We don’t only love Stephen Garrett, the author, founder and executive chairman of the award winning production company Character 7, because he produced The Night Manager. We also like him for The Rook, The Undoing, and Culprits. And! He happens to be one of the best lunch dates (and all-around great people) in London — and we are always delighted to see him back at The Park. He recently joined us for a Long Lunch with his friend Remi Kone, a writer.
Is the Long Lunch a habit or aberration for you?
A Long Lunch is a rare and guilty pleasure. So rare, in fact, that I only commit to it once a year, a date with an artist friend of mine, the unique and idiosyncratic Humphrey Ocean, and our now traditional pre-Christmas conversational merry-go-round is something that ends the year in a wine-fueled blissful and transcendent state.
What makes a Long Lunch enjoyable, versus a chore?
The phrase “Long Lunch” feels to me like code for one at which alcohol is consumed. When I started working in TV on a local news programme at Granada in Manchester (ahem) back in the late 70s, that was routine. Nigel Williams wrote about a similar show in his novel “My Life Closed Twice,” and rather brilliantly described it as something that pretended to be journalistic, but was in fact “a buffet-cum-publicity service for ministers of the crown.” Anyway, having a drink at lunchtime, especially in the US, now suggests you might have a “problem.” So to have a really fine wine with lunch seems like an act of rebellion. Deliciously “problematic.”
What are the qualities of an excellent Long Lunch companion?
The same qualities that you want in any great friend. Actually, just one quality — curiosity. If you’re not curious you might as well be dead. So if I come away from any encounter and I have not been asked a single question (and I’m not talking about immigration officers wondering why they should let me into their country) then ideally that is the last time we meet.
Who joined you at The Park?
Remi Kone, my friend of many years. She worked with me back in Kudos days as a script editor on Spooks, and is now a rather brilliant writer of crime thrillers like Innocent Guilt and (just out) Just Kill. Patricia Cornwell and Karin Slaughter are huge fans. It’s been an amazing trajectory for her. But you can’t be a classy writer without curiosity and I come away from any meeting with Remi having been assailed (in the nicest possible way) with questions. What did I think about this? Why did I do that? All of them are quite hard to answer….
You relished your whole-roasted fish, steak tartare, and all of the sides today. What will you order on your next Long Lunch at the Park?
If I were going for maximum indulgence I’d start with a lobster roll followed by roast breast of Loomswood duck with cavolo nero and marsala sauce. I like things that you are unlikely to make for yourself at home and are harder to find on other restaurant menus.
Tell us about your favorite Long Lunch of all time.
Very early in my career, back in the late 70s I found myself on the last working day of the year at a restaurant in Morecombe with Russell Harty and Victoria Wood, preparing a documentary for Granada TV (where I was working as a researcher) about the fabulous local rising star that Victoria was becoming. Staggering amounts of wine were consumed, huge indiscretions shared (largely inspired by the recent news that Norman Mailer had taken “a stick of dope” to his disc-fueled Desert Island), and as someone recently out of university, I was agog at my unfettered access to these magnificently talented and hugely funny people. Don’t ask me what we ate. That wasn’t the point…..
If you could Long Lunch with absolutely anyone on the planet — no offense Remi — who would it be?
David Byrne. I saw him in concert a few months ago. He was joyous, his imagination undimmed, and his musicality breathtaking. I first saw him 40 years ago. He saw how weird the world was becoming decades before anyone else noticed.
On the days that you are Long-Lunching, do you dress differently?
I don’t really dress for lunch, long or short, it’s more who I’m with that matters. So, too, what I’m doing before or after. That said, I’m a klutz by nature, always have been (my parents would call me Clouseau as a small child, which I don’t think was kind or helpful), so I try to avoid white or pale tops which tend to be blank canvases awaiting Pollockian spillages of oil and sauce. My favourite shirts for any meal are patterns so wild that even if you dribble ketchup down your front there would be no visible difference to the untrained eye.
What is your favorite time of year (or weather) in which to enjoy a Long Lunch?
The last working day of the year, obviously.
STEPHEN’S DOSSIER
Birthplace: London.
Neighbourhood: Overlooking Hampstead Heath.
“Short” lunch strategy (i.e. when not at The Park): Home cooked salmon fillet and an M&S salad, all mixed up together and consumed at my desk. I know, I know…..
Cocktail: During lockdown I used to have cocktail Zooms with friends and we’d make them up to break the monotony of it all, so I still like to play. But at a bar? A dry Grey Goose martini with a twist. Never fails…
Workout: Hmmm. Wild swimming in the pond every day — how do you know someone is a wild swimmer? They tell you! — and a workout with weights and stretching every other day. And much walking as possible.
Bookshop: Nothing on the planet comes close to The Last Bookstore in downtown LA. Locally? We’ve got to go on supporting the little indies. Primrose Hill Books, please.
Favourite park: Hampstead Heath, where it’s still possible to get lost and forget you’re in London.
Current projects: A third season of The Night Manager, and the gap won’t be another 10 years.
Any recommendations for us? If you’ve not been, the V&A Storehouse is essential, the Bowie room there an inspirational treat for fans and novices alike.