It’s official: gastropubs are the new tapas bars
“Food and pubs go together like frogs and lawn mowers,” wrote the unswervingly provocative British restaurant critic A. A. Gill. “Pubs don’t do food; they offer internal mops and vomit decoration.” He didn’t entirely mean it, of course: the same article ends with a declaration of passionate love for a dish he had encountered in a London pub—a thick potato soup with a large island of pressed foie gras melting in the middle. But as a general observation it seems sound enough, in Canada as well as in England. Anyone who has accidentally ordered a meal in one of our fake Irish or English chain pubs knows the fried snack food and industrial meat pies are as phony and mass-produced as the pissy commercial beer and the Sherlock Holmes decor.
• Read the rest of James Chatto’s column from the November issue of Toronto Life »
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/food/its-official-gastropubs-are-the-new-tapas-bars/&title=It’s official: gastropubs are the new tapas bars&picture=https://cdn.torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/gastropub_queenbeaver.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_14551" align="alignright" width="200" caption="The new locals: the Queen and Beaver (Photo by Jessica Darmanin)"][/caption]
“Food and pubs go together like frogs and lawn mowers,” wrote the unswervingly provocative British restaurant critic A. A. Gill. “Pubs don’t do food; they offer internal mops and vomit decoration.” He didn’t entirely mean it, of course: the same article ends with a declaration of passionate love for a dish he had encountered in a London pub—a thick potato soup with a large island of pressed foie gras melting in the middle. But as a general observation it seems sound enough, in Canada as well as in England. Anyone who has accidentally ordered a meal in one of our fake Irish or English chain pubs knows the fried snack food and industrial meat pies are as phony and mass-produced as the pissy commercial beer and the Sherlock Holmes decor.
• Read the rest of James Chatto's column from the November issue of Toronto Life »){kind=link}