Venice all tarted up

Veneta is a Venetian restaurant inside the St James’s Market development south of Piccadilly Circus. I do not like this development because it has no identity and great cities should have identities. It is not like St James’s, and it is nothing like a market either. It is a cold and glassy spot with a stupid name, and it is, with other developments from here to Hyde Park Corner, the reason that people now hate London or do not recognise it as London, because it is beginning to resemble a giant Nespresso capsule. Someone once told me that in a million years the only evidence of our civilisation will be nappies and Nespresso capsules and I think this may be true, and future alien visitors will think we invented caffeine and babies and then blew ourselves up by mistake.

St James’s Market is, therefore, an excellent place for an expensive restaurant selling the cuisine of a dead city to a dying one, because it has no identity.