Jay Rayner of The Observer rails against serving food on novelty implements.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jul/30/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-the-botanist-chester-i-should-say-wow
“Being an insufferable snob is exhausting. It’s not the volume of stuff that warrants the eye-rolling or the weary sighs that take it out of you. That’s figurative and sometimes literal meat and potatoes to the restaurant critic. It’s the deep, abiding sense of impotence. For here I sit in the Chester branch of the Botanist, amid the carefully selected vintage farm implements and the distressed picture frames, staring at one of their hanging kebabs. According to the menu these are “famous”. They are certainly popular. Almost every table has ordered one.
It’s quite the thing. There’s around 30cm of curving vertical rod in pewter-effect metal. At the top it’s connected to a scallop shell saucer holding a dish of dipping sauce. At the base the rod curls around to hold a wooden bowl of your chosen side dish. In between, attached to a hook, is a long, dangling skewer, in this case filled with chunks of “salt and pepper pork belly”. I’m meant to be thrilled. I should say, “Wow!” in celebration of the much sought-after Wow Effect. Instead, being that insufferable snob, I think it’s both utterly naff and utterly impractical. If you want someone’s dinner to get cold, bring it to the table swinging in the air from a hook.
I was drawn to come here by an online image of a star Botanist dessert, a chocolate mousse topped with a chocolate crumb. That crumb could, if you squinted at it, be mistaken for soil. Which presumably was why it was served in a garden trowel. I looked up the Botanist. There are two dozen of them across the country, with more to come. For years I’ve ranted about food being served on things that aren’t plates. I’ve banged on about steaks on scratchy slates, whined about bread in flat caps, full English breakfasts in dog bowls, and mini chip pan fryers. My rants have been received with rapturous applause both virtual and actual; enough to make me assume I am on the side of the angels. And yet here’s the Botanist, doing a roaring trade in hanging kebabs and desserts served on trowels.”
by Fair_Tangerine1790