The dangers of democracy
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating autocratic rule, I'm just questioning whether democracy is all it's cracked-up to be. With the vote comes responsibility and it seems that some of those currently enfranchised are not living up to their end of the bargain. Or, it could be that the wrong people are enfranchised. Proof of this can be seen from a poll conducted by a website called View London. The poll is intended to list the best and worst places in London and 3,500 dimwits were entrusted to express their opinion and vote. Talk about irresponsible.
According to the clearly chavtastic bunch who voted, London's five best restaurants are:
- Oxo Tower
- Hakkasan
- Nobu
- Asia de Cuba
- Maze
Squaremeal notes that although you can have a great meal at the Oxo Tower, service has occasionally been described as "unbelievably poor". Hardens quotes one reader who describes it as "A waste of the best restaurant views in London", whilst another argues the food is "cynical rubbish". I appreciate these are but a few views, but ones I wholly buy into it. Not all of these restaurants are dogs, Hakkasan and Maze stand out as particularly noteworthy, but they are a long way from the best restaurants in London. They do not have the best food, the best value for money, the best service or the best ambience. At a stretch, one might argue that Oxo Tower has the best views, Hakkasan has the best basement and Nobu has the best broom-cupboard.
To me this list does not constitute the five best restaurants in London. Rather, it is the five restaurants which are mentioned most frequently if you ask a Heat-reading-Chantelle-aspiring-brain-dead nincompoop, where they are most likely to see some minor celebrity who they can shag and then sell the story to one of the red-tops.
This does of course raise the question of what I think are the five best London restaurants. As yet, I haven't eaten at all of London's restaurants so would find it hard to judge. I'm doing my best to work through them however.
UPDATE: It appears that Londonist are equally perplexed by these results.
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