An ode to London’s closed restaurants

Leg of lamb à la ficelle: ‘First, inherit an ancient stone farmhouse lost somewhere in the hills of the Luberon, then string up a leg of young lamb over a smoky wood fire…’

As I chuckled over this sardonic intro to a recipe in one of my favourite cookery books of recent years, Sardine by Alex Jackson, my laughter quickly died as I realised that not only will I never inherit such a farmhouse — but I’ll also never again go to the restaurant that launched the book.

Sardine was one of my best-loved London restaurants of the last decade, tucked away in an unlikely and not especially salubrious corner behind a drive-thru McDonald’s in the unfashionable hinterland between Old Street and Angel.

But the cooking was sensational: southern French and Basque stuff done with consistent flare at not, for London, especially high prices, with a great wine list. Yet it closed for good last June, Jackson himself snapped up by Noble Rot to run their revamp of the old Gay Hussar site in Greek Street, like the star player in a relegated football team getting a new deal to stay in the Premier League

In spite of one of the most strange, ill-judged and costly episodes of the entire pandemic saga, Eat Out To Help Out, tens of thousands of restaurants, pubs, cafes, bars and food shacks have gone bust in the last year and a half; many more are still in deep trouble.