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New Statesman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The rise of the West
Illustration by Charlotte Trounce Wednesday evening, I am sitting on the Golborne Road with a Marlboro Light and a glass of wine. I wait for some tardy friends. Neither the cigarette nor the Riesling are a new affectation; the late arrivals hardly unusual either. The location, however… Until now, heading west was not to be undertaken lightly. West London was the land of peppercorn sauce and claret, last exotic in the 1980s, maybe? It was where George Osborne and Nick Clegg dinner-partied; it was plummy, ruddy, taxidermy incarnate. As London recovered from the downbeat Seventies, its winners drifted to W postcodes, transforming the urban nastiness observed by Martin Amis into something banal, staid, French. By 2016 London Fields (the neighbourhood, not the novel) had condemned west London to social irrelevance. Dalston's identikit wine bars were the chosen destination for the 2018 bourgeois bohemian. Broadway Market was a Potemkin answer to New York's East Village – with 70 per cent more foliage. E8 asked the urgent question: what if we sat on the pavement instead? Well, it's time to smack the big red VIBE SHIFT button. Hackney, I love you. But it's over. Just look to the restaurant scene, the best weathervane for London's ecosystem. Restaurants – the mayfly businesses they are – open and close faster than long-term trends can often identify, outpacing slower tells of change like architectural evolution and even the think-piece economy. And here on the Golborne Road is proof of concept. It has wrested itself out of the culinary doldrums, where it had been languishing since the 1990s. The social gravity soon will follow. Our reservation is at a new opening, the Fat Badger. I'll forgive a great restaurant its terrible name. Also in my eyeline from outside the Golborne Deli is 2024's Canteen (a kind of River Café-lite, but don't tell them I said that) and Straker's (deservedly celebrated since 2022). What precipitated west resurrection? Well, it all starts with the Protestant Reformation and then the emergence of a globalised capitalist… no, hold on. I suspect the explanation is uncomplicated: Hackney was desirable for the aspiring restaurateur in the 2000s because rent was cheap. It was disconnected, the graphic designers had not yet moved in. But as the middle classes looked east, the prices rose with them. Hackney became desirable because Hackney was desirable and so Hackney became too desirable. In this cosmic battle between competing poles, east was felled by its success. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The vibes-based explanation is slippier: contrary people set the weather, and what's more contrary than the belief that London's most hated postcodes might actually be its best? So, sitting in Ladbroke Grove over the weekend I wonder… is this cool? Geoff Dyer only lives down the road! Not quite. Go a little south and you'll find Fulham, the Privet Drive of the banker class. There is nothing recherché happening around Golborne Road either: our main course at the Fat Badger was still just roast beef. It is all a bit Blairite: two gastropubs – a ghoulish new Labour invention – have cropped up in the area, the Pelican and the Hero (both owned by the same imperial group as Canteen and the Badger). I pretend to know more about Amis than I do (a survival mechanism among colleagues as well read as mine). But I can tell you this: Amis's west London – the darts, the Black Cross Pub – has not returned with tremendous force. But nor has Keith Talent been entirely lost to the Bobo ascendancy. Both can be found in the Cow: at once a working-class pub and an expensive restaurant. And so, here I am on the Golborne Road, where the optimistic hedonism of New Labour meets the mannered sensibilities of Cameron's Conservatives. My friends still have not arrived. [See also: Los Angeles, Donald Trump and the moronic inferno] Related
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Fat Badger, London W10: ‘A set menu, yes, but a hearty, meat and two veg-type set menu' – restaurant review
