It is the late 1980s, and I am standing, long after dark, in an unlit alley behind the Strand; a place seemingly built to enable muggings and furtive snogging. There is a blank doorway here and next to it a small, polished brass plaque. It reads “Joe Allen”. I pause here for a moment, just to draw out my youthful anticipation. When I push through that door, I will be hit by an adrenaline rush of a noise. It’s a sound of which I want to become a part: a babble of happy voices deep into their theatrical anecdotage, overlaid by the clink of glass on glass, the rattle of the cocktail shaker, and all of it underscored by Jimmy Hardwick’s piano.
Jimmy arrived at the restaurant when it opened in 1977 as a means to obtain a late licence. He will play here until a month before his death in 2014, aged 88. Jimmy knows the Great American Songbook like popes know the Bible, but also makes sure to nail the score of every new musical as it opens, however poor. He has a tune for the biggest of names who walk through that door, for this is Joe Allen in its pomp, when it is pretty much the only game in town. It is the place the stars come the moment the curtain falls, to help them feel famous. Jimmy doesn’t need to look up to clock Shirley Bassey’s entrance, and then segue into Hey Big Spender, or give Michael Crawford a couple of choruses of something from Phantom. He is an integral part of something more important to the success of Joe’s than its cheery American bistro food or its killer cocktails or its relaxed service. He is a part of that most intangible of restaurant assets: the buzz.
At the same time as I was pushing through that door as a punter in the late 80s, Russell Norman was working those tables as a manager. He would eventually rise to be a maître d’ at Joe Allen. Today he is the co-owner of the half-dozen-strong Polpo group of Mediterranean-inspired small-plate restaurants. Early on in the current crisis Russell and I discussed what social distancing would mean for the restaurant business. We talked about 2m rules, and how many seats that would remove. We interrogated the economics of the business in depressingly acute detail. And then he said: “And, of course, atmosphere will disappear.”
Mood. Buzz. Atmosphere. Call it what you wish. It’s the one thing most likely to bring us back to a restaurant, and it’s the thing we’ve missed most in lockdown. At home our world is small. Inside restaurants our world is big, however cramped the dining room. Yes, all parts of the business contribute to it: a well-managed bar lubricating the chatter, the prospect of getting your hands (and mouth) on certain dishes, the perfectly calculated emotional geometry of good service. The buzz is all these things but, just as the ingredients of a good stew produce another flavour entirely, it is also so very much itself.
“The right restaurant atmosphere,” Russell said, “makes your heart beat a little faster. It makes you want to be in that room. It’s as important and significant a catalyst to appetite as any cocktail or bowl of olives.” He paused. “It’s restaurant foreplay.” If he sounds wistful, it’s because he is. Quite right, too.
What atmosphere certainly isn’t is a function of expense. We all know that the more money you spend in a restaurant, the drearier the experience often becomes. Joy is beaten out of you, one tweezered amuse-bouche at a time. There are some fancy places full of pressed linen, polished waiters and barely murmured conversation that feel less like dining rooms than funeral parlours. You go there to be interred, not to be fed.
By contrast, I love Tayyabs, the decades-old Pakistani grill house in London’s Whitechapel famed for its spice-crusted tandoori lamb chops and its dry meat curry. While not as cheap as it once was, it’s still great value. When I drift away into a mental image of eating their food, it’s not just the thought of a roasted marinade smearing my cheeks or a smoking, blackened bone in my hands that makes me smile. It’s the memory of clatter and elbows and being barked at by waiters who are focused on seeing how quickly they can get you out rather than being your friend. It is literally managed chaos. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Atmosphere is the no-nonsense bustle of the sit-down fish and chip cafés of Whitby, where the plates heave with huge, curling pieces of haddock like golden, bubbled Venetian gondolas sailing through a surging lake of dripping-fried chips. There, the venerable waiting staff talk in bold print and boast meaty forearms perfectly engineered for the job of carrying. For me it’s the Magpie, with its low-ceilinged dining rooms that are barely able to contain the chatter, but others have their favourites. Or, at the other end of the scale, it’s the downstairs dining room at Richard Corrigan’s Bentley’s off London’s Piccadilly. Pull up to the marble counter. Drink something chilled and watch the oyster shuckers use hard-fisted force to reveal the pristine and delicate. All of that is accompanied by the soundtrack of contented chatter.
You can put the necessary parts of a restaurant in place, but you can’t contrive atmosphere. Or to put it another way, restaurant hell is forced fun. Hell is a faux cowboy with a fake bullet belt of shot glasses and holstered bottles of tequila, bellowing “PART-EEEE!!!” and wondering where their life went wrong, as they drift about a Tex-Mex dining room full of miserable diners. Hell is a sound system cranked up so high your ears bleed alongside your steak. Hell is a spare rib selection served in a mini galvanised dustbin for the wow factor because it’s “junk food”. None of this is atmosphere. It’s desperation.
The good chefs and restaurateurs know this. They know they aren’t selling plates of roasted beetroot or witty takes on the tarte tatin, although that’s a part of their job. They are selling a really good time. They are selling us the buzz. At some point in the next few weeks and months restaurants like Joe Allen, which is still going strong after 40 years, will unlock their doors. The tables will be laid and the stoves relit. These are all functional things. They are literally doable. Reigniting the buzz in the age of social distancing may prove an awful lot harder.
News bites
Leading hospitality industry figures, led by Huw Gott of Hawksmoor, have come together to organise an online auction of promises and experiences, with all funds split equally between Hospitality Action and Action Against Hunger. The auction, called Today’s Special, takes place on 1 July and will be hosted by Andi Oliver and Oliver Peyton. Lots include zoom masterclasses with chefs such as Angela Hartnett and Sabrina Ghayour, a bespoke cake by Lili Vannilli, and Sunday lunch cooked in your home by the head chef of the Harwood Arms. Oh, and a drink with me over video chat and a cracking bottle of wine. A donation of £5 secures a place online. For more, visit todays-special.co.uk
Chef Niall McKenna’s Belfast steak house Hadski’s has launched an extensive ‘Cook and Dine menu’ for collection from the restaurant. Naturally, prime cuts feature heavily, including a T-Bone for two, with garlic potatoes, portobello mushrooms and peppercorn sauce for £45, as well as a Sunday roast at £34 for two, including dessert. There are also fish and non-meat options (jamesandco.com).
While recovering from Covid-19, tech developer Peter Rodgers started thinking about solutions to the challenges thrown up by the pandemic for retailers and the hospitality business. The result is a web-based virtual queuing system. The basic account is free to use, with charges for larger businesses. It is, he says, ‘ad-free, has no tracking and is completely anonymous’. Some non-reservation restaurants have already been using text-based queueing systems. It will be interesting to see whether this presents a useful alternative. For more visit oursafeq.com
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
