Brasserie Zedel Review

I'd read all the reviews of Zedel, which were basically all of the same consensus: It'c cheap, and it's quite nice for what you pay for. Well, I did enjoy it. It was an enjoyable meal, overall. But I did have a few niggles. But first, things I liked:

Things I liked:

I really liked the room, it was massive. Cavernous, even. I think there's another room which I think is a bar or something, but we were in the brasserie, having made a reservation a couple of days before. It looks cool and it's French-feeling and it's good for all demographics - no-one would feel out of place there. The massive space is pretty impressive and not something that the term 'brasserie' normally conjures up. Though my dining companion, who is French, and a lot older than me, thought it looked like a French theme park.

My main course of black pudding, mashed potato and apple. It was the special and I'd only ever had minute portions of black pudding, so of course I had to try it. It was good, hearty and what you'd call a 'classic combination'. Though the sausage was a bit intimidating. In the end, there was a too-much sausage to-everything-else situation (yeah, yeah, I know).

Things I didn't like:

The two-hour window for which we had our table. I know it's common practice, but it means I constantly had the time in mind, as did the staff - consequently service felt a bit rushed. We did ask if there was any chance we could stay at the end, with half a bottle of wine left, but had to move to the bar. We were seated in a (admittedly, erm, cosy) booth, so it wasn't like we simply had to leave. But it was a disruption, nonetheless and another time, we might not be so lucky as to get a seat.

The snails. The first time, my friend had to send them back  because they were frozen in the middle. They were, of course, very apologetic, and the second batch fine, but they didn't take them off the bill. If they're frozen, for christ's sake, that's kind of the least you'd expect. 

It wasn't that cheap. We didn't over-order massively, we had 1.5 starters each and shared a couple of bottles of (house) wine. Perhaps we should have kept a closer eye on what we were ordering, but it came to £90 for both of us, including service. Which is far more than I was expecting to pay.

Thing I thought were ok:

The frog's legs. They were nice. They tasted like chicken. I'm almost embarrassed to write this cliche. But I wanted to try them, so now I can tick them off the list.

Creme brulee. It was as good as any other creme brulee, if a bit boring - I quite like having something with it, a bit of a contrast, but maybe that's just me. Plus, by that point, I was really full so I didn't eat quite a lot of it. I think the sheer surface area put me off, to be honest. But it was with one of few genuine smiles that the waiter approached our table and said, knowingly 'Have you been defeated?', to which I nodded, bashfully. Or maybe because our meal was nearly finished.

To summarise, I would probably go here again, because I did enjoy it. But I'd have to be way more careful if I wanted to get a 'cheap' meal. It's all very well to lay it all out like it's a place to go to get a cheap meal, but it's all about the things that add up very quickly, and get added on. It's probably all of the glowing reviews I've read ("They've got starters for under 3 quid! In LONDON!") that have tarred it with the 'cheap as chips' brush, but for me, this isn't it and is on a par with any of the rest of the trendy places in Central London.

www.brasseriezedel.com

 

How to Open a Streaterie

"At British Street Food, we have a dream. A dream that one day the men with their rusty metal handcarts – and ‘sausages’ from a can – are chased from our streets forever. Leaving their overfried onions trailing along behind them." 

- British Street Food Website http://britishstreetfood.co.uk/category/london/

Hear hear. Those evil men and their ghastly rusty handcarts. No logo, no twitter account, no blue stripy apron, no mates who've jacked in their job in the City to help, blatantly peddling their nasty 'sausages' and (look away now) OVERFRIED ONIONS (God help us) to our people! It is a crime I tell you! A crime to good taste. A crime against all that is good, all that is nice. How can a person, 10 pints in, on a promise, between the pub and the nightclub, even THINK of eating such muck, when they could just as easily tell their new friend the evening's over, go home to bed, get up early, travel to a car park in South London, queue up for half an hour, get out a tenner and eat hand-reared, organic, sustainable, locally sourced KIMCHI instead?

Exactly. And I know what you're thinking, you could do this yourself! You've always wanted to have your own restaurant, but that's far too scary. And 99% of restaurants fail and close in the first week anyway right? You'd be MAD to even bother. Yeah, you're a foodie! That's all the qualification you need! You can make a version of that Mexican taco  you loved when you were on your travelling gap year! You remember, when you broke up from Jeremy when his father wouldn't wire him some more cash? Yeah, and you know how people are always saying your dinner parties are so delicious, and how every time you go to restaurants you complain that you're just paying extra for the table, the tablecloth, the service and all that? Yeah? So rise up. RISE UP I tell you, and get streating. It's fun, it's easy! You can be the latest thing, You just need to follow my guide to opening your own Streaterie. Or streateaterie. 