Off to Notting Hill to the secret, exclusive dining room, pub and hidden speakeasy that is the Fat Badger. When it opened earlier this year, the place was invite-only, but has since relaxed its door policy to allow anyone who fancies the first-floor bar for ale, martinis and toasties or the set menu by a former River Cafe chef on the top floor. Nothing is more likely to rankle decent, upstanding Guardian readers than the notion that the Fat Badger was once invite-only, and in Notting Hill, land of the frittered trust fund, too! 'Eat the rich!' said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, apparently. Well, he'd have to find them first, because they don't make that easy here. This badger is tucked away above the much-lauded Canteen on Portobello Road, and access is down a side street via what seems more like the goods entrance. Head up two sets of stairs, and the Fat Badger's pub and dining room are elegant, olde-worlde, wood-panelled and candle-lit. It's all completely charming, of course, but crucially – and this is by no means a dig – and, despite the acres of hype because Margot Robbie and Jamie Dornan have been spotted here, it's also nothing remotely groundbreaking. In recent years, a new breed of London pubs such as the Hero in Maida Vale, the Devonshire in Piccadilly, the Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch and now the Fat Badger have been selling gen Y the concept of 'going to the pub' as if it were a deliciously edgy, new thing. People mill around, drink booze and talk! In real life! When the place opened, there was even talk that, gasp, they were selling single cigarettes behind the bar, to take to the smoking area. All the glorious grot that was once so commonplace is being rebranded as the epitome of decadence. That said, by the time I got round to visiting last week, those single ciggies were no longer available, no doubt because some miserable snitch had said it might be illegal. The food in the upstairs dining room, meanwhile, is really very good, which you'd maybe expect with the likes of George Williams (ex-River Cafe) and Beth O'Brien (Ballymaloe Cookery School graduate) at the helm. That comes with one caveat, though: this is a no-choice menu. That's not to say it's a fancy, itsy-bitsy tasting menu; instead, this is a hearty, meat and two veg with doughnuts for pudding-type set menu. Even so, there's no real warning of what's on offer – it's a secret, again – and it'll cost you £85 a head. We were asked what we liked and didn't like, and if we had any allergies. That was followed by a steady stream of, on the whole, delicious things that would delight even the most uppity eater. A soupçon of nettle soup, as thick as a puree, with fresh Irish soda bread and glorious salted butter. Then some gorgeous lobster in a light tempura served in a 'taco' made of thinly sliced celeriac. Salty trout belly on charred toast was intriguing rather than yummy, but a chunk of grilled pigeon on toast was earthy and rich. More trout appeared, this time chopped with olives into a fresh paté to smear across that salty bread. If the Fat Badger has gained an early reputation as something of a party palace for the Notting Hill set, that sells the cooking here very short. Next up on the mystery menu was a generous portion of scallop in a lobster gravy studded with fresh peas and pork jowl. The scallop was seared yet still yieldingly soft and the peas tasted as if they'd only just left their pods. Produce here clearly comes first. Anyone worrying that a secret menu of this kind might throw up a few curveballs would breathe a sigh of relief to see that fillet of beef with hasselback potatoes is the main event, with large chunks of rare beef, strewn with at least a dozen fat morels, a whole heap of potatoes and a steaming pan of warm bearnaise sauce. The clientele that night was almost 85% huddles of posh, thin, joyless women discussing society wedding calendars, but then it was a Tuesday evening in May in west London, so what else would you expect? Dessert was a huge portion of strawberry and basil sorbet, which challenged my belief that basil in a sorbet is nothing but an annoyance: it really worked here and was promptly inhaled. A freshly made sticky doughnut with apple sauce and a delightful spherical mass of apple crumble ice-cream rounded things off, with the crumble worked in flaky chunks through the rich vanilla ice-cream. The Fat Badger may have been sold to me as one of the naughtiest new places in London, but I think this wonderful, calories-be-damned ice-cream was easily the lewdest part of the entire evening. The Fat Badger is immensely likeable, and they'll now let you in even if you're not famous (or friends with them). Lucky you! The Fat Badger 310 Portobello Road, London W10 (no phone). Open Tues-Sat, dinner only, 5-9.30pm (last orders); Sun lunch, noon-3.30pm. Dinner, four-course set menu only, £85 a head; Sun, three-course set menu only, £60, all plus drinks and service
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
REVIEW: What makes a Highly Recommended Hotel?
