While skilled chefs such as Anthony Worrall Thompson and Tom Aikens
are high-profile casualties of the recession, another kind of cuisine
is flourishing – cheap fast food. Offers that customers can download
from the internet have enabled chains such as Pizza Hut, Strada and
PizzaExpress to thrive. KFC plan to open 250 new restaurants employing
9,000 people. Subway is creating 7,000 new jobs in 600 outlets in the
UK and Ireland.

None of these new career opportunities involve a high level of cooking skill
or the ability to come up with what I would call real food. Is this what our
much-hyped British dining renaissance has come down to? The crisis facing
the industry is huge – 45 per cent of the businesses that failed in the
hospitality sector at the end of last year were restaurants, a rise of 32
per cent on the previous 12 months. This week, dozens more will be facing
bankruptcy. But I won't mourn them.

I want to support small businesses, especially local ones, and I enjoy eating
out. But sadly, the people running many restaurants in the UK have lost the
plot. The cult of the celebrity chef has had a disastrous impact, and chefs
like Worrall Thompson, Aikens, Jean- Christophe Novelli and Paul Heathcote
are more concerned with their websites, PR and their "brand" than
with the business of giving their customers good food in a recession.

The same cult of personality applies to food critics, who continue to extol
the virtues of meals at £40 to £50 a head. What planet are they on? The days
of the £17 lamb shank are over. What we need are places that can cook and
serve competently, which cost between £12 and £25 a head. Many restaurants
have forgotten basic principles, the most important of which is that the
customer doesn't have to be there – putting up with bad lighting, tables too
close together, awful background music, incomprehensible menus, and
patronising (or uninterested) staff.

In a recession we spend money and eat out (rather than get a takeaway) because
we are tired, we want to relax with our partners, chat with friends, or
celebrate a special occasion. We want something better cooked than we'd
manage at home in a convivial atmosphere. Is that too much too ask?

I regard eating out at a place I haven't patronised previously as a dangerous
gamble. Can you tell me any other way of spending money (other than betting
on horses) where you hand over such large sums of cash for so little return?
The places with a loyal clientele who will survive the recession have a
couple of things right. The menu delivers what it says it's going to do, no
nasty surprises, no hidden extras. The atmosphere is friendly, you are made
to feel special by the staff, welcomed on arrival. Why do cab drivers love
going to the Ivy for Sunday lunch? All of the above. My list of places that
deliver that experience is very short: in London, St John; Moro; the
Wolseley, and local places in Yorkshire and Kent, both of which are called
the Sportsman's Arms. Yes, some may cost more than £20 a head but they have
never let me down.

I can cook reasonably well, but most chefs have no idea what their food tastes
like. They cook by numbers and never eat the completed dish – if they did,
they would surely realise that it's pretentious garbage. Over the last four
weeks I've experienced a typical run of substandard meals. At Perk Up in
Ripon I was served a risotto where the cooked rice had a soggy boiled
vegetable stirred into it and was garnished with chewy wild mushrooms. The
waitress seemed perplexed that I found it unacceptable.

The Olive Press in Preston is one of a chain owned by Paul Heathcote. At lunch
(two courses £12.50) in the Grill my potato and fennel soup consisted of
cream, spuds and three slices of raw fennel – it was disgusting. The risotto
was boiled squash mixed with rice, no cheese. My partner ate confit of duck
with spaghetti, which tasted like fried-up leftovers. The waiter spent most
of his time sitting in reception even though we were the only customers.
When I asked for bread he brought our table of three just two slices! A
small dish of repulsively soggy courgette fritters were an extra £3.

Reading Mr Heathcote's sophisticated website, on which he talks of "an
experience everyone will enjoy", made me feel slightly nauseous: does
he ever visit his empire as a paying customer? The waiter had no idea of
service and the chef was lamentable. Finally, the table cloth was completely
screwed up and needed an iron.

At the Royal Baths in Harrogate millions have been spent restoring the old
Palm Court, and a Chinese restaurant has opened in this magnificent space.
The lighting was hideously bright, and rock ballads blared out of the sound
system – I thought I'd entered the Wetherspoon's next door by mistake. The
food reached the standard of a basic takeaway and the bill arrived written
in Chinese with no explanation. A dinner for four with one bottle of wine
and three beers came to an astonishing £130. On the Tripadvisor website
there are plenty of complaints about the pricing, one couple being charged
£16 for two gin and tonics! We left as the couple on the next table were
refusing to pay the service charge. What a waste of an historic setting.

Near my London home in Clerkenwell, there are restaurants of a high standard
such as Moro and St John. I supported a friendly newcomer, The Ambassador,
until the other week, when I was served completely undercooked haricot
beans. The manager explained they had new chefs, but why should the customer
have to experience their learning curve? Why didn't they just stick to what
they always did well before, onglet steak and chips for a little over a
tenner?

The answer is that chefs have giant egos. They think they are coming up with
some culinary breakthrough no one has thought of before. In a recession,
that's the last thing we need. We want unpretentious neighbourhood
restaurants with people in the kitchen who can cook. Is that too much to ask?

Source:: The Independent