Fulham Road – a cautionary tale

Naming a restaurant is not an easy thing, unless a) you are French and can add ‘chez’ to your name (which you have changed to ‘Michel’ from ‘Hyppolite’); b) you are lucky enough to be in an interesting building like an old customs house or c) you are a big brewer and employ an advertising agency to come up with something like ‘All Bar One’, ‘One of Two’, ‘The Fine Line’ or ‘Bar 38’ that individually have no meaning but when repeated enough start to mean ‘a place to drink Australian wine and weak American beer with quasi-Mediterranean food’. Otherwise this is a subject to stretch even the most agile brain and find it wanting, hence the number of restaurants named after their owners (which presupposes there is something ‘personal’ about them that distinguishes them from their neighbours) or after their addresses. I can’t wait for someone to open a restaurant in the street near Waterloo called . . . The Cut.