fences. They seem to me symbolic of the American character
— you stake out your own territory and defend it stoutly, but you welcome neighbours and do not resent a passer-by looking in.
There is another type of American sub- urb that I enjoy even more: the wilderness suburb. I stayed a night in one last week, in Westchester County, New York. 'Wilder- ness', of course, is a term more flattering that depreciatory. It suggests untamed nature which is in fact carefully preserved. There is a dirt-road through the part I visit- ed which local ladies saved from being ren- dered too smooth not many years ago by lying in front of the tarring machines, and outside the gardens are woods, glorious in autumn colours which our native trees seem unable to emulate, that require no apparent care because wild deer suppress the undergrowth. It is secondary woodland, of course. The settlers of the last century cleared 80 per cent of it for farming, only to abandon it for the easier land to the west. In the woods you come across the stone dykes that divided one-time fields, and deer still leap them.
The farms were succeeded by mansions, and the mansions by smaller houses screened from the road by a thin girdle of trees and from each other by dense woods on either side. There is little planning con- trol beyond the regulation that each proper- ty must occupy a minimum of six acres, which some egalitarians wish to reduce to two. Every house is different, neo-colonial, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Greek Revival, clapboarded, shuttered. Two I saw in the last phases of construction, one in the style of William and Mary, as if Uppark had been lifted bodily to New York, the other Lutyen- sy, but none that I observed was more glass than wall. There is a natural empathy between the architecture and its setting. Perhaps I am over-influenced by the warmth of hospitality that I enjoyed there, but I cannot help but admire the civility of this conscious and unconscious design for living. It is America's Surrey, only an hour's drive from Manhattan. What an achieve- ment! What a country!
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soctAL n/STICE Mimics/0m tia
..etter.% I WAS going to review the Grill Room at the Café Royal this week, but after dining there I decided against: the prospect of writing unfavourable reviews two outings running depressed me. But then, three days after it opened, I went to The Chiswick Restaurant — or The Chiswick as it is rather coolly tagged. I didn't go absolutely expect- ing to be able to report back. The place has no pretensions about it — though plenty of talent behind it — and any failure wouldn't have been worth reporting. But in this ludi- crously short time it seemed to have estab- lished itself. The room was full, the menu beckoning and already it had the buzz that all successful restaurants have to have.
It is extraordinary how many good places to eat there are in this pait of London which mixes spiritually dislocating urban sprawl with suburban isolationism. King Street, a continuation Hammersmithwards off the Chiswick High Road, has got a very good Korean one, The Garden (recom- mended to me by the Korean Embassy and reviewed in these pages some years back); Sumos, a spartan but very cheap Japanese restaurant just outside Latymer Upper on the site of what used to be the public lava- tories when I was at school; up the road at Godolphin & Latymer is now an unusually good pizzeria called La Piccola; and there's a wonderful Thai restaurant, Sabai Sabai, which I've meant to review for ages and maybe will soon. Nearby are Snows on the Green, Adam's Café, the River Café and The Brackenbury. In fact, there are more good restaurants per square foot than in any other part of England I can think of. But I suppose there has to be some conso- lation for the Shepherd's Bush roundabout.
The Chiswick bears more than a resem- blance to The Brackenbury: it is affiliated to it. True, it is keen to play down that affil- iation, but the menu — in its printing as well as in what is on it — is too reminiscent of it for any disclaimer to be utterly con- vincing. But that's how things are now. I can well imagine that a few months down the road a divergence might take place.
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