The dining year began somewhat hopelessly: shutters down, tables up. There were times during February 2021, which seemed to last at least 77 days, when I wondered if Britain would ever eat, drink and be merry again. Before my mother’s sparse, heavily restricted cremation, my brother and I kicked about an idea of holding an illegal wake at the drive-thru McDonald’s just off junction 44 of the M6. It was the only place open and serving, and besides, Mam always enjoyed a cheeseburger and fries more than anywhere fancy we took her.
We didn’t, in the end, because breaking the rules on mourning wouldn’t have been fair. If strangers had passed by and spotted us in a car park, all dressed in black and holding Big Macs and strawberry milkshakes, they might have said, “Why didn’t we think of that?” and been rightfully furious.
This all feels ridiculous now, though; all those wasted, bright, spring days, sat indoors, far from loved ones, doing practically nothing. I’d make an entire morning out of visiting a baker just to smell the fresh baguettes or perhaps choose some elaborate biscuits, before the slow trudge back home for more house arrest. Restaurants and cafes have always been a hobby, a passion, but now that they were closed, I realised that they were more vital for my sanity than I’d ever figured.
On 12 April, in England at least, we were permitted to engage in outdoor dining, so I booked in for breakfast at the Corinthia in London with my friend Hugh, which was the fanciest-schmanciest way to eat scrambled eggs on a patio possible. If I’m honest, the whole eating outdoors era of 2021, which lasted all the way until June, took a lot of Pollyanna-level positivity. “I’m so grateful to be out of the house!” I’d think while dining in a repurposed loading bay as gale-force winds attacked the hastily assembled gazebo. Alto at Selfridges was chic and Sicilian, but, let’s be honest, it was still on an Oxford Street rooftop. At the Alma in Crystal Palace, I ate the Korean cauliflower weekly, sitting in the pub’s Noah’s ark-style extension that provided refuge for half of SE19.
Another issue that started to raise its head in restaurants around this same time was staffing. Many focused, dedicated, instinctively brilliant hospitality staff had quit the business over lockdown, leaving gaps to be filled by people who had never before carried a plate or mixed a cocktail. Chaos was common, so much so that at times it seemed advisable even to bring your own loo paper.
A sense of order began seeping back into the life of this particular restaurant critic only some time around early summer, when lunches at Henrock in Windermere and the Barn at Moor Hall in Lancashire reminded me why Britain is so good at fine dining. A solo Saturday in Hexham, before a book festival, led me to dinner at the Beaumont hotel and a plate of charred mackerel, gooseberry and samphire that alone made the 600-mile round-trip worth it. Honourable mentions for restoring my joie de vivre this year also go to an afternoon spent on the Cheese Barge, eating course after course of fromage in a boat on the Paddington Basin, and to Heritage in Dulwich – modern Indian in an ornate but still hearty manner – where dinner led to an ongoing pining for its shatkora jhinga king prawns and black lentil dal makhani.
This was also when things suddenly began to feel wildly positive. It seemed that the worst of times was behind me, so I donated a mountain of flour, pasta and tinned beans, via Olio, to people less cosseted than myself. A balmy summer Saturday on the patio at Adam Handling’s The Loch & Tyne in Old Windsor was utterly perfect: we ate tattie scones with melted blue cheese and gingerbread trifle, and drank cocktails made with Irn-Bru, then drove home listening to loud Deacon Blue and Big Country.
Special mentions this year should also go to new noodle chain Marugame Udon, which taught me the joys of tempura egg, kakiage and the £3.45 kamaage (AKA plain, slippery udon dipped in a smoky fish dashi). And to Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell, where Florence Knight’s food shot it directly into the top three places I send people seeking an exciting London dining experience that won’t feel stuffy, seen-it-before or simply a rip-off. Cafe Cecilia in Hackney is similarly cool and delicious, but you’ve got more chance of getting in to see Pope Francis for a quick chinwag than scoring a table there before next Easter.
As I write this, I worry that we’re again slipping towards the dark days of midwinter restrictions. Each time I sit in a busy dining room, full of laughter and chatter, I wonder whether we’re very quietly back on the brink of forced closures, rules of six and “let’s all eat in the car park”. And of “let’s have a wake in a McDonald’s drive-thru with double nuggets and a McFlurry with Smarties”. But, actually, let’s not, because the rules say we can’t, and it would be rude to other sad people to break them. It’s been a hell of a year in more ways than one. Next year, though, I have literally no idea what’s on the menu.
• Episode nine of the second series of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is released on 21 December. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
• This article was amended on 18 December 2021. The Cheese Barge is at Paddington Basin, not Wapping Basin as an earlier version said.
