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| The Ledbury in happier times |
Scientists are always telling us that miniscule, unrelated events can ultimately have profound unforeseen consequences. The most common example posits that the flapping wings of a butterfly in New Mexico could eventually lead to a hurricane in China. How appropriate then, in this reverse-engineered world we live in, that the consumption of a bat in a Wuhan market has ultimately closed one of the most highly-regarded restaurants in Britain.
Just when the fine dining fraternity thought after months of gloom, there were some glimmers of hope for the future, there was a shock announcement. While many London restaurants were talking of tentative re-openings in the Summer or outdoor dining, the Ledbury chose this moment to lay off its staff and go into, if not actual closure, indefinite hibernation. I have trouble actually taking this in. When I reflect on all of the meals I have consumed in the past decade at the most renowned restaurants on every continent (not to mention the hundreds of extraordinary vintage wines), I certainly had the most pleasure from the many hours I spent at The Ledbury. I appreciate that in the sum of things, there are currently more profound issues to be shocked about, but for devotees of haute cuisine, game and fine wine, this is about as bad as it gets.
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| Brett Graham |
Chef-owner Brett Graham told me that it was simply not viable to re-open at this stage, when a large chunk of his clients are either unable to get here because they live abroad or wouldn’t come anyway because they are in various vulnerable categories. Social distancing would also prove impossible even if reduced to a metre – how do you serve someone a plate of food without being less than three feet from them?
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| Amuse |
And then, there’s the tiny kitchen space and the narrow stairs to the single occupancy male and female lavatories. But I suspect it’s not just the technicalities, it’s the way such a tip toe approach to serving food and wine would destroy the entire atmosphere of the place.
For the past decade, this former pub on the perimeter of Notting Hill has been the first destination for Britain’s - and the world’s - most knowledgeable chefs and oenophiles. Australian-born Brett Graham gained his first Michelin star here in his mid-twenties and has since doubled that number and clinched most other awards, including being in the top ten of the Worlds 50 Best Restaurant ratings and twice winning the British National Restaurant Award.
Even if you ignore the accolades and the peerless cooking, what made it so memorable was the sheer enjoyment of eating there and service that was genuinely friendly and unfussy. It was not just over weight gourmands or City Grandees or even former Prime Ministers, but young lovers on their first serious date or giggling Japanese girls photographing every dish. So many luncheon guests lingered over a second or third bottle of wine, that there an unwritten rule that they had to leave by 6pm so staff could prepare for the evening service. In my own case, I live within minutes of the front door, so it also qualifies as my “local”. This proximity meant I occasionally had friends from abroad stay overnight as they were booked in for dinner and lunch the following day.
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| grouse and funghi |
It is interesting to reflect on how some outstanding chefs take some time to find their culinary feet, so that a visit in the first few weeks, can fail to spot future greatness. I have been guilty of this myself, having eaten at Raymond Blancs very first restaurant in North Oxford more than 40 years ago and being favourably impressed but in no way clocking him for the talent he became. I could say the same thing about Brett Graham – my first few meals after it opened in 2005 were certainly excellent, but no more so than a handful of other places in London. It was only by 2009 that word spread about his skill, especially in dealing with simple products like
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| that mackerel dish |
mackerel or venison and creating iconic dishes such as flame-grilled mackerel with smoked eel and shiso
or roe deer flamed in pine needles. And then there was that slightly obscene sausage-shaped crapaudine (beetroot) cooked in artists clay and bone marrow.
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| Stephen Browett of Farr Vintners struggles to recall the name of the last glass.... |
In those relatively early days, when lunch times were rarely full, the Ledbury became a haven for wine lovers as Brett would allow free corkage and then cook dishes he deemed appropriate for whatever the wine theme happened to be – bottles of 1990 vintage Burgundy or a vertical flight of a grand Pomerol like Chateau La Conseillante. And then there is Brett’s obsession with hunting. He regularly shoots deer and grouse on various grand estates. He has taken this interest to a further stage, and is the first person to gain permission to import from the white deer herd owned by the Danish Royal family. He now has more than 70 at Aynhoe Park in Northamptonshire, along with another herd of 120 Fallow Deer originally from Petworth in Sussex plus 100 Sika deer, which are now all kept at the Duke of Buccleuch’s estate at Boughton House in Northamptonshire. Last year he sold 15 tons of venison to leading restaurants and is now turning his attention to Spain. Twenty-two Iberican pigs from Huelva are arriving later in June, which will be the first herd of this famous species to be imported into Britain. The aim is to breed them for meat as well as begin curing their hind quarters for a British version of Iberico ham.
You never quite knew what would turn up on your plate. At my last meal there a few months back, we were served Grilled River Teign Oyster with smoked butter and sea purslane. They were monsters, somewhere around eight inches long with an intense maritime flavour and the texture of foie gras. Or when I bumped into him one night after a day’s hunting and he promptly pulled out three deer hearts from his bag and advised me on how to cook them at home.
Brett is at pains to point out that he has paid all of his staff and suppliers in full and is even meeting next month’s quarterly rent payment. As much as he hated having to take these measures, Brett believes it was the only honest grown up thing to do. He intends to spend the next few months working with his suppliers to improve their quality as well as selling his raw produce online. In a sense, it is the culinary equivalent of track and trace.
We certainly haven’t seen the last of this immensely talented, charismatic chef but whether he returns to The Ledbury, or opens in a new location, is something that is still in the balance.
Tim Hayward, who owns a cakeshop in Cambridge and is a regular contributor to the Financial Times food pages, chose this moment to declare that closures of “Michelin and Worlds 50 Best Restaurants” were inevitable and a positive consequence of the coronavirus epidemic. This is apparently because what they offer is “modernist-influenced, multi-course tasting menus, absurd ‘artistic’ plating and constipated interior design..” Instead, he endorses the notion of a “corner joint” serving “something comforting and congenial”. This is the sort of chap who would dry hump the nearest lamppost at the thought of a pork pie or the whiff of a bacon sandwich. It’s the Donald Trump playbook – denigrate those elitist cosmopolitans who worship “absurd and irrelevant”expensive international cuisine. Instead, you declare: “What restaurants need to be focussing on is their own people, their neighbours, families and friends, and cooking for them simply and beautifully…” Yes, beautifully...
This is a gratuitous insult to chefs who wish to explore new approaches, flavours and styles in what they do. Angel Leon at Aponiente, near Cadiz, has three Michelin stars for his extraordinary dishes created out of plankton and discarded fish. Mauro Colagreco, currently rated number one in the Worlds 50 Best Restaurant Awards as well as holding three stars, is a genius at serving natural products of the Mediterranean. Ben Shewry at Attica in Melbourne has reinvented innovative and delicious dishes from local Australian products. If we believe Hayward, all of these chefs are serving irrelevant, soulless “deracinated product” which is the “antithesis of creativity”. The list of great chefs who have found international fame is far larger than this. I pray that they will ultimately survive in some form or other despite these tub-thumping parochial attacks. Yes, many haute cuisine restaurants around the world will close permanently but so will a lot of corner joints ostensibly offering something comforting and congenial. The rough times are only just beginning and what they throw up in the end won’t be as simple or formulaic as some people seem to think.
A shorter version of this article has appeared in Reaction Life:
https://reaction.life/closure-of-the-ledbury-is-a-culinary-catastrophe/