RESTAURANTS Deborah Ross
THANK YOU so much for your incredible response to Whichever?, the first ever non-subscription-only magazine for people who don't give a stuff about value for money and just want the shiniest thing in the shop with the dinkiest knobs. Indeed, I've been so inundated with non-subscriptions that to meet demand I've had to open an entire non-subscription department, complete with staff who, frankly, I've yet to see lift a finger. The lazy old so-and-sos. I'd certainly give them one of my famous motivational talks, if only I could be bothered. Still, no matter; from the office budget — appropriated by stealing my son's birthday money, but he doesn't mind: he has absolute faith in his mother's business ventures, particularly after several Chinese burns plus the threat of coats with scratchy collars — we've acquired a Gaggia `Syncrony Digital' espresso machine. At £559, some might say that this is a needless start-up expense, but it's all silver and retro and gorgeous, and has a cute little steam thingy that goes shhh-shhh, shhh-shhh". I would also like to get us a candy-pink Smeg fridge with waterdispenser and ice-crusher, but at the last board meeting it was decided that we'd probably have to wait for my son's bar mitzvah.
Anyway, now that I'm a proper sort of person with a proper title — MD of Dross Publications Inc. — and a growing portfolio of nonsubscription-only magazines (watch out for Trui), Crap Housekeeping, with its step-by-step guide to elbowing down the kitchen rubbish so that you can postpone taking it out for another day or four), [feel that I can do proper lunches with proper people at proper restaurants. So I arrange to meet Paul Blezard, my new best friend (as opposed to any of my older ones, whom I've rather lost touch with, what with the demands of being a high-flying businesswoman). We plan, by the way, to float next year, hopefully on our backs without water wings so we can be awarded an ASA swimming badge — always the sign of a company you can trust.
Paul is a presenter with Oneword Radio, a digital, spoken-word station devoted to arts, comedy, books and plays. Digital radio sets are expensive: £500 or thereabouts. The manufacturers say that it's got something to do with the 'chips', which don't come cheap, even though you can get them down the end of our road for 70p. Are they having us on or what? Still, you can listen over the Internet or if you have satellite telly, and prices will be coming down this summer, to around £100. On the other hand, you could do what we did at Whichever?, which was get one anyway. We got the Videologic portable, which has lovely silver knobs and a darling aqua LCD. And Oneword? Now I'm not just saying this because Paul is my new best friend, but it is jolly good. Particularly if you are fed up with Radio Four. Woman's Hour? Why is it all Iranian patchwork-quilters, and not the issues that really interest women, such as lipsticks and facepacks and the best hairremoval techniques? As for You and Yours, the supposed consumer programme, it's always going on about pensions. Pensions! At the end of the day, what do you really have to show for a pension? Not a candy-pink Smeg fridge, that's for sure. OK, so you may end up dying of hypothermia next to the one-bar electric fire that you can't afford to turn on, but at least you will have crushed ice, which may or may not be just what you need when you've got hypothermia. Don't ask me. I'm not a doctor.
Paul suggested J. Sheekey for lunch, as it's near his office on Charing Cross Road and he loves it. 'It's fish, but the fish you really want to eat rather than the fish you feel you have to eat because your mother once said that it was good for you.' J. Sheekey is a long-established outfit, although now part of the Ivy/Caprice group. Inside, it does, indeed, look long-established with its heavy wood-panelling and leather banquettes, but I actually find this quite pleasing, as it's quite hard nowadays to find a top-notch restaurant that doesn't look as if it's been designed yesterday by someone with a beech, chrome and frosted-glass obsession. Could old be the new 'new'? I must put this up as a feature idea the next time we have an editorial meeting at Hell Decoration, the lifestyle magazine for people who can't decide whether to put their savings into a faux MDF version of aforementioned wood-panelling or into a Portland conservatory.
The restaurant is busy: lots of businessmen in dark suits. This is a restaurant that knows what it is and what it does: fish. Big fish, little fish, poached fish, grilled fish, roast fish, fish eggs, fishcakes, shellfish, happy fish, sad fish, fish stews, fish plates, fish that auditioned for Pop Idol and nearly made it to the final. There is a vegetarian menu, too, but it seems to rue that if you cannot get on with fish — which is probably your fault as fish are, on the whole, very easy to get on with and don't spend hours on the Internet when you want to use the phone — I'd suggest that you take your custom elsewhere. We are led to our table, where
I instantly recognise the person at the next one. It's Ed Victor! The famous literary agent! I'm minded to rush over to tell him about my novel — the one that has been languishing in a drawer at home all these years — but then I remember that I don't have such a novel, and the only things languishing in my drawers are packets of seeds. Every year I buy seeds thinking that I'm going to plant them, but I never do. Should I rush over to tell Mr Victor about the seed packets? No. Let him enjoy his lunch. I can always drop him a line later, enclosing a sample. The cornflowers, perhaps? I am looking forward to the bidding war.
The service is excellent. Tip-top. Charming, friendly, discreet. A nice, oldish waiter keeps coming to take our order, but we keep forgetting to look at the menu, so off he goes again, without showing any signs of irritation. The thing is, Paul, who in his time has been a Bulgarian pop star, a yacht broker and a model for Barbour jackets (he's devilishly handsome, which I'm sure he won't mind me putting in, as he was the one who suggested that it might be worth including), now does daily author interviews for Oneword. and so we talk authors, authors, authors, and celebrities who aren't authors, and our ghastliest interviewees. Of course, it would be most indiscreet to mention their names here. All I will say is that I once spent a morning with Jane Seymour, an experience I've largely managed to blank, although I do remember her last words to me. which were, 'You may wave to me though the window as you go if you like.'
Finally, we order. Paul starts with the bisque (with cream and cognac), while I order the smoked anchovies (with beetroot and horseradish salad). Paul declares his choice to be 'divine', and adds that he likes the linen napkins. My anchovy dish is absolutely superb: sharp, just the ticket, faultless. Next Paul opts for the Cornish fish stew, which he says that he always has because it's just so 'brilliant'. I have the New England baby-lobster salad with sprue asparagus. Gosh, it's gorgeous, the lobster moist and juicy, the asparagus cooked just right. What more can I say? This place is bliss.
We do not have puddings, as we are proper people with proper jobs to get back to. The bill comes to £70 or thereabouts, although you may wish to take advantage of the weekend lunch menu: two courses for £13.75, which seems fantastic value. A final word, though, while I think of it, about elbowing down the kitchen rubbish. Of course, once you do get round to taking it out, it'll be so overstuffed that the bottom of the bin bag will split and you'll slip on tinned-tomato juices, fall on the cat and kill it. But, hey, that's Totally Crap Housekeeping for you, and there's a price to pay for everything. So don't come whining to me with your lawsuits.
Sheekey, 28-32 St Martin's Court, London WC2. TeL 0207 240 2565.
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