1. CONCEPT. Well, you don't really need a concept. All you need is to sell food on the street (it's that easy?! Apparently so). But bonus points for being ironic, retro, nostalgic. You'll need a brand. It's got to be shoving a fist up to the horrid corporate food industry, and all those stuffy 'restaurants' etc. So the rough 'done in 5 mins' look. Try to include the word 'urban' or 'street' if you can. Then strip back to the roots. You're just a kitchen, right? That's it! 'Kitchen'. 'Urban Street Kitchen' or something. Cool. First bit done. Kick back and treat yourself to a craft beer and some hand toasted Andalucian almonds.

2. THE TRUCK. Find a disused van, shipping container, bus, tank etc. If it's not nailed down, you can call dibs on it, right? If you have a van, be sure to call it a 'truck' or a 'wagon'. never a van. We're trying to get away from the horrible late-night burger van idea, yeah?. This is a sure-fire way to fool your customers into thinking that they are in America, where it's really cool. This will be the premises of your streaterie.

3. LOCATION. Take a functioning street market that's been boringly selling fruit and veg or something for years and get a stall there. The riff raff locals won't come to you anyway because you'll be way too expensive and weird for them so after a while you and your gang will take over anyway. And don't worry about existing nearby restaurants and cafes that pay stuff like business rates and rent etc, they'll thank you for bringing a cool hip vibe to the area. Failing that, close your eyes and stick a pin in the A to Z. That will be your location today. Repeat every day, to keep it fresh (and so that girl on her lunchbreak who stumbled upon you yesterday can NEVER find you again. She wanted your number). It's also important to keep your fans on their toes. Also they could be literally chasing you around, which makes it really easy for newspaper subs when it comes to writing headlines about you. 

4. PACKAGING. Find various forms of disposable packaging. Brown paper (tided up with string, of course), McDonalds Happy Meal packaging from 1979 (stick it to the corporate machine, man!), Silk Cut packets. This will be what your customers will eat their food from.

5. SEATING. You don't need to provide your customers with a place to sit so don't worry about that too much (convenient, eh?). If you do, find the most uncomfortable seats possible. Around a grotty, nay distressed, picnic table.

6. CUTLERY. For cutlery, a quirky take on the chip fork: Just use twigs. For napkins, freshly foraged sycamore leaves. Or sanitary towels (they've even got their own handy packaging in a variety of pastel colours).

7. MARKETING. Be mysterious. You've already thought of a clever, pithy name. Be secretive. If you have a website it must be strictly single page, with stains, burnt edges, distressed looking background. Lettering should be suitably raw, stamped, scribbly writing or typewriter font. Hand out cryptic flyers outside hipster-frequented speakeasies. They love that shit. Oh, and get on the 'Streaters' radar as soon as possible. For the first week, just tweet STREET FOOD at all of the influential food bloggers and they'll get the message.

8. FOOD. This is the easy bit. Just look at your favourite food blogs to see what the 'next big thing' is. That is what you will sell in your streaterie. Something fast food and tasty like hot dogs. Mmmmm. You LOVE hot dogs! But these will be GOURMET ones. With fried onions! And fluorescent mustard, for a 'retro ironic' feel. No-one's done gourmet hot dogs yet. Have they? 

9. FINALLY. Remember you're a streaterie. You're cool. People will forgive you for anything. Soggy plates, greasy brown paper bags, no-where to sit, crap cutlery, long queues, shit locations, high prices, food falling apart, warm beer. 

When do we start?

London Restaurant Codes

After reading the list of New York restaurant codes, I decided to compile a list of my own, mostly from personal experience (no names mentioned). Here's the London version:

P.H. - Pisshead. Will never leave.

R.P.H. - Rich pisshead. Tear top half off wine list before giving him it.

S.P.H. - Scottish pisshead - handle with care

F/U - Fat or unchic, seat at rear of room.

FUBAR - Fat or unchic beyond all recognition. Refuse table.

M.L. - Mother in Law. 50+ female hell bent on complaining from the start. You can't win.

Merchant Banker - Wanker. Known complainer.

