Yes, I know it's not about beer, but, AA Gill must have the most wicked pen in the British press:
Scottish food is even worse. It has become a self-perpetuating stand-up joke, a game of disgusting combinations and one-upmanship. I was offered a sausage and asked, in a get-you-if-you’re-so-clever sort of way, to guess the mystery ingredient. I failed. If I’d gone through the Larousse Gastronomique from A to Z, I’d have failed. It was Irn-Bru. Someone is making sausages with too much rusk and Irn-Bru. Why? Do you think we’re falling short of our E numbers?
Wait, there is more:
Harcourt Street is a dead corner of the northern West End. The restaurant is a tiny terraced house, opposite the Swedish church. I had no idea there was a Swedish church in London – I imagine it’s all blond wood and stainless steel inside, and you can get flat-pack pews and absolution for absolutely everything.
The front room of the restaurant is taken up with a fish bar and a single resentful cook working his organic origami with a stubborn, precise slowness. Because there were five of us, we were led to the basement, to what had once been the coal hole. It was white and lit with the sort of neon that could induce migraine in the blind. The chairs were unsustainable for anyone who owns their own legs or a coccyx attached to a nervous system. It was a space for eating, designed and serviced by people who knew they would never have to sit and eat there. The whole restaurant made it as difficult as possible for customers to get things into their mouth.
The rest is over at the Sunday Times. Enjoy!
The photo has nothing to do with the rest, it is solely there for decorative purposes.