‘No one works a full week anymore’ my friend Calypso ambitiously claimed last week
as we sat down to a Friday afternoon aperitif. I coloured slightly and glanced around.
It’s exactly the kind of glib comment that gets us millennials into trouble when
actually, we work bloody hard, albeit in less traditional jobs than our parents. That
being said, one of the great advantages of our more ‘flexible’ attitude to work and life
is you can drum up an awful lot of enthusiasm for lunch on the last day of the
working week. ‘Freelance Friday’ (also known affectionately amongst our core group
as the day of the ‘shirkers lunch’ or the ‘Friday salon’) is always a delight. There is
something joyous about lunch on this day in the capital, whether you’re working in an
office or not. The weekend is winking at you on the horizon. Around London, teams
assemble. Emails gradually dribble away, and any task bigger than doing your
timesheets ‘can wait until Monday.’ So off we went to Smoking Goat, three of us
freelancers and my brother Hamish, who works in advertising, where a boozy Friday
lunch is hardly frowned upon. We were feeling guilt free after a busy week and ready
to unashamedly treat ourselves.
Smoking Goat is in the heart of Shoreditch surrounded by all the other big hitters-
from Brat to LeRoy to Lyle’s, this area of town is heaving with options. Smoking Goat
though, is unique. Describing itself as ‘influenced by the late night canteens of
Bangkok,’ it is essentially Thai barbecue- two words I hadn’t heard together before.
The aesthetic is fairly minimalist- stark wooden tables, and a large open grill
presiding in the middle of the room where the chefs are working their magic.
Now I know it seems old hat reviewing somewhere Marina O Loughlin reviewed back
in 2015 and is widely considered to be (spoiler alert) damn good but here’s the thing
that she didn’t mention about Smoking Goat. It’s this kind of restaurant that really
appeals to the under 40s. It appeals to our sensibilities and our societal outlooks. It
doesn’t make you conform to a dress code. It doesn’t pigeon hole itself as
traditionally ‘Thai’ but whacks an award winning scotch egg on the menu without a
second thought. It will give you lashings of coriander and garlic and aubergine and
soy and Cornish greens. It will give you the stickiest, sweetest fried chicken. It will
give you meat so tender that pretty soon you really don’t care whether it’s Thai or not.
And that is just what the modern workforce is after. We don’t want to be tied to one
discipline, to one linear route to seniority and success. This different way of living
has coined a trend- the rise of the ‘slashy’- someone who has multiple creative hats
and balances a few different pay streams. It’s no surprise then, that we’ve also
fuelled the ‘slashy’ restaurant. Places that are half bar, half old school diner. Places
that play rock music too loud but serve michelin star food. Places like the
wonderfully inventive Pidgin, with a different menu every week and the sumptuous

Indian tapas of Kricket, or the Albanian, Turkish, Greek and Iranian dishes cooked
perfectly on an open fire at Peckam Bazaar. All over London the best chefs are quite
rightly sticking two fingers to conventional cuisine.
This whole idea hasn’t been met with unanimous delight I might add. The Guardian
reported that ‘recent controversies have highlighted questions about racism in the
industry and who ‘owns’ different cuisines.’ The words ‘cultural appropriation’ are
being bandied around social media. Should two white guys be allowed to run a
restaurant they’ve named ‘Thai BBQ’? As I see it, Smoking Goat treads that
controversial line with aplomb. Taking some of the best bits of Thai cooking, and
giving them a fresh new look that we haven’t seen before. After all hasn’t imitation
always been the highest form of flattery? And we all know the most inventive artists
never stuck to the rules- Picasso famously said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you
can break them like an artist.”
But make no mistake, there are establishments who are getting it badly wrong. Last
summer, Som Saa even had to fire one of its chefs Shaun Beagley for openly
mocking Thai and Asian culture both in speech, and in his captioning on Youtube,
regularly replacing the letter L with R in his narration and texts. Less outright
offensive, but nonetheless problematic, are restaurants that are brazenly putting
down the origins of the cuisine, either suggesting their version is ‘cleaner’ or quite
simply ‘better’ with no celebration, just downright stealing. Then there’s Gordon
Ramsay’s new National Geographic series ‘Uncharted’ which sees Ramsay “tested
against the locals, pitting his own interpretations of regional dishes against the tried-
and-true classics.” The lines are being drawn in this debate but to me it’s pretty
simple, and the so called ‘line’ isn’t that thin actually. When a restaurant is inspired by
a country, and cooks new food with love and care, it shows. Smoking Goat is the
proud of its sourcing, and boasts a menu full of authentic elements, but is by no
means tied to tradition. It has defiantly and gloriously gone its own way.
So just to be clear. When it’s done right, I love this new wave of cuisine. And contrary
to the baby boomers’ belief, this isn’t the snowflake generation being typically, well,
flaky. Actually our expectations have just risen in every respect, from food to work.
Large corporations just don’t foster the culture we want anymore. And likewise when
it comes to restaurants. The likes of Le Gavroche and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
et al have given way to Kiln, Temper, Pitt Cue and Hoppers, where today’s young
people actually want to spend their time and money eating interesting food with a
whole host of influences. Let’s face it, the vast majority of us will never be able to
afford a house, so we may as well splash out on a a few damn good lunches at the
Camberwell arms or Black Axe Mangal instead.
It may sound obvious but we want somewhere fun and good value. Ideally with an
intriguing but delectable menu and a good selection of affordable wines, in a relaxed setting. And we really don’t care about labels. We will continue working part time,
indulging in ‘side hustles’ and exploring the creative opportunities big corporates
don’t give us. Meanwhile the London food scene has never been so exciting. As long
as you pilfer those age old ideas with integrity and inventiveness, we’ll come running.