Latest news with #Ballardian
Time Out
04-06-2025
- Health
- Time Out
Town isn't about the chaos of the city, but super seasonality, regenerative farming, and letting the produce speak for itself
It's wild that nobody before has ever thought to name a restaurant 'Town'. Think of the endless possibilities of 'Town'! It's the place everybody wants to go; the place where so many thrilling things happen; the place where, if you can make it there, you are highly likely to make it anywhere. This new, shimmering incarnation of 'Town' can be found on the fringes of Covent Garden, far enough away from the frantic piazza so as not to be heaving with tourists and/or street performers. It's a truly grand room, a Ballardian boudoir in shiny, wipe-clean burgundy, with an open kitchen framed by a massive, oval-shaped and lime green opening. The retro-futurism thing is further dished up via the soundtrack; Dorothy Ashby's 'Afro-Harping' slinks groovily in the background, and there're a vinyl copy of Lou Donaldson's 1968 sax odyssey 'Alligator Boogaloo' perched on a record player (which nevertheless remains switched off for the duration of our visit). Such a space-age aesthetic is perhaps at odds with Town's menu, which has more in common with the rustic likes of surrealist late-1990s cookery show River Cottage than it does Barbarella. You see, Town isn't about the chaos of the city, but super seasonality, regenerative farming, and letting the produce speak for itself. It is, essentially, a plotline from The Archers. In practice, this means that the food is deeply considered, but pretty low intervention - it's less about cooking, and more about arranging lovely things on a plate. That's not to say Town avoids all contemporary trends. The snack of 2025, the gilda, comes with a nubbin of soused mackerel and a folded shiso leaf, while the snack of 2024, fried sage leaves, comes heavy on the batter and drizzled in honey. The snack of 2023 - a pastel-shaded pickle plate - is accessorised with a simple dollop of salted yogurt. My starter of wine-cured beef is just as fuss-free, with a scattering of candied walnuts and a few dots of creamy cheese, while Welsh lobster is no doubt cooked incredibly, but is relatively pared-back when it comes to presentation, layered with creamy sheets of lardo and dolloped with a XO sauce so brawny that it practically throbs. A side salad of tomato, nespoles (a kind of a fancy apricot) and elderflower is perhaps where Town's vision is clearest - a carnival of colour, furiously fresh flavour and powerful sense of pride at nature's perfect bounty. The vibe Brutalism, but make it glam - a swanky space with pricey dishes. The food Ingredient-led fare with a focus on British-grown produce and sustainability practices. The drink Lots of wine and a deft cocktail menu as devised by award-winning bar Satan's Whiskers. Our 'Dill Boy' martini was small but strong and handsome aka the Tom Hardy of drinks.
Spectator
28-05-2025
- Health
- Spectator
How Covid broke Britain
It was at about this time, five years ago, that the workers at my (then) local farm shop began wearing plastic bags on their feet, over their trainers. This was because of a report somewhere that said the Covid virus hung about on the ground and then leapt, with great agility and cunning, on to people's shoes, from whence it swiftly decamped to your bloodstream and killed you. We were still rubbing raw alcohol on to our hands wherever we went, if you recall, because whatever you touched harboured the virus. You couldn't actually go in the farm shop but had to give your orders to the staff who manned a table out front, from which you were instructed to stand one metre back. People with short arms had difficulty reaching their groceries. In the supermarket we were instructed to queue up three yards distant from the person in front, but there was no similar injunction against standing alongside someone else, presumably because the virus did not understand how to travel from side to side but floundered, like a Dalek confronted with stairs. People in the queue who coughed were given the sort of looks of abhorrence which hitherto had been reserved for practitioners of the more extreme avenues of paedophilia. And then we went home with our potatoes, and stayed home. Me – I loved it. Partly because I didn't have to travel to London to be told things by awful people, partly because it felt Ballardian and I have always adored J.G. Ballard… but mainly because we lived in the countryside with a nice garden.
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking review
Having rather lost their way for a decade, the Manics rediscovered their fire on Send Away the Tigers (2007) and then 2009's magnificent Journal for Plague Lovers, and the albums since – while never quite reaching those heights – have been consistently impressive, offering minor variations rather than full-scale revolution. In that respect, Critical Thinking, their 15th album, doesn't represent any great departure, even if the abrasive opening title track is something of a curveball, Nicky Wire coming across as a Ballardian Baz Luhrmann as he skewers the ideas of mindfulness and wellness over a Gang of Four-influenced backdrop. From then on, we're on more familiar territory, Decline and Fall and Brushstrokes of Reunion deploying the same galloping Abba piano flourishes that lit up 2021's Ultra Vivid Lament. Dear Stephen jangles in a very 1980s way and is a bittersweet yearning for that era's incarnation of (Steven) Morrissey ('I'm still a prisoner to you and Larkin/ Even as your history darkens'), as opposed to his more troubling recent persona. In the 90s, you'd have bet good money against the band growing older this gracefully, yet here we are with another reflective and thought-provoking set.
