(由 Google 翻译)我爱这个地方。好了,我说了。我爱这个地方。科瑟姆的肯辛顿酒吧是那种如今在伦敦以外很少见到的酒吧——即使在伦敦,它们也比周五在苏荷区喝一品脱啤酒的速度还要快。它是邻里酒吧的圣杯:一家地道的本地酒吧,风格独特,内涵丰富,一杯精心调制的吉尼斯黑啤,以及一份看起来不像印在立博博彩背面的酒单。
有客用啤酒。这总是个好兆头。不是十品脱,也不是十二品脱,也不是那种每一品脱都像有人在里面清洗过水烟筒的IPA——只有一个保存完好的旋转酒桶,让你感觉自己仿佛身处一个秘密之中。而且,后面的餐厅真的非常棒。用心经营。充满自信。那种让你嘴里塞满牛肉般美味的东西,俯身对妻子说:“天哪,也许我们应该搬到这里来。”就是那样的地方。它拥有那种魔力。你能从骨子里感受到——也从胃里感受到。
但问题就在这里。而且总是有难题。
我们周六晚上八点到达——时间最紧张,心情最激动,胃口也最紧张。我准备好了。我准备好了。我手里拿着一杯吉尼斯黑啤,菜单散发着梦幻般的光芒,它完全符合我对菜单的期望:别挡道。
三道开胃菜。三道主菜。三道分享/拼盘之类的菜。砰!就是这样。就该这样。一点也不像那种二十页厚的平庸中篇小说。我总是说——而且我确实会枯燥地重复——如果一份菜单需要超过一页纸,你就会得到一份在烤盘里重新加热的绝望。所以,当我看到这份简短、有力、自信满满的小菜单时,我差点吻了服务员。
但接下来令人心碎的是,他们没了。而且不只缺一样东西——如果只是黎明时分从威尔士山上捡来的一块不起眼的肉,你大概还能原谅。而是缺了好多东西。多得令人担忧。除非我吃素(我?更有可能去学芭蕾),或者能说服我老婆和我一起吃一份又大又肥的夏多布里昂牛排(可能性更小——她曾经因为一份两人份的牛上排而皱眉,就像我建议我们自己去猎一样),否则我们只剩下……鳕鱼或者牛小排了。
我现在喜欢鳕鱼。我也超爱牛小排。但这不是重点,不是吗?你总不能去一家菜单上有九道菜,而且很多菜都缺货的餐厅吧。晚上八点不行。周六也不行。这就像你去电影院,被告知放映机坏了,但他们却可以为你放映结局。
这会毁了观影的兴致。它打破了魔咒。因为这里的魔咒在于,肯辛顿酒吧低调地散发着光芒。它由充满爱心的人经营。它是那种真正懂得珍惜的地方。而且它现在可能依然如此!我愿意相信它,因为我不是怪物。也因为我希望它成功。我希望它很棒。我希望它是那种你周二预订晚餐,四个小时后踉踉跄跄地走出去,手机里却记录着房间里一半人的生日的酒吧。
但他们得把厨房整理好。如果你要推行精简菜单——是的,请一定要这样做——那么你必须有充足的库存、周密的计划,以及在关门前不向客人耸耸肩,就像在参加乡村节日,蛋糕摊被洗劫一空一样的能力。
话虽如此,我会再来的。可能下周吧。因为我真的很喜欢。吉尼斯啤酒很冰,但顾客很热情。我仍然能感受到那个承诺的滋味——那个让你在回家的路上在谷歌上搜索房价的承诺。
(原文)
I love this place. There, I said it. I love this place. The Kensington in Cotham is the sort of pub you rarely find outside London these days — and even in London they're being squeezed out faster than a pint in Soho on a Friday. It's the holy grail of neighbourhood spots: a proper local with style, substance, a deftly pulled Guinness, and a wine list that doesn’t look like it was printed in the back of a Ladbrokes.
There’s a guest beer on. Always a good sign. Not ten, not twelve, not the sort of barrage of IPA nonsense where every pint tastes like someone cleaned their bong in it — just one well-kept, rotating cask that makes you feel like you’re in on a secret. And the restaurant out back is actually, properly good. Thoughtfully done. Confident. The kind of thing that makes you lean over to your wife and say, mouth full of something beefy and delicious, “God, maybe we should move round here.” It’s that sort of place. It’s got that magic. You feel it in your bones — and your belly.
But here’s the rub. And there’s always a rub.
We arrived at 8pm on a Saturday night — peak time, peak mood, peak appetite. I was ready. I was primed. I had a Guinness in hand and the dreamy glow of a menu that does exactly what I want menus to do: stay the hell out of the way.
Three starters. Three mains. Three sharer/chop-type things. Boom. That’s it. That’s how it should be. None of this laminated, twenty-page novella of mediocrity. I always say — and I do, with dreary repetition — that if a menu needs more than one page, you’re about to be served reheated despair in a ramekin. So when I saw this short, punchy, confident little line-up, I nearly kissed the waiter.
But then came the heartbreak. They’d run out. Not just out of one thing, which you can sort of forgive if it’s an obscure cut of something foraged off a Welsh hill at dawn. But loads of things. A worrying amount of things. Unless I was going veggie (me? More likely to take up ballet) or my wife could be convinced to take on a hulking great
Chateaubriand with me (less likely still — she once winced at a côte de boeuf for two like I’d suggested we hunt it ourselves), we were left with… cod or onglet.
Now I like cod. And I adore onglet. But that’s not the point, is it? You can’t go into a restaurant with nine items on the menu and so many of them off. Not at 8pm. Not on a Saturday. That’s like showing up to the cinema and being told the projector’s knackered but they can act out the ending for you.
It kills the momentum. It breaks the spell. Because the spell, here, is that The Kensington is quietly brilliant. That it’s run by people who care. That it’s the sort of place that gets it. And it still might be! I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt, because I’m not a monster. And because I want this place to succeed. I want it to be great. I want it to be the kind of pub where you book dinner on a Tuesday and stumble out four hours later with half the room’s birthdays in your phone.
But they’ve got to sort that kitchen out. If you’re going to do the lean menu thing — and yes please, do it — then you’ve got to back it up with stock, planning, and the ability to make it to closing without shrugging at guests like it’s a village fête and the cake stand’s been pillaged.
That said, I’ll be back. Probably next week. Because I do love it. The Guinness is cold. The crowd is warm. And I can still taste that promise — the one that makes you Google house prices on the walk home.