Pretty food with a side order of pollution: 28-50 reviewed

You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is a herb, or are wearing full Hazmat, like some teachers. London is in much denial about its air pollution; in the East End child asthmatics are choking. But we must embrace it for a few days more; others have lost more in pandemic than an attachment to the convention that if we dine outside it should be in a flower-filled garden. Perhaps there are enchanted restaurant gardens in London, but I have never found one. I conclude that, outside fiction or aristocracy, they do not exist.

Instead, we have modish kerbside dining. I have always mocked people who bought flats with balconies on London’s roads and sometimes are mad enough to sit on them and look happy, but a curio — a mistake — becomes a luxury with ease. It’s a question of supply and demand: you know that better than I.