‘Every detail is attended to: of course the temperature is balmy; of course the tome of a winelist is bound in softest leather; of course the acoustics are perfectly judged’
In those slim restaurant guidebooks that corporate people give to other corporate people at Christmas, one name has shone above all the others in London, year after year. It doesn’t feature a celebrity chef, or employ high-profile marketeers, or feature much on social media. It’s not in the centre of town, either, but in a suburb of affluent, common-flanking greenness so chi-chi that the charity shops are indistinguishable from the Boutiques for Lovely Laydeez.
I went to Chez Bruce a couple of times about 10 years ago, dismissed it as ultra-bourgeois and a little dated, and never let it trouble my consciousness since: it’s one for the Bufton-Tuftons, with their florid, claret-hoofing faces and fear of the new, I sniffed, and tootled off in search of bare brick, filament lightbulbs and kimchi.
Related: Restaurant Ours, London: ‘not my idea of fun’ – restaurant review
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