Tour De Gall

Truly awful reviews are delightful. I remember one in Empire magazine, years ago, for a wretched film that the reviewer described as being “about as gripping as KY Jelly”. Another favourite comes from the great New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, who once opened with the line “What is the point of Demi Moore?”. I am thrilled to report, then, that A. A. Gill’s polemic regarding a catastrophic dining experience at Parisian restaurant L’Ami Louis is an instant classic. Here’s my friend Jonathan’s favourite passage:

An Englishman in blinding tweed and racy cap pushes through the door and roars. A waiter steps forward, arms outstretched, and makes hee-haw, hee-haw noises like Bart Simpson pretending to speak French. It is the practiced and familiar ritual greeting of mutual incomprehension and ancient contempt. Our servant glides past and does a silent-movie double take. “Your snails!” he exclaims. “They have not come!” His cheeks bulge as he flaps his short arms. In all my years of professional eating, I have never seen this before. I have seen waiters do many, many things, including burst into tears and juggle knives, and I once glimpsed one having sex. But never, ever has a waiter commiserated with me about the lack of service.

And I rather enjoyed this:

So on to the broiled kidneys. Nothing I have eaten or heard of being eaten here prepared me for the arrival of the veal kidneys en brochette. Somehow the heat had welded them together into a gray, suppurating renal brick. It could be the result of an accident involving rat babies in a nuclear reactor. They don’t taste as nice as they sound.

But quoting excerpts won’t do: the entire article is wonderful. I implore you to read “Tour De Gall” tout de suite, mon petit chouchou.