That's How It Happened

I somehow overlooked this at the time, but Giles Coren's review of Wild Honey, is the funniest restaurant review you'll ever read:

"Wild rabbit and foie gras boudin blanc was a lovely thing, I thought: pale and light and summery on its pillow of broad beans, peas and savory. And the leek vinaigrette was made with baby leeks, which enabled it to escape that texture of fag-packet cellophane one associates with the dish. And there were rich, deeply flavoured gnocchi with anchovy, tomato and Cornish pollock (oh, the sustainability!). And we shared a pretty little black pot of Elwy Valley lamb, made from shoulder and sweetbreads, which was a lovely zig-zagging together of the light and the dark qualities of the animal."

So far, so normal. But Coren has a PoMo trick up his sleeve that Foster-Wallace would be proud of:

"But I didn’t want to do a good review. So I went back with A.A. Gill. Adrian practically invented the shitty review. He can find turd where others find only gold, and could surely help me find a way to whack Wild Honey."

Of course Gill and girlfriend Formby (qv) found plenty to hate:

"He found the braised pig’s head “unctuous”, which is a fair-enough adjective right out of the traditional food writer’s lexicon. But, personally, I think that when it comes to firing off accusations of excessive largeness, pigs’ heads are a bit of an easy target.
On my recommendation (“No, it’s not too foie gras-y”), Adrian’s girlfriend, Nicola, had the boudin. “It tastes like poached penis,” she said, dead-pan, sincere, just being helpful. Adrian laughed. “No, no, it really does,” she said, and gave Gill a little gobble. “God, it does,” he said."

Despite Coren's attempts to sabotage its success, Wild Honey is still doing well, and has garnered raves from every other critic, except of course Gill. His review gives only 3 stars, and concludes "Wild Honey – better if you go with Giles Coren."