Earlier this year, I wrote about the impending “invasion” of British pubs in America, predicting that 2026 would be the year the pub moved stateside. It was obvious to me the story was going to be written, and I wanted to ensure my pub, The Bell, was a part of the story, so I wrote it myself.
My timing was prescient, and the topic was subsequently taken up by other outlets, including Eater and Airmail, whose editors chose not to include The Bell, opting instead for a more NY-centric piece that strangely bore the same title as my piece.
Since then, Dean’s has opened to much fanfare, and Thomas Straker is still hard at work bringing his London canteen to the old Lucky Strike space, where the ghost of McNally’s French boozer still lingers. The British are coming, the British are here.
In light of all this London-to-NYC mania, it seems that the inverse has been happening as well. Over the weekend, I watched Graydon Carter’s interview on Breaker Media, during which he mentioned he was working on a restaurant in London with the Maison Francois team. I sent the video along to my friend, Emily Sundberg, who said she’d look into it. She was able to get Graydon to confirm his project for Feed Me, as I expected she would. Graydon said he was “planning a New York-type restaurant in London.”
This was interesting to me!
I’ve spent a lot of time in England over the last decade, and I would posit that Americans love the English much more than the English love the Americans. I am hardly smart enough to unpack geopolitical relations, but the Brits, like a lot of the world, both admire and despise Americans at the same time. Of course, this is a generalization, but our forebears in the Big Smoke see us as their uncivilized, uncultured, big-titted, SUV-driving, Botox’d, big-watch-wearing, status-obsessed distant cousins. The idea that one might successfully export American-style restaurants to London is fraught with issues.
And yet! There are several exceptions to this notion, and Graydon’s impending project suggests that maybe there is growing sentiment that Americans have something worth selling, culinarily.
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