Originally published in SAS Inflight Magazine, January 2015 The Riot Club says a lot about Britain’s richest and most privileged people
Most people in Britain view new film The Riot Club as an attack on the boys who became the men that now make up that country’s political elite. However, the film’s writer, Laura Wade, claims that its characters – like those in her play Posh, on which the movie is based – are entirely fictitious. Whatever the truth is, the ten youngsters who constitute The Riot Club get involved in uncannily similar situations to those enjoyed by members of the real-life Bullingdon Club. What situations exactly? Booking tables at expensive restaurants, getting outrageously drunk and then causing as much damage as possible. And what is the Bullingdon Club? An all-male dining society for select, mostly privately educated, Oxford University students, of which UK Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson were simultaneously members.
‘The biggest thing in the film is the empathy question. Our government has shown a lack of that,’ Wade says, in reference to extensive welfare cuts after 2008’s financial crisis. ‘In the same way, the boys in the film are unable to understand the lives of those who are less wealthy and have had fewer opportunities than them.’ However, one member of Cameron’s Conservative Party accused the film of being nothing but ‘revenge’ for cuts to film festival subsidies, and there might be something to that idea of one privileged and exclusive section of society – the film industry – expressing anger with another. The Riot Club stars Sam Claflin (Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games) as a student invited to join the club because his brother was a member. In a case of life imitating art, it also stars Max Irons – the son of actors Jeremy Irons and Sinéad Cusack – and Freddie Fox – child of two well-known British TV actors. In addition, the movie’s producer, Peter Czernin, went to school with Cameron – at Eton, where annual fees are about £35,000 ($55,000) – later shared a flat with him and donated £5,000 to his campaign to become Conservative Party leader. This might explain why Irons – himself privately educated – says the film is ‘not attacking people who go to private schools or Oxford University, but a particular set of values’. He also says Czernin texted Cameron telling him to watch the film, and that the Prime Minister replied saying he will. Who knows what his reaction might be
“Indian food has graduated beyond Chicken Tikka Masala,” head chef Dev Biswal tells me after one of the most outstanding meals I’ve had. “But a lot of restaurants don’t show that.” The menu, like his CV, takes south-east Asia as a starting point and heads west to Kent. A key stop on the way is Dubai, where Dev worked in top hotels cooking classical French cuisine. What he does with The Ambrette is take a generous portion of Kentish ingredients – 70% of the menu is locally sourced – add a handful of Indian-inspired spices and garnish with top-tier presentation and five-star service. Other than the food, the relaxed feel is one of the best things about The Ambrette. The waiting staff are attentive without being in your face; the tables are generously spaced, giving plenty of privacy; and you can linger for hours without being hounded out to clear the table. I tried the ten-part tasting menu, which opens, like all the meals, with a mouthful-sized portion of something seasonal, in this case, pork with pea chutney and sea spinach. Packed full of flavours, it raises my expectations for the starters, my favourite being clove-smoked wood pigeon with rosemary and cinnamon-poached peach. The peach, like the mushroom samosa my partner tries, breaks so many rules yet creates something that’s so right. This really is like tasting the world anew. Before the mains, everyone gets an espresso cup of soup of the day. My partner finds it tricky to pick a main, but goes for grilled mutton with pickled carrots and masala potatoes, and isn’t disappointed – it almost melts on the tongue. My tasting menu gives me two mains, hake with South Indian spices, then venison loin with spiced beetroot and pickled pears. It’s tough to pick between them, but the mung lentil kedgeree with the hake is divine, while I could happily have eaten a whole plate of the spiced beetroot. After a shot of popping candy grenita, the desserts arrive and are just as outstanding, particularly the mango and vanilla creme brulee. I don’t need breakfast the next day, and I know when it comes to dinner, whatever I have isn’t going to get close to The Ambrette. It’s rare such quality comes at such a reasonable price, even on wine, with bottles under £20. Not to be missed.
Whoever came up with the proverb “too many cooks spoil the broth” was clearly unacquainted with the charity FoodCycle – and its Michelin-starred gala events. Launched in May 2009, the group campaigns against food waste by collecting unwanted supermarket stock – mislabelled, damaged, over-ordered and almost-expired produce – and using it to prepare three-course meals for people who struggle to afford to feed themselves. With 29 volunteer-run projects across the UK, it has already provided more than 125,000 free meals, and is now running its second gala event to help fund its work. The Green & Pleasant Land dinner at London’s Guildhall on April 21 will bring together seven chefs – including Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Shay Cooper and Cyrus Todiwala – to create a course each, and all proceeds from the £350 tickets will go to the charity. Menus are still being finalised, but the feast will include sambar masala-marinated fish with coconut-fondant potatoes, created by The Modern Pantry’s Anna Hansen, and Gloucester Old Spot porchetta with a Jersey Royal gratin courtesy of Salt Yard’s Ben Tish. “FoodCycle is so important right now,” says Tish. “In our indulgent, careless times, it is making us understand our food wastage, then using this to help others. It couldn’t be more relevant.” Hosted by food critic and broadcaster Jay Rayner, whose jazz band, the Jay Rayner Quartet – featuring Rayner on piano and his wife on vocals – will play live on the night, there will also be a silent auction, before the menu is rounded off with Australian chef Skye Gyngell’s almond tart with plum blossom ice cream and honeycomb. In this case, maybe too many chefs will spoil the guests.
