This week, the Araki restaurant off Regent Street in central London became the fifth UK establishment to be awarded three Michelin stars. Its distinction – apart from that – is that it has only nine seats. So it has a star for every three diners, surely a first even for Michelin, whose brand is built on signifiers of exclusivity. “Small” is anything from 40 covers or fewer: nine is about as small as it gets.
All small restaurants have one thing in common, which is that you can’t shout or guffaw, have an argument, talk about sex or Brexit, or do anything you wouldn’t otherwise do into a stranger’s ear.
That is the only atmospheric standard, since small runs the complete economic spectrum: the Fat Duck has barely any covers because it is so classy that you wouldn’t want to see its chefs cooking for a horde, any more than you would want to see Picasso painting a peace mural the length of the Berlin Wall. There is no dress code, but your behaviour code is “reverent”.
Other places are small because they don’t have big venture capital – or, indeed, any capital – and were mustered by the blood, sweat and tears of the (usually) owner-chef. A visit to Mary-Ellen McTague’s Aumbry in Prestwich, outside Manchester, was like walking into her front room. You could smell her hopes and dreams baked into the very walls, and root for them with all your heart. It was immersive, like going to a Hobbit’s house and getting drawn into one of their incredibly important, hairy-footed psychodramas. The food has to be really good for this effect, which, at Aumbry, it was. When it was closed temporarily for refurbishment, it reopened as a central Manchester pop-up. Which brings us to the pop-up.
Pre-recession openings were all about the mega-restaurant, giant 200-seat affairs with spangly drop-lights; post-recession, there is a more fluid (read: skint), it-might-work-it-might-not approach, which manifests in tiny spaces, counter-eating and a walk-in policy that more or less guarantees that, if the place is any good, all the young people will get there before you. This works best in aggregate, a pop-up snack emporium, where you can always go nextdoor if all six or so seats at Mamalan are taken. Broadway Market in Tooting is fabulous for this at the moment.
There is a restaurant in Lisbon, Taberna da Rua das Flores, that is so small it has a “table for two” that is actually two cushions on the stairs. It will serve you dog whelks 19 different ways and blow your mind, but you are still on the stairs.
There is a point where small becomes absurd, and as you eat you can feel yourself becoming too big for the restaurant, like Alice in Wonderland. A side order of surreal is fine, but a big squashy banquette is kinder to your soul.
• This article was amended on 5 October 2017 to correct a hoard/horde homophone.
