I THINK I may be about to break all kinds
of taboos. But I'm not sure. The beautiful thing about British taboos is that I'm not sure. For instance, I was entertained recently by one of my most cherished friends and his wife at the Garrick Club in London's fashionable West End. I know he will like that phrase. I'm not sure whether it's taboo for me to comment on this occasion — in an evaluative way — in the public prints. I assume that it would be a serious faux pas to identify my hosts. so I won't. But surely it can't be the case that a club full of hacks, pols, legal sharks and drama queens is beyond having its proceedings noted in newspapers and magazines.
The reason I seem so concerned is that I have a word of complaint; and I would suffer terribly if I seemed churlish or ungrateful. But I was told, having ordered two plates of native oysters for my two courses, that the Garrick was not able to offer me the accompanying shallot vinegar which I had requested. This, after all, is nonsense. Shallot vinegar — which is the appropriate accompaniment to oysters — consists of little more than red-wine vinegar, red wine and chopped shallots. Any professional kitchen that cannot manage such a concatenation at any time does not know its business and should be ashamed of itself.
The oysters, with lemon and Tabasco, were acceptable, but less so than they would have been with shallot vinegar. I fear I may have blown my chances of joining the Garrick now; but then I would join neither a club that would have me, nor one which wouldn't have women, nor one which was a club for such is a definitively unkind thing to he.
The House of Commons is not a club. In many ways it resembles one, but it is not one. It sports all the worst, smuggest, most pointlessly separatist and elitist aspects of the St James's club ethic, but it is not a club. And not so simply because its members are not elected by a self-perpetuating select few, but by the public at large. Many parliamentarians attempt to derive a legitimacy from that which their venality does not merit. Yet far more of us feel so burdened as to be blessed by the weight of responsibility which people's trust places upon us.
Such are not necessarily the concepts which enliven the Members and their guests whom one meets when dining at the Adjournment. Nevertheless, it seems fitting to recall in the same journal at the same time several eating places to which perfectly respectable ordinary people are not allowed to go. On the other hand, I am not suggesting that all and sundry should be allowed to dine at the Adjournment. Like all restaurants in the House of Commons on an evening when there is a ten o'clock vote, it's very difficult to get a table. On the principal occasion in question, last week, I was lucky. Initially, I had tried the Churchill Room (once upon a time, in even my memory, called the Harcourt Room), which is generally considered to be the most glamorous salon in which to dine. But I was told that I would be the fourth on the waiting-list, which is code for get lost. The Strangers' Dining-Room (nearer to the bottom of the 'giving dinner to outsiders' pecking-list, but in many ways the best place to take them, because it is the liveliest and nearest to the centre of the action), wasn't even taking a waiting-list, and was laughing at anyone who suggested that it might be.
The Adjournment is in Portcullis House, the controversially expensive new parliamentary outbuilding. Like the structure which houses it, the Adjournment is confidently modern, cool, light, and as such very different from the central buildings of the Palace of Westminster, which — gothic masterpiece though they certainly are — are astonishingly dark and gloomy.
The food in the Adjournment also seems cooler and lighter than in the other places. As well as on the evening in question, I ate there at lunchtime earlier in the week, and ordered, as might be said to have become my common practice, the octopus stew. On all previous occasions, I have found this to be a charming dish. The eponymous octopus is exceedingly succulent, while the accompanying diced peppers are inoffensive and their fellow four baby new potatoes uneaten by me. This week, unhappily, the stew was swimming in a pointlessly unpleasant surfeit of oil. Normally it is not. Under which circumstances I would recommend it. Should you be a Member or Officer of the House of Commons, or invited to eat at the Adjournment by such a person, I recommend that you order the octopus stew, on days when it is not drowning in oil.
Beetroot gravallax was fine, though slightly too salty and not sweet enough for my taste, nor particularly the better for the addition of beetroot to the cure. It tasted home-made, though, which — fantastically easy though gravadlax is to manufacture — would be a good thing were it the case. Sea bass with puy lentils is a nice dish, which I ate on the evening in question, and have had many times before. Skin is well crisped (so important with sea bass), fish not badly cooked, and lentils suitably earthy. The prices of all such things are approximately half what they would be in a similar restaurant outside. Service is hit-and-miss, but extraordinarily deferential.
In the Churchill Room I dined last week with my sister, and will have done twice again by the time you read this (separately) with Stephen Glover and Matthew d'Ancona. This is where you are supposed to take people. It feels like a club. I have a sense that they don't like me, partly because I am new and young, but mainly because I don't wear a tie, which is against the rules,
but about which — unlike in a club they are not allowed to tell me off because I am an MP and the golden ethic of the House of Commons is that the rules don't apply to MPs, who can do what they like. I am not surprised that they don't like me.
The clubiness of the Churchill Room extends to the food, about which there is no point writing at any length. It's a steak sort of place. Fair enough. If you fancy a steak, by all means come to the Churchill Room. or go to the Garrick. Except that you probably can't. Toodle-pip.
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