Chimney sweep - American in the room. Put on rubbish cockney accent and skip over pulling on braces for extra tip.

S.P.M. - small plate mug - customer who always over orders on the small plates. Encourage.

Pidge (pigeon) - Ordinary customer. Not big spenders. Don't make any effort, there's thousands of them.

The pigeons are shitting all over the shop - Ordinary customers taking up all the tables, not spending.

Soho duckling - customers in a queue waiting at a no res place

The ducklings are quacking! Throw 'em some bread! - a grumpy queue, give them some nibbles.

Quentins & Lucys - Well-off young people from West London, over in East London, desperate to be cool. Sting em.

Fleas on the dog - People at the table who are obviously not paying.

Bumpkin - Out of towner / someone obviously 'not from round here'.

Bumpkin Billionaire - A shabbily dressed customer, who spends a fortune.

Westfield Winos - Groups of slightly Essexy post-shopping women. Pull out that case of Lambrusco and send out the best looking waiter.

T.T. - Terry Towellings - Group of chavvy shouty blokes. Show expensive steak menu only and declare draught beer off, only exp bottled beer or wine available.

F.B. - Food bloggers. Photo taking tossers. Flirt with their partners outrageously to the point of embarrassing them. Hopefully they won't return.

S.S. - Stuffed shirt. Rich guy, trying to impress. Allow him to, by guiding him to that special bottle of Chateau d'Yquem you have 'saved' for him.

S.S. taking the bait - Rich guy, 2-3 pricey bottles down. Dust off that vintage Cognac menu, quick!

Burger Wallpaper

Burger fans! Never forget your favourite London burger brand again with my handy burger wallpaper. Put it on the background of your phone, screenprint it onto t-shirts*, print it out and stick it over your desk to let your workmates know what you're all about.

1. First, find out what burger you should be eating.
2. Click to enlarge
3. Right-click to download!
4. Display your wallpaper with pride.

*Sellers will be required to pass on 70% of net profit to me by law

6 Cheap Lunches in Soho

I'm often asked where my favourite places are in Soho, or where cheap places are, or where good places for lunch are, so I compiled a list of some cheap but nice places I like to lunch in.

Moolis

Their tagline is 'This is not a f***ing burrito'. They do indian rotis which is kind of like a burrito, but Indian. They sell goat (in a roti). It's about a fiver for a wrap and you can eat in or take out. They even deliver, on a little bike. They also sell goat's milk, which is different. They were bought earlier this year by the guys that did Cinnamon Club and Roast so look out for other branches and menu changes.
50 Frith Street, Soho, W1D 4SQ
www.moolis.com

Hi Sushi

Ok, so from what I've drooled over read in recent reviews, it's no Sushi Tetsu, but it's not exactly Sushi Tesco either. £15.80 for (kind of) all-you-can eat sushi (some items like tuna sashimi are no-repeats), and there's some hot food too. You can only stay there for 1 and a half hours though. So it's all-you-can-eat with quite a few strings attached, but it's still way cheaper and better than another more successful chain, like Wasabi or, shock horror, Yo! Sushi.
40 Frith Street, Soho, W1
www.restaurantprivilege.com/hi-sushi
EDIT: On closer inspection, you can actually only go there for the all-you-can-eat on Saturday and Sunday day and after 5.30 weeknights but the a la carte's not bad value.

Stockpot

It's been there since the 60s, and it's the restaurant no-one else admits going to, serving national and pseudo-Italian dishes. It's always busy, despite nobody supposedly going there. It's nothing fancy, it's very much basic cooking and you can get a hot, filling meal for not much more than a fiver. Service is quick and no-nonsense. If ever I'm stuck, I'll stroll down Old Compton Street and go there, especially when I'm really hungry.
18 Old Compton Street, Soho, W1D 4TN

Cafe El Buen Gusto

Just off Shaftsbury Avenue on Frith Street, this is in a great location for watching people in Soho. Its staff are always friendly and they do massive doorstep sandwiches full of parma ham and sundried tomatoes, for less than most of what Pret does. Bear in mind they don't take card payments, but there's a cashpoint on Greek Street (the next one down).
39 Frith Street, Soho, W1D 5LL

Rosa's Cafe
Its Soho branch has just got a make-over so it's all shiny and nice. It does great Thai food and you can get lunch and a drink for about six quid.
48 Dean Street, Soho, W1D 5BF
www.rosaslondon.com/soho

Foxcroft & Ginger
They've got another premises in Shoreditch boxpark, but I prefer the Soho location. If you want somewhere which has quirky bits of furniture (and non-furniture) in with industrial lighting and exposed brickwork, this is the place. Their French toast with honey is one of their signature dishes which is pretty good.
3 Berwick Street, Soho, W1F 0DR
www.foxcroftandginger.com

My lists are intended to be honest and helpful, not just some boasty account of the latest must-go places, full of back-slapping support for my cheffy mates, PR cronies or earning me free food at others. I don't get anything free at any of these places.

