People told me to watch The Menu, the new Ralph Fiennes movie that expertly skewers the fine dining world of Redzepi, Rogan et al. So I did, and it has now ruined the likes of St Barts for me for ever. Fiennes plays a chef who offers an intricate, highly personal tasting menu that is tweezered into position by an earnest brigade who would live or, so it seems, die by his word. It is one hour 47 minutes of wincingly observed comedy horror about my life; there’s even an abrasive, immensely killable female restaurant critic picking her way through the jus, sap and petals for errors. She’ll regret this.
Hours after watching the film, I’m in a spacious, Scandi-esque spot overlooking the church of St Bartholomew the Great on a misshapen chair carved from fallen London plane trees. My bottom is cosseted by a soft, sheepskin throw, while a fiercely focused young chef serves me a snack of Welsh wagyu tartare dotted with lovingly pickled wild garlic buds that he personally picked last year. This is followed by the world’s fanciest mini-Hobnob, made with cobnuts and topped with duck liver, before a perfectly spherical cod fritter takes me on a journey of exquisite joy.
