St. John, London and Onggi, Bangkok
Like a lot of people I occasionally come across articles on the best places to live in the world. They will tell you places like Brighton are great because of the independent shops. Or that Scandinavia is good for affordable healthcare and great government support for young parents. But it was when skimming one of these vapid slow-news-day-filler pieces that I started thinking about what does actually matter to me in a place to live.
I mean, there are lots of things, yes. But if I were to distil it down into just one, what would it be?
I’d hope to have a good enough job (and medical coverage) to negate any concerns about the absence or otherwise of government healthcare, so that really isn’t an issue. I’d probably be willing to shell out enough rent to live in an area of town with nice things in it. And I’ve recently worked out that while bad weather bums me out, it has to be pretty extreme to outweigh the positives of a place. So when it comes down to it, what is the difference between Brighton and Copenhagen, or London and Tokyo for that matter?
A pretty unscientific and mood-dependant process of elimination led me to one thing: access to affordable luxuries. When you think about it, this isn’t perhaps as daft as it may seem. Once you control for living in similar accommodation with a similar job, what makes life better or worse for me is if I can access and afford small luxuries.
The issue, of course, is what constitutes an affordable luxury? For me, it’s convenient access to experiences and things that delight you on a daily basis, and which don’t break the bank. It might be proximity to an uncrowded outdoor public swimming pool. Or perhaps a few local eateries that are excellent for what they are and not too dear to frequent weekly.
Our place in Tokyo had affordable luxuries in spades. A gorgeous outdoor onsen accessible every day for a few hundred yen a throw. World class restaurants at everyday prices in walking distance. A lovely stretch of cherry-blossom lined river to job along. Hell, even the self-filling and heating bathtub in the flat was itself counts.
In London, affordable luxuries can be harder to discern when a combination of price-inflation and high tax rates weighs heavily on my personal balance sheet. But they are still there if you look for them. £15 last gasp tickets to see Wyclef and Lauryn Hill tear the roof of Koko in Camden after Carnival. Lidos in summer. Access to world class theatre and sport. And yes, even relatively affordable world-beating food.
Which brings me conveniently to St John Restaurant in Smithfield. As a bit of an institution for “whole animal” Michelin-starred dining, it doesn’t really need an introduction, and which also means you can expect to pay through your nose (and tail) if you do go for dinner. But dinner is a straight out luxury; and not a particularly affordable one at that. So here’s my tip. Go for lunch, to the bar, get some snacks and a drink and experience (almost) everything that is good about the place for a fraction of the full-blown dinner experience.
Th Welsh rarebit – served with extra Worcester sauce on the side – is the best version of cheese on toast, and the roast bone marrow (also on toast, with a sharply-dressed parsley salad on the side) is too iconic not to try. We finished with their version of a sticky toffee pudding and washed it down with some of their own brews. And we got out for under £25 a head, which in the world we live in felt like the definition of affordable luxury.
On a trip a few weeks before to Thailand, what was “affordable” had a slightly different meaning thanks to the exchange rate, but what was luxury did too. Maybe it’s having more space to build, or labour being cheap, or developers being more ambitious, but almost everywhere we went felt like it was the best version of itself. Whether it was a dreamy massage in a polished wooden building, a trendy late night cocktail bar or a buzzing live-music based shopping mall late on a Sunday night, the whole place felt special somehow.
The highlight though, was a day when we managed to squeeze in both Japanese omakase for lunch and a multi-course Korean tasting menu at Onggi in the evening. Now, strictly speaking, this doesn’t fit the definition of affordable in the same way £25 a pop at St John does, but compared to doing the same thing in almost every other city it definitely was.
Onggi is special because it ferments all of its own stuff in house, and all of the courses have a fermented element. After being welcomed with makgeolli and treated to delicious bites of various things, the main event is a 15 plate banchan, served with spectacularly good rice and all manner of other bits (including an in-house pressed sesame oil they give you to take home at the end). The banchan themselves were too numerous to remember, but the standout was the marinated raw crab, eaten hand-roll style with perfectly pearlescent rice, delicately savoury seaweed and adorned with a little uni. It. Was. Heaven. As the culmination of a special birthday trip it really stood out, but it was just one of many luxuries in a week jam packed full of them.
So here’s to affordable luxuries, both big and small. The things that make life - and places - worth living.
