How London became the best place in the world to eat out
London has become the best place in the world to eat out. Of course, there are a thousand other cities with marvellous food, but for organic vitality, ethnic variety and nose-to-tail creativity, London is unmatched. New York and Paris are parochial by comparison. Two new books locate the source of this revolution of taste and aspiration in the 1980s and 1990s. But, like the Zen paradox, this is both true and untrue. Waves of immigrants immediately raised postwar expectations. It is estimated that 80 per cent of the ‘Indian’ restaurants which dominate high streets are in fact Bangladeshi and that most of the owners arrived from Sylhet immediately after Partition.
