THE CRITERION, 224 PICCADILLY, LONDON W1 (020 7930 0488). MEAL FOR TWO, INCLUDING WINE AND SERVICE, £120
The Criterion restaurant on London's Piccadilly Circus has been open so long Arthur Conan Doyle was able to site the first meeting between Holmes and Watson there. Oh that Sherlock were still at one of the tables. He could set off in pursuit of whosoever is guilty of the crimes against food now being committed at the Criterion.
I will confess an exaggerated sympathy for the victim. It is one of the most startling rooms in the capital, the curved ceiling decorated in tiny glittering golden tiles, lending it peculiar night-time glamour. And yet in the late 1980s, when I first arrived back in London from college, it was little more than a bar, and a cheap one at that. I lost many nights beneath that stunning ceiling, sloshed on cheap wine and thrilled that I had access to such a sexy space.
It couldn't last. Marco Pierre White eventually took it over and scattered his special brand of mediocrity over the stardust. Then last summer it was acquired by a bunch of entrepreneurs from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, allegedly as the first of a number of investments. Having eaten here, that can only sound like a threat.
The long corridor-like room was sparsely populated when we arrived and when we left, which at least suggests that Londoners have taste. The first warning came with the arrival tableside of a young woman clutching shot glasses of something tangerine coloured.
"Is amuse-bouche," she said in strongly accented English. "Is complimentary of chef. Is to make tummy work." She made to walk off, but we stopped her. So, what actually is it? She looked startled. "Er, tomatoes, red peppers, spices." I don't know about the tummy, but I hope it kick-started the pancreas. The thick, tepid gloop was so sweet it made me wince.
As we studied the menu and winced again, this time at the prices – nudging a tenner for starters, £20 and above for mains – a man appeared from a door in one wall wearing elbow-length black rubber gloves and carrying a bucket, as though he were off to help a cow with a particularly troublesome breech birth. He strode across the room and out the other side. We turned back to the menu, which polite people would call eclectic and I would call a mess: a bit of Italy, a bit of France, a quick diversion to South Africa then back up to Scotland. If only all we had to do was read about it.
A Cornish crab risotto brought a tiny heap of bright orange and undercooked rice glued together with an overload of cheese. Against this the flavour of a tiny heap of white crabmeat disappeared. A bouillabaisse was nothing of the sort: a thin, vinegary broth, a few prawns, pieces of something unidentifiable – and no questions asked when the bowl was sent back still full of the liquor. No matter. We had a distraction. The chap with the rubber gloves was making another sortie. I was minded to ask him how far the poor old heifer was dilated.
The mains were, if anything, worse. A rack of roast venison came swamped with a sticky mahogany sauce which started as pure sugar and ended with bitter burnt notes, as if it had been allowed to scorch. As the waiter delivered my dish he said: "And here's your lovely sea bass." I muttered: "I'll be the judge of that." It wasn't. The overcooked fish lay in a deep puddle of unsalted, melted butter – a terrible way for an innocent sea bass to go. To add to the thrills – oh look, here's rubber-glove man again – the kitchen had not bothered to remove the digestive tract of the accompanying langoustine, so that when I opened it up there was the string of intestine black with langoustine poo. It is common for me to describe food as crap, but rarely has this been so literally the case.
With the second cheapest bottle of wine, we had already committed to giving them £100 and could not justify giving them any more, so we declined dessert. Before we left I went to the loo which, hospitably on one of the coldest nights of the year, was completely unheated. I can always tell when I'm roughing it by the steam rising from the urinal. There are jokes to be made here about people taking the piss, but I really don't think I can summon the will. All I will say is that this is bound to be one of the worst meals of 2010, an achievement given it's still January.★
