It's happened again. The curse of Jenny's favourite restaurants has, sadly but inevitably, struck.
I discovered Bar Battu a couple of months ago - a cutesy little French bar and bistro near the Guildhall in London. I was charmed by its simple menu, reasonably-priced delicious food, great wine list and comforting interior. An old-fashioned place, this - proper tables and chairs, old-world wine, things on matching plates, courteous serving staff. Y'know - a restaurant.
But we already know this story has a sad ending. Bar Battu has ceased trading, and again I feel unaccountably guilty. It's going to be replaced by a bland, ten-a-penny chain wine bar (yawn) which I won't be visiting.
Perhaps it was too old-fashioned or even too cheap. Perhaps the city crowd just didn't notice its shy, classy front window. Perhaps it didn't move with the times. Because 'the times' demand a gimmick, it seems. For every decent, old-style, 'normal' restaurant that closes down, it feels as if two 'on trend' places open up.
You know the ones - they only sell hot dogs, or everything is liquidised, or you have to eat in the dark, or there's one big vat and you all share. I'm not really into all that stuff. I'm a little tired of magazines telling me that 'stuffy' dining is out, and I won't enjoy myself until I'm sitting in a replica Mini with mis-matched crockery eating a Venezuelan-street-food-inspired sharing platter with my fingers. They've got a brilliant 'vibe' apparently, and the food is unpretentious (really?). No more starched tablecloths or silver service for us - food is better spilled all over the place as we reach in front of each other's faces to dip into the sharing dish.
Meanwhile, those of us who like to sit upright with our well-cooked food on our well-polished plates sigh wistfully as our favourites close down. It's a hard life being off trend.
