Good morning and welcome back to The Vittles Podcast.
We are living through an age of online extremes: hype machines, queues, hidden gems, while at the same time, for some of those embedded in the London restaurant industry itself, there’s a fundamental sense of malaise, of boredom, with a creeping homogenisation of restaurants and food culture. This is ‘the mid’: a term that is now common parlance for those who feel adrift of a discourse in which everything is either ‘absolutely incredible’ or ‘totally garbage’.
In this month’s hour-long episode, we go deep into some of the forces shaping what we deem to be good, bad and, critically, mid in food right now, with not one, but two heavyweight London influencers: Feroz Gajia, food Instagram chief and chef-owner of Bake Street in Clapton, and Montague Ashley-Craig, author of the Everything’s Toasted newsletter and founder of luxury-small-plate-wine-bar-friendly soap brand, Montamonta.
We discuss distinctions between London and other big cities in the world, the role of influencers, a recent New York Times list of 25 essential London restaurant dishes, delivery apps, PR and the subjectivity around ideas of quality. At the end, and in a bid to animate some of our theories, we debut the Vittles Podcast show-and-tell, as our host and guests reveal, eat and discuss a food stuff they feel represents the best of the middle ground.
Like our previous two podcasts, this episode is free to listen to for all subscribers. You can listen to it here in Substack, or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you’re so inclined, please like, share, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts.
A massive thanks as usual to Lucy Dearlove, our producer, and to the whole team at Young Space, the beautiful location where we record. We’ll see you again next month, when Adam will be speaking with Mangal 2 owner Ferhat Dirik.
The Vittles 99
But before that, we have a big announcement.
Over the last two years, as you’ve probably gathered if you’ve been paying attention, Vittles founder Jonathan Nunn has been doing a fair amount of eating. Now, to borrow a phrase from the great Roy Keane, that’s his job. He is, after all, a restaurant critic who writes reviews. But Jonathan’s origin story and instinct is for capsule-coded service journalism: his Best Value guides which I edited at Eater, the early Vittles work, and the backbone of his debut book, London Feeds Itself are all testament to this.
Shortly after Jonathan asked me to be involved in Vittles Restaurants in 2023, and coming off the back of restorative and inspirational trips to Los Angeles and New York, we discussed publishing a guide to the best restaurants in London. Not in the image of modern London restaurant best-ofs, but closer to those more commonplace in the States, like Jonathan Gold’s (and now Bill Addison’s) 101 in LA, or Pete Wells’s 100 in New York. Or, indeed, like those historically compiled by Fay Maschler for the Evening Standard or Guy Dimond in Time Out here in London. Guides that ventured outside of the received wisdom of the London restaurant industry complex and, as best as is humanly possible, considered the city in its totality. Why, after all, shouldn’t a capital city restaurant guide consider the quality and deliciousness of an Algerian sandwich next to the pommes soufflé at the Ritz?
This is what he’s done. Having eaten approximately 3,000 meals out in the seven years he’s been writing about them, the last two years have been about whittling down that list to 99. This list will be published in descending order over the course of a week in early December, culminating in a top 10, and, finally, our first ever best restaurant in London.
It’s hard for me to put into words how ambitious this project was, an endeavour that relied on ludicrous levels of self-motivation and financial outlay, and contained countless disappointments, ill health, and exhaustion. But, over the last few months, having had the pleasure of some truly great and some truly mid meals with Jonathan myself, the project is ready. I think it’s the most important London restaurant list to have been published in the 15 years that I’ve been working in food journalism, and we can’t wait to add to the discourse and for you all to see it. Adam Coghlan
Credits
The Vittles Podcast is presented by Vittles Restaurants editor Adam Coghlan.
Montague Ashley-Craig is the creator of the ‘fancy restaurant handwash’, montamonta. She is also a Glaswegian, begrudging London Fields resident, cosmetic scientist, and annoying over-sharer with strong opinions loosely held.
Feroz Gajia is the founder of Bake Street in London. Sometime food writer, Instagrammer and consultant, he is always obsessed with something, mostly food. He makes what you want to eat.
Lucy Dearlove is an audio producer, sound designer and writer originally from North East England, now based in St Leonards-on-Sea. Her food podcast, Lecker, is a two-time winner of the Fortnum & Mason Podcast of the Year Award.
The full Vittles masthead can be found here.
