The Glasshouse Kew
14 Station Parade Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3PZ
I have spent most of my life living in Kew. It has never been a particularly exciting place, more a sleepy Surrey village seasonally invaded by hordes of tourists coming to visit Kew Gardens. In the 1970s it was Americans wearing plaid suits so violent and disruptive to the warp and weft of the community’s fabric that the ancient spinsters who seemed to make up most of the population of Kew Village would never come out in the hours of daylight for fear of dying at the sheer horror of being exposed to too much bad taste. Like a junkie hooker I used to stand by the station in my school cap accepting tips from the alien invaders to help feed my ice-cream habit-photo opportunities with a cute boy in uniform or directions to the Gardens anyone? You know you want to…
Come Mrs Thatcher’s deregulation of the financial markets in the 1980s the spinsters were dying off and in moved the bankers and corporate lawyers. However despite the influx of dirty money it wasn’t until 1999 that Kew got a really good restaurant when Nigel Platts-Martin and chef Bruce Poole, who had created the iconic Chez Bruce in Wandsworth and subsequently La Trompette in Chiswick, opened The Glasshouse.
So now Im unexpectedly back with a group of childhood friends. Between us we reckoned at having worked at nearly every shop in Kew’s Station Parade; but gone are the hardware shop, Express Dairy, Post Office and greengrocer to be replaced by the prize winning health food shop, the chichi gift emporium and the kid’s boutique. Have things improved? Probably if you can afford it…
Sea trout Gravlax with Parsnip Remoulade, Micro Cress Salad, Cream Cheese Cigar and Apple Caviar. The business man went for this- he said ‘it tasted as it should’. I don’t know what he meant either but I guess that he liked it as he demolished it before I could ask for a taste. It certainly looked good.
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