Restaurants

I have a few favourite restaurants. I like them variously for their ambience, their food and their location. I've been lucky enough to travel quite widely both on business and on holiday to some interesting places with appetising cuisine and I'll drop you my top ten favourite restaurants later.

First though, a bit of a potted history. As a child on holidays in the UK it was always seaside eateries - fish and chip cafes, formica topped tables, sausage, egg and chips, bottles of coca cola, jam sponge and custard (I always insisted on putting salt on the latter). And that was fine. It filled us up and I don't think there was much other choice in the 1960s for a family on a budget.

Then in my teens I had a part-time job at Cambridge Arts Theatre and the backstage crew used to eat before shows at  a Greek restaurant called the Eros. It was basic and cheap but very good, my introduction to Greek food and the beginning of  a lifelong love of that country's cuisine. The city also had a more up-market Greek restaurant, the Varsity, extremely popular with students and dons alike, to which I used to take my girlfriend on special occasions (birthdays, end of exams). Sadly it is no longer there.

My first exposure to native Greek tavernas came in Crete in the early 1970s when tourism was still a primitive affair. There were no menus, nothing in English, and if your Greek wasn't up to speed (which mine wasn't then) you'd get ushered into the taverna's kitchen to look at whatever country fare was cooking and you'd make your selection, go sit at a table and wait for whatever to arrive, to be washed down with retsina (another abiding love). It was there that I first tasted artichokes and  aubergines, gigantes (like baked beans only bigger and better...I had them for my tea tonight), avgolemono (egg/lemon soup), weed pies, goat stew, sardines grilled in vine-leaves, fresh figs, sheep's cheese, galaktoboureko (custard tart in filo pastry) and so much more.

By the time I went off to university in the Midlands, a bit of a desert as far as Greek restaurants were concerned, Coventry's curry houses became the main port of call for a good meal out, and Indian food joined Greek in my flavour hierarchy. I love a good curry. And curiously enough, the best curry I've ever eaten was at an Indian restaurant in Skiathos town in Greece, providing authentic Bangla dishes cooked by chefs from the sub-continent, with dining outdoors in a beautifully lighted garden.  

As I mentioned at the outset, I've worked quite a bit abroad and that has provided an opportunity to go to some really quite good restaurants in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA on expenses. (The workers must be fed!) French, Italian and Georgian cuisines have joined Greek and Indian in my list of culinary favourites.

Vincent Van Gogh's rendition of a French restaurant, 1887

What I hope to find in a restaurant is good food cooked simply, some decent wines, a relaxed atmosphere and a welcoming experience. It's important not to feel hurried. It's meant to be restorative. I don't like pretentious or faddy establishments, nor places that are so noisy it's impossible to have a civilised conversation or so quiet that everyone can eavesdrop on what you're saying.

When my children were young we used to holiday in France, Greece or Italy where there was always plenty of choice and the food was invariably good. When they were a bit older we had some fun holidays in the USA but eating out could be a bit of a let down, mostly fast food joints, pizza parlours and burger bars, okay occasionally but not all the time.

That top ten then (in purely alphabetical order), are mostly rather special but all are well worth a visit  (if they are still in business, post-Covid):

Åtta Glas - Gothenburg for traditional Swedish cooking
Bombay Garden - Skiathos, Greece served the best curry I ever had

La Coupole - Paris for excellent French cuisine and art deco surroundings

Iberia - London for excellent Georgian food without having to get on a plane

Les Armures - Geneva if you like a really good fondue

Masa - London does the best Afghani food I've ever tasted

Pizza Express - London, the one in Coptic Street to be precise, the best pizzas outside Naples 

Tamam - Xania, Greece for perfect Cretan dishes and local wines

Trippa - Milan for great Tuscan cooking

U. Pirosmani - Moscow for absolutely wonderful Georgian recipes and wines

And what about the jewel of the north? you may enquire if you don't live in these parts. Well Blackpool has a couple of quite passable Greek restaurants, a few good curry houses and an award-winning pizza restaurant (though not a Pizza Express anymore, sadly it didn't survive lockdown), plus some really rather good fish and chip restaurants with not a formica topped table in sight.

And there's always Greece every summer. I've just renewed my passport for another ten years!

Alex's Restaurant, Aghios Georgios, Corfu, 2024

I don't have a poem on theme, sad to report. However, I did write something while in Corfu recently, and that was about mosquitos, who decided to make a meal of me, despite all attempts to deter the little bastards. I've never had a problem with mosquitos in Greece before. Maybe Corfu, being so far north (relatively speaking) is cooler and wetter than the islands I've been to in the past. It was my first visit to Corfu and though it was pleasant enough and a much needed break, I won't be returning there.

Anyway, here's my poem. The title is a nod towards the famous RAF wartime 633 Squadron, made up of De Havilland Mosquitos, whose heroics are subject of a feature film called '633 Squadron ' unsurprisingly. 

666 Squadron - Corfu Holiday Offensive 2024

Dear God, sometimes I wish I was less attractive

to mosquitos.  They've been the absolute bane of

my bedroom hours.  As soon as lights are out, so

are they, scrambling in persistent hordes winging

with insidious whine and bloody intent guided by 

some scent, or maybe carbon dioxide plumes but 

I can't not breathe! 

When all the usual patent oils and sprays failed to

prevent wave upon sodding wave of little bastards 

set on gorging themselves on my finest A positive 

until bloated like tiny currants what could I do but

suffer in silence? I'm told with an occasional snore.

They are truly one of your most devilish creations.

What is the point?

And it was scant redress by dawn light, raids over,

to be able to strike back, squash them like berries,

a splatted mess dotted across white bedroom walls

as warning. Of course it won't teach them. At night

they're back for more. Dear God, sometimes I wish 

I was thicker-skinned or at least had a tail to swish. 

So how about it?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)