Tucking in: restaurant critic Jay Rayner devotes a chapter of his book to Morleys-style fried chicken
Jay Rayner, the country’s top restaurant critic, who each week visits 5-star hotels such as Claridge’s or Michelin-approved restaurants in the great cities of Europe, is publishing a book next week in which he sings the praises of… Morleys takeaway chicken shops.
There are at least 10 branches of Morleys in Croydon, including on South End, on Whitehorse Road and Mitcham Road, in New Addington and in Coulsdon, which all mostly do a steady trade from lunchtime through to the early hours each morning. It means that about 10% of all Morleys outlets are in the borough of Croydon.
Rayner, who now has a weekly column in the Financial Times after more than 20 years at The Observer, is a quite brilliant writer, though his pen is sometimes dipped in acid.
His scathing review of Le Cinq, on Avenue George V in Paris, where meals start from 100 quid, was a hum-dinger: “By far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job,” Rayner wrote in 2017.
His amuse-bouche looked “like a Barbie-sized silicone breast implant”.
Le Cinq’s dining room decor was “various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you”.
Croydon has not escaped Rayner’s attention.
In 2011, Rayner noted his regret at not managing to get to visit the country’s largest Asian restaurant, which had just opened. “Cosmo can seat 800 people, has a menu of 300 dishes from nine Asian countries – why settle for sushi when you can have rogan josh, too? – 10 cooking stations and a live Bengal tiger in a cage.
“All of this is true, except for the last bit, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a big cat tucked away in a corner somewhere. It’s that sort of place. It reads like a restaurant on anabolic steroids.
“What is most irritating about Cosmo is that it is all so bloody predictably Croydon. I do not mean this as an insult to all the good, civilised, tasteful, attractive people who live there. I mean it only as an insult to all the bad, rowdy, tasteless, ugly ones.”
Long gone: praise from Jay Rayner could not save Albert’s Table
Cosmo continues to trade today in its vast hangar of space on the Valley Leisure Park centre off the Purley Way, though since re-branded as “JRC Global Buffet”.
Nor does Vervain, the restaurant within Birch, the hipster venue in what used to be the Selsdon Park Hotel. Barely a month after Rayner’s visit, and the Birch business had gone bust.
Does Rayner deliver a jinx to Croydon restaurants? Morleys must hope not.
The fast food chain selling fried chicken in all its forms, as well as burgers and spare ribs, opened its first shop in Sydenham in 1985. Culturally significant? The sign from that first shop, opened by Tamil immigrant Kannalingam “Indran” Selvendran, is to be placed on exhibition in the Museum of London, so it probably is.
Yet, as Rayner notes, Morleys is decidedly a south London thing. There are branches elsewhere, including in Stockton on Tees and Hartlepool in the north-east, following an expansion by Selvendran’s son, Shan Selvendran, over the past 20 years.
But according to the Torygraph, Morleys are “a chain unknown north of the river”. So it must be true.
Rayner lives in Herne Hill. And that’s where Morleys comes in.
“I was always going to feature them in my new book. It’s a south London thing,” he said.
“I have long been fascinated by Morleys.” He calls it “a cultural institution”.
Rayner writes: “And so in my new cookbook Nights Out In the Kitchen I write about Morleys, a third space for young people short of places to go, and offer up a cracking recipe for BBQ sauce chicken wings inspired by theirs: lots of smoked paprika in the dredge for smokiness and then store cupboard ingredients for the sauce.”
Rayner’s recipe book is, he says, “inspired by my favourite restaurants across over 25 years of reviewing”.
Including Morleys.
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