How Cool Is Your Burger?

Are you worried your burger is not really happening right now? What if the burger you're eating is a bit 'last week'? Imagine if you sat down in your latest burger hotspot, only to find you've been duped, and you're actually sitting in a chain restaurant, thinly disguised as the latest thing, complete with tattooed staff, factory lighting and retro packaging?

Do not fear, my handy quiz will make sure you know exactly where you are on the burger cool scale.

1. Did you hear about your burger 

a/ On the specials board at your local Geronimo pub?

b/ In ES mag top ten burger list?

c/ On twitter, RT'd by Chris Pople?

2. Are you eating it

a/ In a restaurant staffed by Australians?

b/ In a 2 day residency pop-up at a trendy pub?

c/ Near an old caravan at the side of the road after being anonymously tipped off?

3. Is the bun

a/ A  supermarket bap?

b/ A poppyseed bun?

c/ A light Normandy butter brioche artisan bun, baked by hand, in-house, that morning?

4. Is the patty

a/ 100% ground beef?

b/ Home ground selected cuts, hand sourced from local suppliers?

c/ Fucking meat, man, cooked bloody. Eat it and feel your southern roots, cowboy!

4. Is it served

a/ On a plate, with a galvanised steel bucket of chips?

b/ In an ironic mass-produced takeaway style brown cardboard box, with the (still independent and proud) logo on the front?

c/ On the back of a naked stripper?

5. In it, is there

a/ A selection of salad, cheese and ketchup?

b/ Pulled pork, 'slaw', & your own selection of cheese (you went for American, to be authentic)?

c/ Maybe some vodka pickled jalepenos, half a bottle of tabasco, some cocaine?

6. To wash it down, you drank

a/ A glass of Pinot Grigio.

b/ A bottle of American craft beer.

c/ Neat bourbon.

7. Did you pay?

a/ You got it discounted at a 2 for one lunch deal from Bookatable.

b/ Of course, for you and your hipster date!

c/ Did you fuck.

RESULTS

Mostly As:

Your burger is a burger loser, a patty square about as cool as Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Go to Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

Mostly Bs

Your burger is a burger wannabe. A blatant ligger, a groupie. It thinks it knows what's happening but it's a long way til the front of the queue. Stick to Byron.

Mostly Cs

Congratulations! You've got 100% fully qualified bad-ass Burger elite. You've probably just got back from New York, where you ate secret off the menu shit that would make Burgerac weep. I won't even tell you where to go, as it's still a concept in the mind of someone way cooler than me.

http://www.byronhamburgers.com/

How to Open a Trendy London Restaurant

Thinking of opening a London restaurant? Want it to be cool and trendy? Here's my handy step-by-step guide.

Concept

Theme bar, tastefully designed. The idea is austerity, nostalgia, a brief moment of stylish comfort in these recession-hit times. Keep prices high though to discourage riff-raff/ people that don't 'get-it'. No reservations - goes without saying, you need as many people visibly queuing as possible.

Venue

Ex-pub in Hackney (don't worry, the scary locals will go away soon). Move to Soho when you can afford it.

Decor

Utilitarian, use rectangular white kitchen wall tiles as much as possible, exposed concrete, ceilings should be pressed tin, adorn walls with taxidermy, ironic hunting prizes (because of course we would never really go hunting), furniture should be pre-war mismatched, preferably reclaimed from an old school or public building. Graffiti (the nice middle-class 'street art' kind, not the other nasty taggy subway kind) on the walls must suggest the wacky, rock n roll crazy personalities of the owners. Lots of angle-poise desk lamps. Absolutely no tablecloths.

