I hadn’t realised a word less sexy than dogwood existed, but it turns out there’s its Latin equivalent Cornus, which to me sounds like a cream for fungal infections. However inconceivably, Cornus also happens to be the name chosen for a new, outlandishly high-end restaurant from David O’Connor and Joe Mercer Nairne, the pair behind Chelsea’s rightly celebrated Medlar (Latin, too; must be their thing). Baffling decision, that.
It’s not the only one. I wish the urban myth about Greece’s half-built buildings were true — that the Greeks purposefully leave them unfinished as a tax ruse — because then I could jauntily explain away the interiors. I’d pin it on benevolent Greek brickies thinking they were doing the landlord a right old favour by leaving the industrial air-con unit on full display above a sedate, white-tableclothed room of marble counters and mustard-coloured cushions. I’d understand why the wood on the walls doesn’t match the chairs, or why some sections get art and the rest nothing. The feeling is incompleteness.
