The anti-restaurant: cool with a golden touch?
In London, the restaurant everyone has been talking about for the past few months has no website, no social media, doesn’t accept credit cards, and only takes reservations by phone… or by postcard.
We knew the restaurant scene was cyclical ; but no one expected the buzz around The Yellow Bittern, which opened in late 2024 near King’s Cross. At a time when star chefs flaunt themselves across social media, this place checks all the opposite boxes. Instagrammable sharing plates? Not here. Instead, you’ll find simple, hearty, and proudly nostalgic fare: thick-sliced roast pork with white beans, Cumberland sausages in broth with potatoes, guinea fowl pie, rice pudding, apple tart... Forget online bookings: you pick up the phone — or send a postcard, as a few clever diners have done. There’s no website, no wine list, the owner personally introduces his prized bottles (some going up to €350). Just eighteen seats, two lunch services (12 p.m. and 2 p.m.) on weekdays only, and the bill is strictly cash.
If you're not on board, don't come. But if you do — announce yourself well in advance (the place has become a pilgrimage site for both unknowns and culinary heavyweights), and bring a well-stocked wallet. Ironically, it was on Instagram shortly after opening that Northern Irish founder Hugh Corcoran (who has since deleted his account) vented his frustration: he called out diners who would order only a carafe of water and a few “sharing” plates. “A restaurant is not a public bench; you're here to spend money,” he wrote, criticizing a kind of “restaurant tourism” where people come just to say they’ve been, without actually eating. A touchy subject in the UK, where 60 percent of new restaurants shut down within their first year.
Corcoran is quite the character : in his thirties on paper, but vintage at heart. If he needs to step out, he simply closes the place — a far cry from those chefs he criticizes who leave a “packed restaurant” to go play tennis. In Interview magazine, he railed against “the unbearable pretension of today’s restaurant world” and admitted a deep nostalgia for the late ’80s and early ’90s: people paid in cash, “the last vestige of privacy,” sometimes even in foreign currency, like at his now-closed favorite bar in Belfast; lunches stretched on with the scent of alcohol in the air, no blaring stereo music, no diet obsessions, no panic at the thought of smoking. Though trained in top kitchens — Paris included — Corcoran insists that a good dining room matters more than what’s on the plate: “What counts is having interesting people. A restaurant full of boring people is still boring, no matter how great the food or the wine,” he told Interview.
Critics dismiss it as little more than a clever marketing stunt wrapped in vintage packaging. But in an era of AI-driven dining concepts, hyper-fleeting food trends, and relentless glamour, it could also be seen as a welcome return to restraint and old-school charm. The public is clearly craving something straightforward and legible. Just look at Le Cornichon, a new Paris spot styled like a neighborhood PMU bar, where a former Jean-François Piège chef draws crowds with simple dishes like breaded fish and green beans. Or 6.90, another recent addition to the capital’s food scene, which serves just one dish a day priced at, you guessed it, €6.90. Meanwhile, young chef Léo Troisgros, running La Colline du Colombier with his partner Lisa Roche near Roanne, understands that even in a fine dining setting, you can start the menu with a soup served in a big communal tureen, just in case anyone wants seconds (and they do: his soups are genuinely sublime).
After gluten-free and dairy-free, here comes cool-free. Which might just be the new cool.
By Pomélo
