Not every relationship is meant to last — trust me here, this is an area of expertise, if not exactly an aptitude. It happens to the best of us. Take Claridge’s: pretty, popular, comes from money — and always flirting with top chefs, but always ending up in bits.
The first of recent times was Gordon Ramsay; they stopped fancying each other after 12 years. Simon Rogan’s Fera proved the rebound but it was destined not to be — for a start, the banquettes looked like bile, and for some reason the centrepiece tree appeared to have been hooked up to a car battery. In 2019 up stepped Daniel Humm of New York’s Eleven Madison Park, whose Davies and Brook opening was a hit, there being only two problems: one, the walls were the colour of a hangover and two, Humm soon decided it was time to go all-vegan. Claridge’s said ta but told friends it was “not the path we wanted to follow”. In other words — it was him, not them.
