The stage is set, and the lights are dimmed. Marilyn Manson's dulcet tones ignite the room into a frenzy of anticipation. Diner's fidget uncomfortably on raised-up beds; trying to balance, in complicated positions, while they move towards their reassuringly trendy cocktails. Every cocktail is named in a ridiculously sexual way. Maybe this hides the true blandness of what is in the glasses. Onto the stage struts a six foot (in heels) nurse. She dances erotically in her rubber outfit, and then moves on to her table of toys; the toys on the table include a syringe, a scalpel and some other faux medical equipment. She calmly stabs the needle into her chest repeatedly leaving dots of red blood that she smears all over herself. The crescendo of the music is timed perfectly to match the nurse slicing open her stomach and pulling fake intestines from her gut, and then she leaves the stage to a round of muted claps. As the colour begins to return to the diner's faces the waitresses appear carrying plates of rare fillet steak covered in a deep red sauce...
This, I am sorry to say, was not a scene from a film. This was a night in a 'cool' west London hot spot known as the Supper Club. A place that if I never have to go back to in my life I will be thankful. Now don't get me wrong, I love trans-gender violent erotic stage performances as much as the next man, but I don't believe that any restaurant should focus on concept over food. The food at the Supper Club was some of the worst I have had in a restaurant. The food's case was not helped by having to eat on stupidly uncomfortable beds after watching mild mutilation.
This to me is just another case of certain restaurants creating a concept rather than an enjoyable eating experience. I go to restaurants to eat good food. I do not go to live out the crazy fantasies of drug fulled club promoters. By all means bring my soup in a syringe and squeeze into my bowl, but don't bother if the soup is going to be uninspired and tasteless.
Your concept cannot be more important than your food. Surely good food is the best concept that any restaurant can have. You can shout about dining in the dark all you like but if the food isn't good enough people will not come back. You can dress up a pig all you like but at the end of the day it is still a pig, take note ladies of Blackpool.
So please understand that I will do anything for good food: I will eat in the dark, I will watch trans-gender nurses cut themselves, I will eat in a room created from ice and I will happily eat sushi off naked bodies instead of tables, but I will only do this if the taste is better than the idea.
Restaurants of the world be true to yourselves, and to the people who pay you to feed them. Because we may not tell you we don't like it, but you will never see us again.
The more I come to think about it I'm not even sure she was a real nurse...
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