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Why can't London kosher dining be more civilised?

Jenni Frazer wants a kosher restaurant with proper tablecloths and good service

February 8, 2018 16:52
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1 min read

"Where”, said my non-Jewish friend, “can I take this man for dinner? He is observant and sophisticated. I want the equivalent of — oh, I don’t know, Le Gavroche, or Galvin la Chapelle.”

“Ah,” I said. “You mean, it has to have tablecloths and matching china.” And I thought, and thought, and finally came to the conclusion that there is no such thing in London as proper, full-on, kosher fine dining.

Which is, when you look at the many disparate communities which feed (pun intended) into Anglo-Jewry, something of a disgrace.

Oh, sure, there are many feeding troughs, or fast-food outlets. But their clientele is not, for obvious reasons, accustomed to eating out. We get the restaurants we deserve for the most part; ugly areas, rude staff, a lack of attention to detail and a customer base which often does not know how to behave.