UK critic’s scathing review rips Australian cafe to shreds
Australian cuisine generally goes down well in London, especially when you consider how many Aussie expats call the British capital home. But this wasn’t the case for one cafe, which has been ripped to shreds by a scathing review.
The Guardian’s Jay Rayner has penned an excruciating review of Farm Girl café, which describes itself as “a holistic yet comfortingly simple approach to Australian cafe culture.”
To say Rayner was underwhelmed, would be an understatement.
“We don’t stay for dessert, we’ve suffered enough,” he said.
“There’s V for Vegan. There’s GF for Gluten Free. There’s DF for Dairy Free. I think they’re missing a few. There should be TF for Taste Free and JF for Joy Free and AAHYWEH for Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here,” he wrote.
And that was just the start for the café, situation in Chelsea.
“It fills quickly on a cold winter’s evening with blonde-tressed Chelsea women just bubbling with intolerances,” Rayner continues.
“It’s not just the dismal cooking that pains me here. It’s the squandering of ingredients and of people’s time and the tiresome narrative of ‘wellness’ with which it’s been flogged.
“I find myself eyeing the Yorkshire terrier, greedily. Just hand him over, give me access to the grill, and five minutes.”
Rayner has a reputation for being a particularly hard marker, but to her credit Farm Girl’s founder Rose Mann took the piece in good humour.
“We think it’s a very entertaining piece and rather enjoyed reading it,” she wrote on Facebook.
What do you think? Does the review go too far?