Jamie's Italian...

[anonymous-user]

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

[Blown2CV]

it's a st chain and a complete sell-out. I like Jamie, and he does decent recipes and is a good cook, but if you give his recipes to stty harvester standard cooks and never do any proper quality control then you're just going to expensive and quite poorly put together food. It's just a rip off and i am shocked that he would put his name to it. Around 10% of the chain just shuttered, so read into that what you will. It's about as far from special as you can get.

[truck71]

Blown2CV said:

it's a st chain and a complete sell-out. I like Jamie, and he does decent recipes and is a good cook, but if you give his recipes to stty harvester standard cooks and never do any proper quality control then you're just going to expensive and quite poorly put together food. It's just a rip off and i am shocked that he would put his name to it. Around 10% of the chain just shuttered, so read into that what you will. It's about as far from special as you can get.

Not far wrong.

[soxboy]

I've only eaten a couple of times and it was average. The Leeds and Harrogate ones have been good for meeting for drinks before heading somewhere else, the cocktail list is a good one.

[MarshPhantom]

garyhun said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

Well, seems a lot of Italian restaurants have closed around London and been replaced with types of food. I thought it was a bit of a fad that had probably had it's day.

In the same way nobody goes to Mongolian Barbeque restaurants anymore, for example.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Monday 16th January 23:47

[BrabusMog]

truck71 said:

Blown2CV said:

it's a st chain and a complete sell-out. I like Jamie, and he does decent recipes and is a good cook, but if you give his recipes to stty harvester standard cooks and never do any proper quality control then you're just going to expensive and quite poorly put together food. It's just a rip off and i am shocked that he would put his name to it. Around 10% of the chain just shuttered, so read into that what you will. It's about as far from special as you can get.

Not far wrong.

No decent chef will ever expand at the rate Oliver did. He needs to stop serving overpriced, poor quality chain restaurant food on pieces of wood and slate.

[227bhp]

MarshPhantom said:

garyhun said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

Well, seems a lot of Italian restaurants have closed around London and been replaced with types of food. I thought it was a bit of a fad that had probably had it's day.

What do Italians eat these days?

[MarshPhantom]

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

garyhun said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

Well, seems a lot of Italian restaurants have closed around London and been replaced with types of food. I thought it was a bit of a fad that had probably had it's day.

What do Italians eat these days?

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

[FiF]

MarshPhantom said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

garyhun said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

Well, seems a lot of Italian restaurants have closed around London and been replaced with types of food. I thought it was a bit of a fad that had probably had it's day.

What do Italians eat these days?

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

I tend to agree with him. Best meal I have ever had in my life was lunch at a little restaurant up in the Aosta Valley, run by an ex works rally driver that I knew from way back. Lunch took hours, dish after dish, course after course, memories exchanged. A complete riot of laughter with the grappa.

Compare that to a Michelin starred place up in Haute-Savoie, completely up it's own posterior, food was good, but as an occasion, not a patch.

[C70R]

MarshPhantom said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

garyhun said:

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Does anyone still care about Italian food, it is all a bit 1970s.

Not sure if serious.

It's just a throw away "don't I look clever" statement if you ask me.

Well, seems a lot of Italian restaurants have closed around London and been replaced with types of food. I thought it was a bit of a fad that had probably had it's day.

What do Italians eat these days?

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

Not sure if sarcastic. Because unless you've got any figures to back up the bolded bit (you haven't - it's rhetorical), you're talking nonsense.

Yes, the Italian market is heavily congested and has become commoditised by the high street brands (Zizzi, Strada, Bella etc.). However, while these guys are hardly expanding in the way that they were 4-5 years ago, they are certainly not closing down restaurants hand over fist.

Having said that, Jamie's was a pale pastiche of both the Oliver brand and the Italian dining experience. Definitely not for me.

[Granfondo]

MarshPhantom said:

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

Thank god we don't have to eat the food that the UK used to churn out in restaurants before the immigrants educated our chefs and our palette!

[227bhp]

Granfondo said:

Thank god we don't have to eat the food that the UK used to churn out in restaurants before the immigrants educated our chefs and our palette!

What?

