Muristek
There’ll always be new restaurants, but I return to the ones that are home to drama, heartbreak and joy
Writing for Observer Food Monthly has brought me lots of excitement down the years, most recently an offer of more salty liquorice than might be strictly advisable. But the adventure of which I still think most often, and most fondly, also delivered a good friend to me – “a dear pal”, as he would put it – in the form of the great cook Jeremy Lee, with whom I first bonded halfway up a mountain in Scotland in 2004. I won’t bore you with the details now (they involve an elusive stag, an enveloping mist, and a certain physical feebleness on both our parts). All I can say is that I had then never been so glad to share a Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer with another human being. Eat your heart out, John Buchan.
Jeremy is the chef at Quo Vadis in Soho, London, and earlier this month the 10th anniversary of his arrival at that magnificent establishment was marked with a swanky dinner for friends and colleagues. It was an overwhelmingly lovely night. House cocktails were served, as pink and ineffably chic as ever, and then we feasted on some of the things, simple but marvellously good, I will always associate with his restaurant: smoked eel on toast, roast pork with mashed potato, meringues as big as the hill on which I first got to know him. All night, Jeremy moved from room to room in his trademark French-style worker’s jacket: a smiling, kindly presence. For a few impossible hours, I enjoyed the illusion that all was right with the world.
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