Granger & Co

Of late I’ve been solo dining a lot less as I’ve recently rejuvenated my dinner dates with MsMarmitelover. Of my entire regular dining companions she’s the most fastidious nitpicker and quite rightly so for she’s a prolific and thoroughly informed cook. Through her supper club and book, she has become influential and therefore deserves her place on the pedestal. But she’s also one who wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn’t suffer fools gladly…ask her a stupid question and she’ll hit you well below where it hurts with a snappy answer. She has a simple and very certain opinion about food related things, she’s my kinda pal.

My intense craving for eggs one Sunday morning led to my initial suggestions of either this or this, but they were vetoed because she’d ‘been there and done that, where else?’ We ended up at Granger & Co, we'd fallen for the rage about it.

In a manner that doesn’t encourages a longwinded prose, we both found Granger & Co disappointing. In fact MsMarmitelover more so than I, she felt let down by the blandness of the food and the lack of feedback from the waiting staff. Personally I thought the service was more than ok, the white T-shirt-clad staff were still acclimatising and burning in, they were polite enough to all the diners and I daresay worryingly too meek to report back about our disgruntlement to their managers as well. This is after all an allegedly all-perfect but casual eating joint created by an all-perfect geezer (who can do no wrong) for the near-perfect chi chi luvvies of Kensington and Chelsea. Like Daylesford Organic and Nicole Farhi’s 202 on the same road, Granger & Co has become a sacred hangout of the Notting Hill fraternity and so to speak negatively about it would result in immediate deportation from the area.

Bill’s Bloody Mary with Belvedere vodka.

Frigging expensive at £8.50 a glass! Any tomato juice bought off the shelf should have at least 20% salt in it to give it bite but the juice utilised at Granger & Co was probably of the usual organic sort sanctioned by the health-nazi brigade with absolutely no extras added; it tasted diluted at best. And as for the posh vodders - being forever and unashamedly uncouth that I'm, I couldn’t tell the difference between it and this. Incidentally my favourite Bloody Mary resides here.

MsMarmitelover’s ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana & honeycomb butter.

This was a dish Lisa Markwell for The Independent described as ‘sweet pillows of joy’. Most pillows, whether as a slumbering accessory or purely edible, are a joy anyway but not the above. It was sadly less satisfying than this humble effort. And what took the final piss was the total absence of Ms Markwell’s ‘unadvertised but very welcome jug of syrup’ to go with her pillows…MsMarmitelover, you’ve been undeservingly denied!
Poor.

Fragrant fish curry with jasmine rice & cucumber relish.

First and foremost, the cucumber relish was simply pathetic and lamentably perfunctory. The curry itself was Indian-inspired but the omission of fenugreek, garlic and additional chillies was hugely disappointing. I’m not denying that the dish was fragrant enough, the sprinkling of the fried shallots and coriander leaves were enough to assure one’s olfaction was still sound. This was one slapdash creation of mercurial proportions that took the piss of out my taste buds and wallet.

White Men Can't Jump and nor can they make a curry. If Bill’s intention was to create the best curry that’s both virtuously mild and bland then he’s been beaten a long time ago by the Japanese. He’s better off borrowing a few recipes from the Aussies’ neighbours of South East Asia or since he’s living in London now, traipse down to Southall and sample some proper masala fish.

Scrambled eggs with sourdough toast.

I left the saving grace till last. Bill, the redoubtable ‘egg master’ managed to live up to his tag. It was the silkiest, creamiest and eggiest egg dish I’ve eaten. It was fantastic. When it comes to scrambled eggs, the man’s a genius!

But would I come back, no not unless someone’s footing the bill. Granger & Co is affectedly trendy, fashionable, unavoidably pretentious and indignantly expensive.




175 Westbourne Grove
London W11 2SB

www.grangerandco.com
scoresonthedoors.org.uk