Andy Cunningham

I’m more than partial to a nice dinner. Somewhere between three and five courses is about right, followed my liquers and coffee if you can manage it. It should leave you feeling well fed, but still able to walk to the cab to get you home.

This is the story of a dinner at L’enclume, which sounds fantastic but I expect cost between five and ten times what I’d be prepared to pay for it: I’d go to £100 if there was a (small – 50mls or so) glass of wine to match every 2-3 courses. But not one of these courses was actually a meal. When it comes down to it, they’re all basically the chef showing off, and there’s a maximum number of courses in a meal which should be the chef being clever: one.

If I’m entertaining (and I need to be organised enough to do more), I aim for one course to impress and two to delight. In other words, I cook one course purely to show off. It might be the souffle to start, the perfectly roasted potatoes with the meat, or the secret weapon creme brulee. And if I can figure out how to insert accents when editing this blog, I’ll come back and add them. That’s partly because if I’m cooking, that’s all I have time for, and partly because food is about the enjoyment in eating it, not the smugness factor of the chef.

If Heston Blunenthal at the Fat Duck (almost on my doorstep) or the chap at this place wants to invite me to prove me wrong, I’ll happily take them up on the invitation. But I’m not sponsoring the vanity of these guys by actually paying for the stuff until someone can prove it’s worth it.

Oh, and if you’re can cook that well, how come you can’t hire a web designer who understands that the usual screen ratio is 4:3 or 16:9, not 37:3!