Clik here to view.
Some restaurants in the UK now open all through the night. But is the food worth staying up for?
At 11.30pm, the elevator for Duck & Waffle in the City of London has the hot, beery stench of an underventilated nightclub. I already feel jetlagged from heading out for dinner so late, and when it whooshes me up the Heron Tower's 40 floors in under 30 seconds it gives me an extra headrush. It is a bit like being drunk, which seems rather appropriate for late-night eating.
In New York, Paris and many east Asian cities, 24-hour restaurants have become part of the eating habits of the population. Not in Britain, which is strange when licensing laws theoretically permit round-the-clock opening and many people work shifts through the night. "It may be because of our historically rigid licensing laws," says Jonathan Downey, a bar and restaurant owner who has held two 24-hour licences. "At Milk & Honey our kitchen is open until 2am and we probably sell five plates of food during the last hour."
Which is probably why many late-night British restaurants are aimed at drunk people. Buddies in Brighton has featured on Channel 5's sociological study Brighton Beach Patrol, and with its fry-ups with lager, pizza and burgers, caters to a distinctly vomity clientele.
London's oldest all-night restaurant, and the only one with a 24-hour booze licence, is Vingt-Quatre on the Fulham Road. "We have security," says its managing director Simon Prideaux, "who make the call on whether someone has drunk too much." At 11pm, VQ's menu contracts to a few soaky classics: omelette, bangers and mash, a full English. The place has lasted since 1995 by harnessing one of the great truths of eating out: the squiffy don't crave culinary invention.
"To eat at four o'clock in the morning," says Jay Rayner, the Observer's restaurant critic, "things are either going to be really bad or so good that it doesn't matter where you are. You have to wonder how much value is being placed on the quality of the food."
Plenty, Duck & Waffle would argue: it is marketing itself as one of the UK's first high-end restaurants to stay open 24 hours. During the day, it sells oysters, scallops and tuna with watermelon. But at 4am, says its chef Dan Doherty, "People indulge in gluttony." One dish includes brioche, bacon, homemade chocolate hazlenut spread, a fried quail's egg and a slab of foie gras. Doherty stresses that few of his late-night customers are drunk, but concedes the concoction "probably lends itself more to 1am".
Are there enough customers around who want to buy good food in the middle of the night? Duck & Waffle has been opening late since the middle of September, and seemingly, a large proportion of its punters are industry folk.
"We get lots of people in hospitality," says Doherty. "The Galvin guys are here a lot." It's natural that after a long night's service, kitchen staff will want to relax over a drink and some food. "Plenty of chefs still come in to Vingt-Quatre," says Prideaux, "and back in the 90s Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing were here pretty much every night." Rayner says he enjoys "those steamy Chinese dumpling houses on Lisle Street where a lot of London's kitchen crews tend to hang out."
For late-night dining to become a permanent feature in British cities, it will need more than insomniac students or off-duty chefs. And as I woozily watch the sun rise from the top of the Heron Tower, I feel I would be happy to join them.
