lodibet Why Is This the Most Controversial Restaurant in London?

The Yellow Bitternlodibet, an 18-seat restaurant and bookstore near King’s Cross station, hardly looks like the most divisive lunch spot in London.

It feels more like the farmhouse of a retired professor: Customers ring a bell to enter, then hang their coats on pegs by the door, while pots of Irish stew simmer in the tiny open kitchen. The food is hearty and hot, served with open jars of mustard. The décor includes books on Bertolt Brecht and an accordion.

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But the cooking and ambience are not the only reasons that London’s top restaurant critics, chefs and gourmands have come to dine and opine. Many are curious for a taste of the controversy swirling around its head cook, Hugh Corcoran, a deeply read communist and vocal Instagrammer who managed to enrage half the city soon after the Yellow Bittern opened in October.

ImageThe Yellow Bittern is a few steps away from one of London’s busiest train stations.Credit...Peter Flude for The New York TimesImageIt is not a place for a quick lunch.Credit...Peter Flude for The New York Times

“I’ve arrived at dinner parties or meals with people and then we all say, ‘Shall we discuss the Yellow Bittern?’” said Margot Henderson, the chef of Rochelle Canteen in East London and a pioneer of modern British cooking. “It’s the talk of the town.”

Much of that talk boils down to issues of class, as it so often does in Britain. The Bittern is cash-only and open for two seatings,pogo88 official at noon and 2 p.m., only during the workweek. Detractors have noted that few Londoners can partake in a leisurely, multicourse midday meal with a bottle of wine, and fewer still can justify one that easily costs $300 for a group of four. And the suggestion that they could — coming from a man with a larger-than-life drawing of Vladimir Lenin in his restaurant — has set off a yowl of irritation.

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The Journal reported that their inquiries about Ms. Schmidt to TikTok led that company to ban her account before the article ran, after which The Daily Mail branded her the “skinny influencer.” Ms. Schmidt quickly returned to TikTok, posting videos under a different username.

Taken together, the testimony painted a picture of officers who did not stop one another from pummeling or restraining Mr. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black FedEx worker, even when he did not pose a threat. And it captured an overarching culture in the Memphis Police Department that allowed for secrecy and excessive punishment, especially when a person tried to flee police custody.

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