The Godfather of Crystal Palace

Pizza, after work, after drinks, before drinks. A cheap night out, a cheap date. Pizza for sharing, pizza for a movie, pizza for fast food, or pizza for pleasure.

Pizza is meal, pizza is a snack, pizza is fattening, but pizza is not what you might think of as an event.

Often bastardised rarely perfected, like many foods that can be put in that category of ‘comfort food’ it lends itself to the rapid expansion of franchises and restaurants that are bought and sold on paper, agreed upon by accountants and funding managers looking at the numbers on the paper not the food from the kitchen. The hamburger, the kebab, fried chicken, and pizza. Each deconstructed and reassembled by the men with the pens and paper rather than the men with the spatulas and knifes. A successful model, and I myself am guilty of buying into this world, there is nothing better for a hangover or for that ‘bit of what you fancy’ than a greasy buttery McDonalds breakfast. God… fill my liver with fat and lubricate my heart. McDonalds, you have me in the mornings and draw me in like an alcoholic crawling back to the corner shop. This is what pizza has become. The greasy, cheesy addiction for the late night delivery from the teenager on the L plate scooter.

So how did we get here, show an Neopolitan a Pizza Express and be met with look of confusion and distain. This isn’t how its supposed to be, order them a Dominos and be met with the offending concoction directed at speed towards your ever so slightly chubby visage.

I cant blame these endeavours, you begin with a good product, build a successful little restaurant, open another when the times are good and the business keeps coming, so open another, and another. Soon you have a brand, then you have the equity funds come knocking on your door waving a big bundle of cash in your face and who can turn that down as payment for all your hard work slowly building your little pizza empire. There is a small issue, the quality always seems to suffer in the end, attention paid to the books and the people with the pens, too much tomato, can save a few pence here taking a single slice of ham off the topping, no one will notice. Chopping and changing, creating a soulless marketed product for the consumption of the unwashed poorly…. Errr… I seem to have hit a wall. If you are un-educated you may say ‘poorly read’ as opposed to someone who is ‘well read’. Yet what you say when there are people who, for no better term are ‘poorly eaten’ ? I think this needs to be pondered, maybe over a glass of crisp white wine, some sunshine, cold meats and cheese. Hmmm…

Back to the pizza though.

Godfathers Pizza of Crystal Palace, a small, unassuming place perched and nestled atop Crystal Palace, nothing to really see from the outside apart from a couple of guys in the window working at a stone oven, the kind you see in every trendy pizza place today. Nothing to see here, move along. The same you find upon entering, wooden table and benches, olive oils available for dripping, drizzling or just all out drenching your dinner in. Same same. Menu tattered with the typical trendy pizza place dishes, names in Italian, underneath, the ingredients in English thanks to the mono-lingual nature of the British population.

Lets take stock, 2 pizzas, one cheese tomato and pepperoni, one rocket, cured ham and parmesan.

Take one bite and the world has changed. Where am I ? Who am I ? I suddenly want to talk with my hands waving, I cannot stop it, my voice, raising with inflection at the same time, my hair seem to be slicking itself back, that stubble sported from a few days unshaven suddenly become the centrepiece of a more fashionable, passionate me. This pizza is so Italian its seeping into my DNA, there is no longer espresso there is only café in this world. This world is good.

The spice of the sausage, a tang and a kick but never overwhelming with the fats and the paprika melting into the mouth like a spicy ice cream of flavour working its way down. The cured ham, dancing and salting the palate, offsetting the flavours of the cheese and fresh rocket.

This is an experience to be savoured, something that can be held up to the face of God and to say this is creation of man. And God shall look upon it, and God will be beam with affection for this creation on the Earth.

Pizza is not your late night greasy food, taken with a side order of barely identifiable fried chicken. Pizza is the soul and the passion of region of a country that might be as disorganised as the cables running down the back of your TV but holds to account cuisine that travels through the ages.

