
E-mail feedme2@thetimes.co.uk
Giles Coren is away
