Prunier's
Madame Prunier, the owner of the boring fish restaurant in St James's Street, celebrated her birthday last week. With the Caprice closing and the Savoy Grill admitting that they have no immediate plans to re-open, the outlook for however cuisine is unpromising. Fish restaurants, ,nowever, despite their prices and what appears to be an unnecessarily expensive level of staffing, seem to be flourishing. Is this due to their profit margins or to the reluctance of their customers to have anything more than a Modest calorific intake? The most serious criticism of Madame Prunier's establishment (apart from shutting as early as ten in the evening), and this goes for Wheeler's, Overton's and Bentley's, is their refusal to display their wares to their customers. The moment you step I,nto French fish restaurants, and perhaps nefore on the pavement outside, you are ,attracted by the display barrels of oysters, t limps, sea urchins, prawns, lobsters and "drigoustes covered in ice and seaweed. It ctgnnot be any more difficult to arrange these ,„ings in London than it is in Paris. Manage Ments should let us see what we are going to eat bar conditions redolent of Billingsgate — eels, winkles, mussels, trout swimming in tanks, and oysters in mud and ice.
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