Picture the scene: a couple out for their weekly “date night” at that new brasserie at the top of the shopping mall. It has a large glass frontage embellished with gold lettering, sweeping pink banquettes, low-hanging, glowing bulbs emitting effervescent light, and swathes of leafy foliage in Oliver Bonas pots. Look closely and you’ll see most of the plants are plastic. Radiohead just came on.
Bruschetta is already on the table, and burrata has been ordered. Of course it has. What else, in 2023? The world is burning; burrata is as ubiquitous as game show Les Dennis in the Nineties.
Burrata, burrata, burrata. What a moment it is having. The new avocado. A squelchy mainstay of tired executive chefs hell-bent on profit margins. I do understand, you know. I want restaurants to do well, middling or otherwise. I love them.
But I am frustrated by burrata. Not so much in the Oliver Bonas-clad establishments, because in these it is expected. It pains me more in the upmarket locales where inventiveness is meant to be the order of the day and prices are higher. Burrata is such a cop out. It is so unequivocally boring and too often flavourless to boot.
Relax: of course a good burrata is a fine thing. The smoked variety from the Green Truffle in Bethnal Green is extraordinary. Sourcing is everything, after all. Mostly, though, the burratas of London are average at best and plonked down onto plates without much care or attention. They are a half-baked idea; a quick £11; a supposed implication that ingredients are all — nevertheless failing, by their hapless design, that very ideal.
Here, we become fixated on a single ingredient, or a linear dish. It’s sort of like air fryers, Harry and Meghan or the culture wars: people just want something to talk about
If burrata were a television show, it would be Love Island. A politician? Keir Starmer. Burrata is an easy resource and nothing more; a wanton, careless thing to precede a plate of overcooked salt and pepper squid and a seared salmon fillet beneath a greasy crumb.
You know, I think what’s happened is another classic case of British culinary proliferation. In this land, we become fixated on a single ingredient, or a linear dish. It’s like air fryers, Harry and Meghan or the culture wars: people just want something to talk about. Maybe it’s because the people steering the ship never really left school.
So many menus now, lengthy and large and possibly with turquoise borders and conversational sections called “Snacks and nibbles” and “Starters and sharers”. They all tell the same story. They are havens to mushroom arancini, things on skewers, duck gyozas. Chilli and garlic prawns are still just about knocking about and bao are beginning to infiltrate the mainstream. Everything is studded ludicrously with edamame beans and pomegranate seeds.
Burrata, again. At one time, the generous ease of the rich Apulian delight proved to be a faintly inviting proposition. It was halloumi fries for the sophisticated. Now, it is only ever drizzled in herb oil and scattered with toasted hazelnuts. Grilled ciabatta and warm cherry tomatoes come as part of the package.
We return now to observing the date I mentioned earlier. Your man just explained to his partner that it is actually pronounced ‘bru-ske-ta’ before asking if they might together re-enact that new Sam Smith video as a suggestive joke. It does not go down well — not after what happened with the Fanta last time. A mention of Harry’s Elizabeth Arden cream seems surer ground, but his luck is out. She is still team Sussex, and the burrata is still £11. We should all calm down.
