Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea

Tom’s Place closed by smell snobs

How do we explain the recent closure of ‘Tom’s Place’, the ethical chippy in Chelsea, due to complaints from the neighbours about cooking smells?

Tom Aikens – for those of you who aren’t interested in the latest developments in cooking with liquid nitrogen, food colouring and snail horns – is London’s answer to Heston Blumenthal. He’s a Michelin-starred master of experimental cooking and slightly ridiculous culinary perfectionism.

For all the multiple idiocies of the menu at his posh, eponymous restaurant in Sloane Square – a typical starter is “Anneau du Vic bilh and Lou Piccadou with pink fir and ratte potatoes, potato crisp and goat’s cheese mousse" – his chippy, Tom’s Place, was truly one of the nicest places to eat in the capital.

And the locals had it shut down! No consideration that those chunky chips were as close to culinary perfection as anything served by Le Gavroche. No matter that it was ethically impeccable (in the best David Cameron style, and incredibly unusually for even the best fish joint). No matter that it was run by a man regularly cited as one of the finest chefs in the world. And no matter that it smelt absolutely fantastic, with salt and vinegar the strong notes against a rich backdrop of batter. K & C’s ladies-who-lunch are simply convinced that anywhere with a deep fat frier is going to lower their property values.

There was a similar incident a couple of decades ago when gourmet Indian pioneer Chutney Mary was nearly closed by the residents of Fulham, certain that any whiff of masala was certain to have lager louts vomiting their way down the King’s Road.

Cultural commentators tell us that Britain’s toffs have grown up – that we shouldn’t be worried, for example, that fourteen of the Shadow Cabinet went to Eton because the upper class twit living in a world of nutty class prejudice is a thing of the past. Recent events in London’s poshest area lead us to believe otherwise.

Marketing Boris

Has Boris finally got his ear to the ground, his finger on the pulse, his eye on the game of London life? No, no, it seems he’s merely heard a rumour – must be lots of those abounding at City Hall – that Queens Market in Newham could be under threat from nasty redeveloper types. Of course, his daily cycle ride from Islington across the Thames doesn’t take him into the London Borough of Newham, so he hasn’t graced the stalls there with his Mayoral presence, but now he’s resolved to have a look around – and he’s commissioned a report. That’s it, Boris, that’s the sort of no-nonsense direct action Londoners are after!

So Last Season

If you want to know what Top Shop is going to be ripping off in the very near-future, you should have had your eyes glued to the catwalks at London Fashion Week. It’s just happened by the way in case the interminable dullness of models at the Moet & Chandon Bar (haven’t we been here before?), lots of people we’ve really never heard of (‘Tatler’ know who they are, apparently) and chat about safari-meets-seventies (something like that) passed you by. Still, for sheer hilarity we overheard that Pixie and Peaches (Geldof, presumably, but who knows) were in the ‘cool crowd’ and poor old Cilla Black had to share the catwalk with Naomi Campbell in the ‘Fashion For Relief’ show; that is before she stormed off somewhere…anywhere…with Moet.

Red Light for Gallery’s latest show

With London’s own sex shops and suspect after-dark alleys just round the corner in Soho, it hardly seems necessary to recreate another country’s red-light district but it’s all in the name of art y’know. The National Gallery is planning on installing the streets of Amsterdam - complete with prostitutes (not real ones) in doorways and behind lit windows - in its revered halls. The exhibition ‘The Hoerengracht’ will have a peek show feel to it – not leaving much to the imagination for impressionable young minds and shocking tourists and posh ladies and gents alike, who have merely popped in to see Sunflowers, mainly, by Van Gogh.

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