[227bhp]

MarshPhantom said:

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

That isn't fact, it's opinion. Dom Joly is a comedic writer for the press, he also wears rather large rose tinted glasses so I wouldn't read too much fact into anything he comes out with, maybe he has a point, but I don't recall these wonderful genuine Italian places he speaks of (they're even difficult to find in Italy!). It's amusing the dish he shows in his article is an Anglicised version of Spag Bol, if indeed it ever existed as an Italian dish.

It's because they cater for the masses - the council dwellers, the lower and middle(?) classes, the people with no taste.
Italian food has been Americanised, Asianised, Anglicised, generally bastardised and lost its roots. The majority don't want fine delicate food with lots of shellfish and fish etc, they want pile it high and sell it cheap. They want to leave a restaurant having eaten so much food they feel sick, that's how they know they've had a good night.
Yes it's a shame, but it's all down to money.
I've never been in a Jamie's Italian and probably never will, it sounds like what I have just described.

Edited by 227bhp on Tuesday 17th January 17:33

[Granfondo]

227bhp said:

What?

Pre Italian,French,Indian,Chinese etc British restaurant food was bland cr@p at best.

[FiF]

227bhp said:

The majority don't want fine delicate food with lots of shellfish and fish etc, they want pile it high and sell it cheap. They want to leave a restaurant having eaten so much food they feel sick, that's how they know they've had a good night.

Years back there used to be an excellent restaurant critic writing for the Sheffield Star. His main complaint was exactly that, the Sheffield public not being bothered so much about quality but quantity, their measure of a restaurant being how gut busting were the portions.

For me too much spoils the meal. Once ordered mixed fried fish in a restaurant in Mahon, instead of a few tapas sized dishes, got a literal mountain of five types of fish, just one of which would have been more than sufficient, so maybe it's not just the British.

[227bhp]

Granfondo said:

227bhp said:

What?

Pre Italian,French,Indian,Chinese etc British restaurant food was bland cr@p at best.

Some was, some wasn't, the Asians lap some of it up though, even now.

[Granfondo]

227bhp said:

Granfondo said:

227bhp said:

What?

Pre Italian,French,Indian,Chinese etc British restaurant food was bland cr@p at best.

Some was, some wasn't, the Asians lap some of it up though, even now.

Emperors clothes!!!

[MarshPhantom]

227bhp said:

MarshPhantom said:

Do we live in Italy?

Dom Joly agrees - "Whatever happened to the Italian Restaurant?"

www.cotswoldlife.co.uk/out-about/events/dom_joly_w...


I tend to post facts rather than opinion.



"Why have we gone off them?" he asks.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Tuesday 17th January 00:09

That isn't fact, it's opinion. Dom Joly is a comedic writer for the press, he also wears rather large rose tinted glasses so I wouldn't read too much fact into anything he comes out with, maybe he has a point, but I don't recall these wonderful genuine Italian places he speaks of (they're even difficult to find in Italy!). It's amusing the dish he shows in his article is an Anglicised version of Spag Bol, if indeed it ever existed as an Italian dish.

It's because they cater for the masses - the council dwellers, the lower and middle(?) classes, the people with no taste.
Italian food has been Americanised, Asianised, Anglicised, generally bastardised and lost its roots. The majority don't want fine delicate food with lots of shellfish and fish etc, they want pile it high and sell it cheap. They want to leave a restaurant having eaten so much food they feel sick, that's how they know they've had a good night.
Yes it's a shame, but it's all down to money.
I've never been in a Jamie's Italian and probably never will, it sounds like what I have just described.

Edited by 227bhp on Tuesday 17th January 17:33

Hardly playing for laughs though is he, just bemoaning the demise of his much loved Italian restaurants. I'm sure there must be a reason Jamie's Italian so miserably.

[Pothole]

toon10 said:

the staff were elitist

Do tell.

[227bhp]

MarshPhantom said:

Hardly playing for laughs though is he, just bemoaning the demise of his much loved Italian restaurants. I'm sure there must be a reason Jamie's Italian so miserably.

There are plenty of independent Italians near me, no shortage at all so I don't know where he's looking, lets face it it's not some factual article, it's more like something you'd read in Takeabreak magazine, The Sun or Womans own.

You only have to read through this thread from the start to see what people think to Oliver's restaurants, maybe that's why they are failing.