TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/988448
who could complain about the changes of the last 25 years? True, the very word "gastropub" will cause some diehards to roll their eyes and grieve over pretentious makeovers, with expensive menus leeching away the pub's working- class lifeblood. But few even of these will resent the fact that you no longer reek of tobacco the next morning; while not just food but also beer itself have both been improved out of all recognition by artisanal production. "Pub grub" would once have sent shivers down the spine of a visiting gourmet. At best, you might get a pie and mushy peas: authentic, if scarcely to everyone's taste. More typically, you would be talking about a frozen lorryload of industrial catering, and a microwave oven. Today you could certainly enjoy a superb meal in a different British gastropub each day for a year—and a different London one, each week. With just five days to work with, then, why not make Ascot this year an opportunity to sample this boon? There are so many good ones, nowadays, that nominating just five is an invidious task. So we'll just suggest a possible destination for each evening, as much as anything on the premise that each will take you to a different neighbourhood; and so give you a different flavour of the city, in more ways than one.