The Godfather pizza restaurant of Crystal Palace is worth the journey out of the centre of the metropolis, to a world of pure fantasy. Your late night pleasure delivered by the slightly stoned scooter rider will never be the same again.

Visit, eat, drink, and ruin pizza for ever more because you will always know what this should taste like. 

How not to cook

Eat, sleep, work, travel, eat, sleep, work, travel. This is my life and my life is lived out of hotels. Town to town, city to city and country to country.

I do have a home, I think, well it is a place in the middle of the country where all my stuff is, including my ironing board so I guess that is home. Unlike Paul Carr in his book 'The Upgrade' I have not made the transition to a full time life living from hotels for extended periods, even though some days it would seem that would be the more financially efficient method of running with this lifestyle. With my own kitchen to cook in every night.

The kitchen would be the one luxury item I would like to travel with, yet I cannot fit it all in my bag and I don’t think bringing the sink along through an airport would help with saving money, even with an extra baggage allowance from having one world sapphire status.

'Any oversize baggage to declare sir?'

'Yes, a kitchen, including sink'

This slight inconvenience to travel plans means that I am destined to a life of dining out every evening. 'Sure'  I hear you say 'such a tragedy you have to eat fine foods every night and not have any washing up to deal with afterwards'

This though, is simply not the reality of the situation. Travel to London, Paris, Rome, Melbourne or any other major centre of population and this poses no problem to the modern nomad. Each having their own different tastes and restaurants of varying prices and flavours. When you spend enough time in one place there will be your regular haunts. I could spend and good afternoon giving a lecture on the ins and out of the London restaurant scene and still finishing with a recommendation for £3.70 salt beef beigals on brick lane over some of the restaurants that hold stars issued by the tyre man.

Yet the reality of life on the road means that you end up in places you would never normally go, or more to the point, would never voluntarily go to without being paid for it. So here we go with Wigan.

Mercure Oak Wigan. You should be ashamed. Run by the focus group, hotel management company with an impressive portfolio of mid range hotels, this is the 2nd worse meal I have ever been served and then been asked to pay for. The 1st relating to the famous muffin incident of 2013 (ever paid £4.50 for a microwaved pre-packed muffin still in its packaging?, I have. There has still never been anything to top that)

On a plus point the hotel is fine, I would not choose to stay here to relax and get away (there is the Park Plaza Westminster for that) It has all the amenities you would expect from a 3 star hotel, bar, comfyish bed, en-suite, really crappy coffee in the room to wake you up in the morning and free wifi. Yet here, the restaurant makes this hotel something special.

Its Sunday, I checked in last night. Its about 8pm and Wigan is pretty much shut. Raining and cold outside with a view from the bedroom window of council flats the only thing that could perk me up from the mood I am in from a long day is going to be a good meal and a large glass of something French or Italian. Kindle in tow and a determined stride to the hotel restaurant over the decidedly 1980's carpet and through generic hotel corridor I arrive.

Empty, its 8:30pm.

I suppose it is a Sunday, and if it was any other Sunday I would probably just be setting out from home on my way here just in time to make it before the bar closes and bed time is required. This day is different though, this Sunday to me is a Monday, I full day of work has been done and I need feeding.

'Table for one please'

'Follow me please Sir'

I am sat on the only table still made up for evening meals, every other has inverted mugs and little packets of sugar laid out ready for the breakfast rush in the morning.

'Would you like a drink sir?'

'Please, large glass of Merlot' (Watch the ol' belly, low sugar in the Merlot and all that)

'Is that the red one?' I am asked, in a very distinctive Northern accent

'Yes....'

Well this isn’t good for a start, I don't hold much hope that what I am about to be served is Merlot, or just any old red wine pulled from the shelf. Still, without paying over the odds for wine in a hotel its all the same anyway so I shrug it off.