Glassware

Should be as much as possible unsuited to that particular beverage. Wine should be served in thick glass tumblers (Duralex, prefrably). Or even better, recycled mustard jars. Pickling jars, jam jars, ashtrays, all good. Oh, and water (to be garnished with a sliver of cucumber) must be served from a quirky source - milk bottle, water trough, flagon etc

Crockery

Anything funky, irreverent and cool, with the one golden rule: No white ceramic! Enamel camping tins and baking tins are of course, essential, resting artfully (always artfully) on the brown paper placemat which is also the menu for the day (a nod to McDonald's, I see what you did there), which is great when instagrammed from above because you don't even have to namecheck.

Staff

Staff should ideally have a selection of tattoos (again, middle-class but not chavvy ones) and alternative dress sense. Beards for guys, forties throwback for girls. Converse hi-tops are compulsory. They must have a laid-back but slight problem with authority, man, so you can just sort of let them do what they want as long as they refer to themselves as mixologists a couple of times. Guyliner a good idea but not compulsory. Extra points for arriving on a stickered fixed wheel bicycle. Owners should be in tight-fitting retro t-shirts to accentuate their 45 yr old paunches. Easy on the cheap European labour, best stick to friends of friends, even if they don't really know what they're doing.

Menus

Menus should be on torn-out lined notepaper, or brown packaging paper, in a typewriter or stencil font. There should be no punctuation and definitely no currency signs, and there will be a maximum of ten items on the menu. Equally acceptable is a photocopied handwritten menu, the more sketchy the handwriting, the better. 

No-nos: Anything in a leatherette folder (although I've heard these are to be making an ironic comeback in parts of Dalston) Copperplate font, Conqueror or similar paper, centred text.

Food

Anything that you would have eaten when you were a kid. It's even better if you can abbreviate it. The more simple, the better. No 'courses' (how restraining), everything to be shared, like a London Fields picnic.

Marketing

Start a twitter account, and make friends with every food blogger you can find. Give all of them free food for a month, and do exactly what they say. Love them, they are your Gods.

My top 10 Restaurants of the Moment

I'm getting a lot of stick for being too negative on here, so after the 5th request of 'what DO you like, then?' in as many minutes last week, I decided to compile a list of things that I thought were good about food in London. 

1. Dabbous. Yes, it's hyped. But it's deserving. And I got a table, so of course I'm smug. The service was just a little bit special because it was formal and informal at the same time, the food was good and it was very reasonable for what it was. (See review here)
www.dabbous.co.uk

2. Cay Tre. Great value Vietnamese food, great service and great summer rolls, with a great selection on the menu. Really lovely place. It's nice to have somewhere to be able to go to that you can always depend on.
www.caytresoho.co.uk

Cay Tre, image from website

3. Soho Food Feast. At the beginning of May, I went expecting it to be expensive and overridden with massive queues, but it was both the cheapest and best food festival I'd ever been to, with delicious tasters at £2 a pop for the most part, and it was tiny, too. Obviously it's only a one-time thing but I would go every year now.
www.sohofoodfeast.co.uk

5. STK (the idea of it, anyway, I haven't been). Before you get on your high horses, I don't advocate the bit about small bits of meat (snigger) being marketed at women being on diets, but having steak grouped by size and having other interesting food on the menu (I'm looking at some other steak restaurants which are primarily STEAK and other options are well, shit and half-arsed).
www.melondonuk.com/stk-en

6. Richmonds Café. It's not anything lavish, complicated or fancy but it does simple sandwiches that are  always good - and it's got cockney rhyming slang on the wall. And they don't ask you if you want milk in your tea.
3 Bateman Street, Soho, London W1D 4AG

7. Tayyabs. Went for the first time a couple of months ago and it was delicious, inexpensive and they provide you with takeaway containers, no questions asked. And it's BYOB which makes it even cheaper.
www.tayyabs.co.uk

Tayyabs, image from website

8. Costa Dorada. The only place where you can walk in at midnight and go and see a flamenco show. Brilliant fun. Basic but perfectly acceptable Spanish fare, it's worth it for the atmosphere alone.
www.costadorada.co.uk

9. Cafe Boheme. It's simple, straightforward and unpretentious, as well as good value. It would really benefit from having a set lunch though (take note, Soho House!). Lovely food and the perfect place for going last minute. And I've never had to queue or wait there.
www.cafeboheme.co.uk

10. Bob Bob Ricard. At the opposite end of the spectrum to Cafe Boheme, it is lavish, expensive and delicious, with Russian influences and a 'Push for Champagne' button' - just for fun. Does a great steak tartare.
www.bobbobricard.com

Bob Bob Ricard, image from website

Why Small Plates Can be a bit Shit

Small plates are taking over the world. I understand why, because they're good for business, good for being sociable and for this culture of trying everything and being a foodie. Of course, we can see where this started. Russell Norman's numerous places (though I have very much enjoyed meals at his places, my bank balance didn't) and the 'tapas' restaurants that are popping up all over the place have definitely contributed to this. Small plates are everywhere, and they've got some good points. They're really good for some things. For example, they're great for sharing and breaking the ice on a first date, say, and it means you can try lots of different things, and if you don't want to make a big commitment towards a weird dish, you can just try it for not much. But are small plates as we know them now really doing us any favours?

