RobandRoms, Canary Wharf, London: ‘Please hail me a taxi away from the devastation.’

Restaurant Review

Jay and Grace, looking mildly relieved because they know the horror is almost over.

For their most recent Sky series Rob & Romesh Vs… those titans of British Comedy Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett were challenged to open their own restaurant. Along with my dear friend and colleague Grace Dent I was invited to the first night, and then asked to write a review. Doing so was less an act of criticism, than therapy.

Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan have successful careers as stand-up comedians. This is handy. Because if they tried to make it as chefs they would starve, not unlike many of the customers at the opening and, thank God, only night of their restaurant Robandroms. I’d call it a total car crash, but that would do a disservice to accidental pile ups. After all, this was entirely predictable. At least with a car crash the emergency services eventually arrive to relieve the pain and carry off the dead. All I got was a taxi ride away from the devastation.

Firstly, the positives. It is housed in a nicely designed space. This is because it was designed by someone else. The original restaurant went out of business. Now here are Rob and Romesh dancing on the grave of what went before. Into this space they have imported their version of sophistication, and if you were a 17-year-old boy smelling of Lynx Africa you too might think it was sophisticated.

On the table, when we arrive, is a bottle of a sour apple liquor the colour of washing up liquid. It tastes of hate and carelessness and should be banned under certain chemical weapons conventions. There is also a machine tableside, enabling you to pull your own pint of frothy lager. All that’s missing to complete this vision of teenage male loveliness, is an iPad endlessly scrolling Pornhub and a roll of toilet paper.

But this is a restaurant so there must be food, of a sort. They get full marks for keeping the menu short: just one meat or veg starter, and three mains. They lose all those marks for then attempting to cook any of the dishes. Aside from the oil-drenched poppadoms and the bucket of mango chutney which they didn’t make, and the rice which they surreptitiously bought in from Wagamama, Romesh’s sturdy testicle-shaped vegetarian samosa is the best thing of the night. That’s not praise. The bar is set so low you couldn’t post a letter under it. Rob’s lamb samosa is a misshapen monstrosity. It looks like it was born deformed in the midst of a nuclear accident. There can be no filo pastry left in the country. It’s all been used in just one of Rob Beckett’s catastrophic lamb samosas.

For her main my companion, the saintly Grace Dent, orders Romesh’s Sri Lankan aubergine curry with a seabass fillet. The fish is served to her half raw. It’s interesting how close the word ‘hostility’ is to ‘hospitality’.  Then again top marks for bravery: trying to kill one of the nations most beloved restaurant critics on your first night is a ballsy move. She sends it back. When it returns the fish is cooked, but everything else is stone cold. I order Rob’s butter chicken. The barely grilled thigh arrives in a lake of sauce the colour of Donald Trump’s face; it has the sweet-sour tang of pure tomato ketchup, the cheap own brand stuff, bought by those who can’t afford Heinz. Given Grace’s terrifying fish, I can’t bring myself to try more than a forkful. I still get to experience the gag reflex in the wild.

At which point there’s a roar from the crowd as a DJ thunders some massive beats around the room. I can feel the bass thumping in my underfed guts. I’ve had enough. If I had wanted to feel old and desperately uncool while listening to music so loud my ears bleed, I could have stayed home and had the piss taken out of me by my kids. I decline to stay and try Rob’s balls for desserts because, unlike Beckett and Ranganathan, I have my pride. The best thing about a night at Robandroms? The gentle hiss of the door closing behind me, on the way out.  

Rob & Romesh vs is on Sky One. You can catch up with the series here.