The menu holds no real surprises, Burgers, Steaks, curries that you know has been prepared from a packet. Generic salads and staple fish of Salmon and Cod. Pretty standard fair, time for a standard meal that hold no surprises.

'Do you know what you would like to order?' Says the short very Northern waitress while as the same time placing my wine on the table.

'Yes, can I get the Rib Eye Steak, medium rare, with a side of chips please'

'No problem, anything else sir?'

'No thanks'

I have has this dance and these same questions in 100s of restaurants and in 10s of languages all over the world always with same results.

Well 90% of the time the same results. Visit Le Relais de La Venice and a nice French waitress will inform you that will be eating the steak frittes and you will be drinking the Bordeux.

Rib Eye steak and Chips should be a safe bet in any new place, a blind monkey would be able to take a decent slab of meat, whack it in a pan for a predetermined amount of time each side and serve it with a small side salad and chips without too much mess of the operation.

Yet not here, not in the Mercure Oak Hotel Wigan managed by Focus hotels group. Whomever is behind the mystery door to the kitchen is a special type of monkey. One who cares not for his/her customers and seems to have no sense of taste beyond that for black pepper.

We know what we should expect, pink in the middle, nice marbling of fat and that satisfying taste of cow. What I get though is different.

What happened here? Where is rest of my steak? Was this sat on? no, was this driven over?

What is on my plate truly cannot be the rib eye cut I have requested can it. Yet to my dismay it is.

Here goes nothing.

First bite and I’m pretty sure this isn’t cow. This is just one slab of black pepper that looks like cow. So much black pepper it masks any taste that might have been there. The texture, there is no satisfying soft flesh to be had here. Oh no, this steak has been dried to the point that you might classify it as jerky. Powdery too. Like a dry chewy powdery leather. The cheapest meat that could ever be found from the asda smart price specials that has been demoted to the discounted area and discounted to within a range that a citizen of North Korea could buy an annual supply with a weeks pay.

My god this is crap. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the distain and disappointment I am now feeling. Fuck it, I'm hungry. So I chew and I eat and I consume not for pleasure but to satisfy the hunger pangs build up from the day to that point.

I do like to make a point of not complaining about my food when I know I may have to eat here again out of desperation and do not wish my food to receive some special treatment after I chew out the chef as well as the food that is served on my place.

It does get worse though.

Desert I keep it simple, maybe they are bought in by an external company and I don’t have to have the same person preparing this part of my meal so I shoot for the creme brûlée.

Crisp melted sugar top coating, creamy vanilla underbelly, just enough structure to hold on the spoon while melting into ecstasy in the mouth. That is what I expect, that is not what I am about to receive.

Burnt Cream, its in the name. Ever had a creme brûlée without the brûlée? This was just that, brown sugar sprinkled ever so sparingly over the top with a small mountain of fruit compote added on top for good measure. The cream, and vanilla, well the cream anyway. There is no vanilla. The 2 basic components of a creme brûlée are missing. How is it possible to deliver this to a plate and expect payment?

Food is a part of everyones life and should be available not only in the quantities needed to survive but should be available as a basic form of pleasure. Food has the power to turn a day around and change a mood. It has the potential to form emotion and mark a memory into place. We all have a truly memorable meal, whether is was a fine dining shirt and tie dress up with Foe Grais and vintage wines or the most perfect sausage and egg sandwich from a greasy spoon. The price and the type of food is not where the memories come from but the quality in preparation and expertise in the effort placed into the food by the work of the chef is where the pleasure lies.

To a person who is preparing food for others, the other person does not matter. They could be the queen or they could be another no name one of many members of the general public. When that person will refuse to serve something as simple as a fried sausage without putting the time into making sure it is prepared in a way that will maximise taste, pleasure and flavour. Not for the person that is to consume it, but to know they have performed justice to the product they are creating. That they have worked for perfection even within the most simple of tasks.

Then that person is a chef.

There is not a chef in the kitchen of the Mercure Oak Hotel Wigan.