If you trimmed all the fat from Giles Coren’s review of Number Twelve there wouldn’t be enough meat left to feed a mosquito.He doesn’t begin to discuss this not-so-new Italian restaurant in Bloomsbury’s Ambassadors Hotel until the 624th word of the review. Prior to that point, his spirited defence of the “random flopsy”, his recurrent and, to some readers, unflattering term for his unnamed female dining companions, muses or guinea pigs, is a thoroughly amusing example of wordy self-stroking. His Times colleague AA Gill, who could successfully lard a restaurant review with brilliant prose about the personality of his cuff links, would be proud and maybe even envious. What follows is merely the first of seven paragraphs Coren devotes to his invention:
Right, look, about this thing where I eat two thirds of the meals I review with a “random flopsy”. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve had hundreds of letters now from people (mostly women) objecting to the phrase, telling me it’s sexist and begging me to stop, telling me it sounds like I have severe problems relating to women, and need professional help. And I’ve had about the same number from other people (again, mostly women) asking if they can be my random flopsy next time. And to both groups I do my best to reply individually, telling them the same thing, for different reasons: There is no random flopsy, there never has been.
To be fair, this habit of not so much changing as putting off the subject of restaurant reviews may stem from factors outside Coren’s – or Gill’s – control. Due to time or, more likely, budgetary constraints, London newspaper critics generally do not do enough eating in the restaurant they are reviewing to, (A), devote a good portion of their reviews to discussion of the food and, (B), make an informed evaluation and useful assessment. Coren’s single meal at Number Twelve with a random flopsy his sole companion allowed him no more than a superficial sampling of the menu. And, having visited only once, he had little way of knowing if he’d caught the kitchen on a good, bad or indifferent night.
Coren cannot, however, be accused of merely filling space, not when he has resisted the temptation to stuff his review with information as irrelevant to it as the chef’s name. Thank you, Giles: “Santino Busciglio” would have robbed us adoring readers of 16 letters as only you can arrange them.
About Daniel Young