The waitress recommends that you should order 'at least 7 plates each', and when they arrive, you could really have done with about five. And they were only 'advising' and you actually ordered the food, so you can't really say anything. 

Then there is the deception of costs. 'For a starter, this is cheap! We can just have loads of starters! And that list of little whilst-you're-waiting-snacky-things is even cheaper and I've always wanted to eat a whole deep-fried octopus foetus! Let's have ten!' Then when you've finished: 'We might as well share a few more desserts - it's so cheap, it'll barely factor into our bill!' Herein the problem lies.

It doesn't make it cheaper to order lots of little things because unsurprisingly, lots of little things add up. So what is on first glance a cheap meal can be a very expensive meal, if you actually enjoy yourself and order what you want, as opposed to keeping your iPhone zealously on the table with a running total for each of you.

Or even worse, you remember that you must exercise English reserve and hold back, which can be very awkward if there's one greedy bastard who'll hoover up everything that's left there for more than two minutes. and nervously eye up the seven croquetas in the bowl and wonder how three of you are going to split them. So you end up getting a dirty kebab on the way home. Which isn't what you really want, is it?

And because these are such tiny plates, the restaurant can widen the margins a lot and you won't really notice as much, right, because you've sampled a few too many drinks on their quirky cocktail list, which you downed whilst you were waiting for a table in their tiny dining room.

And you can never quite discern how fast service is going to be so you don't want to order too few plates as a result of not being quite sure on size. I mean, if you just say you're going to get a few and order a few more, they could take ages. By which time, you have worked your way down to the bottom of the ubiquitous cocktail list and no longer have interest in tapas, small plates or seveech-ay, as your neighbour keeps smugly pointing out in a pretentious accent.

And I know what you're thinking. In fact, it's been pointed out to me a number of times. I COULD go somewhere else for a straightforward, three course meal so why have I been clogging up your brain for the last two minutes whinging about something I could just avoid entirely, but sometimes I read about a restaurant that does great food, but it's full of deceptively expensive, small plates. So I don't go.

Small plates, on first glance, do seem like a good idea, but in reality, they are expensive, socially awkward and you never know just how small they really are.

Food Photography Clichés

I've actually worked on food photo shoots (yes really) and have grown a little tired of seeing the following wherever I look... (though I can't say I've not been guilty of any of these on occasion!)

1. Filters. Instagram etc. Said so many times before, but your rustic film borders do not fool be into thinking you have a darkroom and are hand developing Ilford FP4. Neither do your crappy blurry vignettes make me think you're using No2 on this list.

Athena Plichta

2. Shallow depth of field. Wow, so dramatic. Only one crumb of crumble is actually in focus, very helpful. Actually one of the easiest effects you can do, providing you have a lens with an aperture wider than 2.8. Which every SLR basically comes with. Boring.

Cheese blog

3. The vertical downshot. Ooh how clinical, how functional. Yes, like we all hold our heads like horses directly over our plates and look down.

Jonathan Gregson

4. The black and white kitchen sweaty shouty action shot. A staple since the 90s, with Marco Pierre White's 'White Heat'. Very tired now. We all know kitchens get a little sweaty & shouty. Non-story.

At the time, it was groundbreaking

5. Exaggerated saturated colours. It's not cross-processed Fujifilm from 1985. It's Photoshop.

BUTT mag (don't ask)

6. The blurry vignette. TIRED.

Paul Winch-Furness using also 1 and 3

7. Things in threes. So zen like. And while you're at it, why not snake them towards us combined with 'The Tilt'?

Jim Scherer

8. The tilt. How wild and daring. Seasick more like.

9. Turning up and acting like a self-important wanker. Yes, food photographers act like this too, not just fashion or music ones. Get over yourselves, or I'll just use my iPhone, I'm sure it'll look fine, and you'll be out of a job.