How do you fill a venue midweek and mid-winter? The White Hart Hotel in Harrogate and its related Fat Badger bar/ restaurant appears to have the answer. With the hotel owner HRH planning to opening its third Fat Badger in Whitby, it seemed a great opportunity to accept an invite to try out the first Fat Badger, on Cold Bath Road, Harrogate. This follows a visit to York's own Fat Badger last year, which opened three years ago in High Petergate after a £1million-plus renovation of the former Lamb and Lion. RECOMMENDED READING: HRH Group to open Fat Badger in Whitby at the Royal Hotel REVIEW: Clementine's Town House Hotel and The Fat Badger REVIEW: The Yorkshire Hotel and Pickled Sprout in Harrogate York Press Business Awards: Wold Top Brewery wins overall This first Fat Badger, which opened in 2010, is part of the White Hart Hotel in the stylish Montpellier Quarter, a few minutes walk from the Valley Gardens and the famous Betty's Café. The four-star hotel boats almost 100, modern/contemporary rooms, and an AA Rosette Restaurant. I arrived one Tuesday in February and parked in the hotel car park at the rear (£1.50ph or £15 a night for guests). It was lunchtime and after a friendly welcome I was off to the Fat Badger a short walk down a classy corridor. Tuesday lunchtime and doing a tidy trade (Image: Darren Greenwood) There were quite a few drinkers and diners of all ages and a decent range of beers available at the bar. But as I had work to do after lunch, I resisted temptation, and I also had an invite to Harrogate's famous Fat Badger Beer Club that evening. I settled for a flat white coffee, which was nice and strong and perked me up beautifully. I ordered lunch from an extensive menu of contemporary classics and favourites. The wifi worked well and was easy to log on to. For starter, I went for the sticky pork belly salad with roasted sesame dressing and Wakame seaweed (£8.95). It was a generous portion and the salad was a delight, with the dressing and seaweed combining to deliver interesting and pleasant flavours. For mains, I chose the 12-hour Lamb Shoulder (£21.95), which came with fondant potato, red wine and minted jus. I added a serving of dressed house slaw (£4.50). Now, I have never known lamb as tender and there was certainly no fat, but was it too soft in texture and could it have done with a bit more flavour? Either way, it was still lovely. The roasted carrots were soft and superb. I wish I could get my carrots as good. You should stick to the sticky pork belly, which is a treat. (Image: Darren Greenwood) The ranch slaw was crunchy and tasting, with again, dressing giving a very pleasant aftertaste. Well, I had to have a breather before dessert arrived during my second flat white. I had settled for the Black Forest Trifle (£8.95), which featured Kirsch-soaked cherries. The trifle was very rich and creamy, with plenty of cream, chocolate and a decent amount of black cherry. The fresh mint just finished off beautifully with an excellent array of indulgent flavours. It was then time to check in and I was awarded a most pleasant room overlooking part of the Stray outside. The room was a decent size, the bathroom was gleaming and spotlessly clean, with fluffy-white towels, and the bed was large, comfortable and also spotlessly clean. The room was functional, contemporary and modern, just ideal, and the wifi-worked well and easily. Despite the town centre location, it was quiet, with no disturbance from passing traffic. After several hours of WFH (working from hotel), it was time to head up the hill to the Yorkshire Hotel, a sister to the White Hart, and its Pickled Sprout bar. While nearby venues seemed quiet that Tuesday evening, the Pickled Sprout was buzzing as people enjoyed their first of four beers. Well, it was actually Veltins Pilsner. The iconic fat badger greets you (Image: Darren Greenwood) The Fat Badger Beer Club has operated for about ten years, bar a pause during a pandemic, with the monthly event a popular custom in Harrogate's social calendar. You get a first drink downstairs on entry, followed by three more beers on the fifth floor upstairs in the Sky Bar. The cost is an amazing £35, a bargain considering you get four beers and a top class three course restaurant meal. The beers are usually from Yorkshire and were from the excellent Kirkstall brewery the night I was there. There were 180 guests the night I was there, for an event that often attracts more than 200, and has to spread onto other levels. Don't expect peace and quiet, expect a buzz and plenty of friendly people to talk to. The meal was superb, consisting of chicken and pork belly terrine, with spring onion and corn fritter and maple bacon for starter. The mains was slow cooked braised oxtail meatball with basil potato and ratatouille, followed by apple and date steamed pudding, cinder toffee and hazelnut ice cream. All courses offered a grand and diverse range of flavours, well complemented, and were all polished off by my neighbours. Sadly, I was still a bit full from earlier and it was a shame to leave some. I did my best. After a final gin and tonic from the elegant bar downstairs it was back down the hill to the hotel and bed, where I slept well in the most comfortable bed. Around 8am, I went downstairs for breakfast in elegant surroundings. The usual cereals, croissants, etc, are available, but I just helped myself to the buffet for the Full English, always an enjoyable treat. The juicy large mushrooms were a standout delight. The most tender and soft lamb shoulder I have ever had. (Image: Darren Greenwood) After a little more work, it was time to leave the comfortable and friendly hotel, whose operators HRH rightfully talk about its venues being the 'best loved.' TripAdvisor awards the White Hart 4 stars, ranking it 5th out of 23 Harrogate hotels and Google awards 4.2 stars. York's smaller Fat Badger scores 4.4 stars with Google. Work is well underway at the Royal Hotel in Whitby, which remains open, but bit by bit is being transformed into a Fat Badger. The success of the first two augurs well for the third when it opens in the Spring. So how do fill a venue midweek and mid-winter? Top food, top drink, top service and top value, all making for a HRH (Highly Recommended Hotel).
