The best food and restaurant stories of 2021 from Eater London

Perhaps the best way to describe the early part of 2021 in the same way that we came to remember the vast majority of 2020: a time of shock, crisis, insecurity, and survival. But since the spring, the London restaurant industry has slowly begun to recover from the crises of the last 12 months, learning lessons, adapting to a new reality, learning to take government advice with a grain of salt and sticking to the support systems offered to them.

And because of Londoners’ appetite to get out again after lockdown, restaurants have been on an upward trajectory ever since; boosted by the prevalence and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and the confidence that these protections have instilled in a majority throughout the capital.

And while the year will once again end in a state of relative uncertainty, with high caseloads and the proliferation of the Omicron variant meaning staff absenteeism and group booking cancellations, London restaurants are likely to reflect the second half of 2021 “better than expected.”

Restaurants agree that there is still a long way to go – the beginning of 2022 will right now offer a number of new challenges and uncertainties for companies and workers who are increasingly accustomed to both.

But until then, let’s take a look back at the year’s biggest stories – of course dominated by COVID-19, but with plenty of room for Salt Bae, Fantastic British Bake Off, cookbook plagiarism, fried chicken, bald heads, and against all odds this year of all years, Frankie ~~and Benny~~‘s.

Thank you for reading along this year and we hope you continue to do so as many more come. –Adam Coghlan

10. Fried Chicken Juggernaut Popeyes opens his eyes to First UK Restaurant

The service desk at Popeyes' new London restaurant — Popeyes opened in London in November 2021.

Had this story been written before mid-2019, it would have been something of a divergence: a popular fried chicken brand taking a step across the Atlantic. But that was before the possibly biggest fast-food optimism explosion of recent times, centered on the Popeyes-fried chicken sandwich.

And had this story been written before the beginning of 2021, it would still has been an outlier: an now even more popular fried chicken brand taking a step across the Atlantic. But thanks to the twin forces of Brexit and Covid-19 – which themselves threaten all British food stories this year – an American fast-food land grab is in full swing, and Popeyes is the frontrunner.

9. Salt Bae makes Londoners so thirsty that they review his restaurant before it opens

Occasionally, the restaurant world witnesses phenomena that its experts cannot properly explain. Such was the case with London restaurant critics and Nusret Gökce, better known as Salt Bae, in one of the longest-running opening sagas in the city in recent times. The hype was so intense that both impatient fans and enemies filled the restaurant with reviews before it even opened; reviews, if the very existence, let alone the content, better explained the sprinkled than any write-up on the opening night.

8. Surveillance Shopping arrives in London while Amazon goes towards Ealing Broadway

The reopening continues in densely populated areas of New York and New Jersey

Quite a few trends accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic rested on reduced contact and connection – even when it became clear that transmission of fomite (the surface) was far from critical to the spread of the virus. But one that would probably have happened regardless is supermarket shopping as frictionless as Jeff Bezos’ shiny head, which made its UK debut in London this year.

7. Several lockdown leaks further leave restaurants in uncertainty

St John Bread and Wine sits closed in Spitalfields during the coronavirus lockdown in London — Restaurants spent the early part of 2021 marked by uncertainty.

Uncertainty defined the first six months of 2021 for restaurants to an even greater degree than in 2020. Random policy design combined with a tendency to leak this policy design to find out what people thought about it, left them consistently on the back foot, out of position to make meaningful plans for fear that they would be rejected by the next lobbying journalist to tweet something out.

6. Everything you need to know about Fantastic British Bake Off 2021

Fantastic British Bake Off might have finally thrown its tint of coziness in 2020, but that would never stop viewers from streaming back to the tent and its occupants coming in 2021. A series again marked by controversy, baking drama and the persistence of Paul Hollywood’s sweaty palm left some fans hoping for changes for next year: now they can only wait and see.

5. Salt Bae will sprinkle itself all over London as soon as restaurants reopen

Salt Bae lovingly holds a cutting board topped with a steak while wearing a suit, tie and sunglasses — Mr. Bae.

Back to Mr. Gökce, in an illustration of how Salt Bae’s infinite reproducibility creates its own economy. Looking back, the most telling thing about this story is that Mr. Bae very quickly withdrew from the proposed opening date of May 17 and did not open the restaurant until September, while the hype swelled around him.

4. London chef Elizabeth Haigh’s cookbook withdrawn following allegations of plagiarism

Eat was considered something of a culmination of Elizabeth Haigh’s rise, first as head chef at Hackney restaurant Pidgin when it received a Michelin star, and then for her own interpretation of a Singaporean kopitiam at Mei Mei in Borough Market, which earned a couple of brilliant reviews for a kitchen that is underrepresented in the city and was one of Eater London’s most impressive newcomers in 2019. But the lasting legacy of Eat will likely be the discussion it has led to about the genealogy of recipes and the responsibilities and pressures of cultural representation in the cookbook world that value memories and personal anecdotes as the leading currency of legitimacy.

3. Restaurants and pubs can reopen outdoors from April 12th

A couple decide their order while eating outside in London — The resumption of outdoor dining was one of the few reliable milestones for restaurants this year.

The list of dates, plans and strategies that the government adhered to during the Covid-19 pandemic is thin, partly due to inherent uncertainty and partly due to inherent incompetence. But April 12, which houses the resumption of outdoor dining and the start of a long, crooked road back to restaurants, was one that actually held on.

2. Oh my God, they killed Benny!

A confession: no one really expected a story about a medium-sized Italian-American chain cutting its name in half in favor of “modernization” to absolute pop. But pop, it did.

1. Inevitable lockdown schedule Leak claims restaurants and pubs will reopen in May

And to round things off, a signal story about the last two years. It has it all: Covid-19; government incompetence; near unbearable uncertainty for restaurants; and a small promise of hope at reopening. No wonder it takes the top spot.