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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
David Sexton's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 020 8897 4545
Open: 5.30am to last flight (approx 10pm)
Stacked at Heathrow: Gordon Ramsay Plane Food
From the media coverage, you’d expect Heathrow’s new terminal to resemble a battlefield strewn with bodies. But that’s not the way it was looking this Monday lunchtime. This huge new building, designed by the Richard Rogers practice, is beautiful, a calming and uplifting space of steel and glass, full of natural light. You feel as though you are actually inside a gigantic wing, full of colossal cantilevered spars and struts. Despite BA’s inadequacy, the structure is still a triumph.
Among the chain restaurants here, there are welcome names such as Carluccio’s, Giraffe, Itsu and Wagamama. And crowning them all, there’s Gordon Ramsay (in very large lettering) Plane Food (half the size) — for this chain attempts to hint that the great man is mystically present in all his outlets at all times.
Reception is hoity-toity. You enter down a long corridor, guarded by a receptionist at a desk. She told me I couldn’t have a table for 10 minutes purely to create a phoney sense of scarcity — there are 180 covers and the place was not even a quarter full.
If you like planes, the view out is certainly a winner, a great vista of crawling jumbos. Inside, the soaring space is exhilarating, too — dominated by an aeronautically-themed frieze, burnished with gold leaf, above a long bar of colourful marble, with the glass-walled kitchen on show behind.
There are nice buttermilk leather chairs and banquettes — but the small, canteen-style tables are grimly close together. Throughout, there’s a sense of materials, portions and spaces being carefully costed by the formidable catering company that is Gordon Ramsay Holdings. There’s no random generosity here.
Despite seeming overstaffed, the service is haphazard. The couple next to me never did get the tap water they’d asked for twice. I was never offered or given any bread. Ordering sparkling water, I got still (Whitehole Springs from Leigh-on-Mendip, £3.65). A businessman needing to catch his flight had to order a coffee and his bill twice.
But the menu, based on Ramsay’s Boxwood Cafe at The Berkeley, is short and appealing, with a choice of eight fish and meat main courses running from £14.50 (pan-fried sea bream) to £19 (rib-eye steak). The chef is Nathan Johnson, cooking under the “leadership”, as the company puts it, of Stuart Gillies at Boxwood, presumably himself ultimately under the leadership of the great Gordon in the sky.
A starter-size portion of celeriac risotto, pine nuts and rocket salad (£8) came as a tiny circle in a great big plate, topped with exactly six rocket leaves, four flakes of parmesan and pale pine nuts that could have been toasted a little longer. But the risotto itself, tasting only subtly of celeriac, was delicious — the grains of rice, glistening with oil, were both resistant and yielding, easy enough to achieve at home but troublesome for many professional kitchens.
Steamed wild sea bass with white asparagus and a lemongrass nage (£18) was a playing card-sized chunk of fish, fresh and perfectly timed, atop some overly crunchy asparagus that tasted faintly musty. The nage — containing chopped carrot, savoy cabbage and a little too much fennel — was clean-tasting but didn’t quite come together and could have been eaten only with a spoon (not offered). All the cutlery, by the way, is metal but security-sized — the dinky knife has only a 5cm, thumbsized blade.
British cheeses, served on a slate, were in top condition — a Montgomery cheddar, an Oxford blue, the Brie-knock-off Waterloo, and a slice of a goat log. But again they came with a dispiritingly precise accompaniment: six grapes, three water biscuits, two oatcakes, a triangle of quince cheese.
Airports can be emotive, even romantic, places to eat — and, yes, this was much the best food I’ve ever found in one. But is an ambitious full meal what one needs in transit? And business and first-class passengers seem unlikely to be lured out of the free comforts of their dedicated lounges.
The customers here, as a result, seemed surprisingly chavvy, the nouveau gastronomes created by TV, homing in on the celeb name. Perhaps the best way to use Plane Food is to outfront its formality and order just one dish? A pair of businessmen treated themselves to lavish Caesar salads accompanied by diet Cokes; another chap boldly lunched on just apple crumble (£6) and water. Quite right. It’s just a pitstop, after all.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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