In Defense of the Terrible Restaurant

The Genteel Glutton

Issue 001 — The Patron Saint of Lost Causes

Every city has at least one: a restaurant that should have closed years ago. The carpet is the colour of wet tobacco, the menu hasn’t changed since dial-up internet, and the only customer at three o’clock is a man in a raincoat staring into soup like it owes him money.

Most people walk past and wince. I slow down and smile.

These places aren’t failures. They’re refuges.

Think about what eating out has become: a performance. You choose from fifty small plates, photograph everything, worry whether the waiter approves of your natural-wine order, then post the evidence so strangers can judge you. Dinner stopped being dinner; it turned into an audition.

Step into one of these quiet, faded rooms and the audition is cancelled. Nobody cares what you order. The steak will be grey, the salad will be tired, and nothing you do here will ever appear on the internet. You can eat in peace, pay, and leave exactly the same person you were when you arrived. That, friends, is a luxury almost no Michelin star can sell you.

I found an old street map of London from 1892 the other day. Among all the grand cafés and oyster houses, the mapmaker calmly drew a tiny knife-and-fork symbol in certain side streets. No name attached—just the quiet note that here was “plain feeding, price moderate.” The city knew it needed places where a person could simply be fed, no applause required.

Today, those unmarked knife-and-fork spots still exist. They have different names now—Golden Dragon, Olympic Café, Mike’s Place—but they do the same job. They keep a little corner of the world unrated, unphotographed, and gloriously average.

Real pleasure needs both ends of the scale. You have to taste the perfect oyster once in a while so you can truly appreciate the dry sandwich eaten on a plastic plate under flickering light. One makes the other possible. All brilliance and no blandness is like living in permanent daylight—you go blind from too much shine.

So the next time you pass a steamed-up window, a flickering “OPEN” sign, and the faint smell of yesterday’s chips, don’t laugh. Tip your hat. Somewhere inside, a small rebellion against perfection is being served with a cup of weak tea.

And it’s delicious.

Yours,
E.M. Kent

P.S. If you ever want to read someone who gets this idea better than I ever will, track down the works of Owen Hatherley. He’ll explain why we keep the ugly buildings and the tired cafés: because a city, like a diet, needs a little honest mediocrity to stay sane.