Brooklyn Beckham's Pop-Up Restaurant Was a Mess. We Review the Reviews.

This time, the dishes meticulously selected were: pork and prawn dumplings, chicken tikka masala, deep-fried cauliflower, wagyu spaghetti bolognese, and an egg, bacon and sausage breakfast sandwich (like Nanny Peggy used to make). Unfortunately for those hoping to try Brooklyn Beckham’s cooking, the Uber Eats press office revealed he would not actually be cooking the menu he designed – rather, he’d leave that to a team working out of a dark kitchen. The takeaway app said Brooklyn would be “compensated for his time”, though. Thank god.

Along with every other journalist in London, I was keen to get a bite of the action. But after some back and forth with the press office, I was told it wasn’t going to be possible to receive a press sample after all, as there weren’t enough portions.  

Actually, the food seemed impossible for just about anyone to get hold of. A colleague in the delivery catchment area planned on ordering normally via the app, but it only seemed available to preorder before opening. YouTube pranksters Josh & Archie tried to make an order at 6:30 PM on Thursday, only to be phoned by Uber Eats and told all items were out of stock and that their order was cancelled. Moments later, as seen in their undercover video, the YouTubers infiltrated the ghost kitchen where the food was being made in east London’s Cambridge Heath. They were told by chefs that they’d prepared “50 dishes for the media” and would be closing right after one more – you guessed it – media order. 

I just feel like… Uber Eats must have known how much the internet loves to hate on Brooklyn’s cooking when they hired him, right? Is “Uber Eats Hosts: Brooklyn Beckham” just a transparently cynical attempt to garner hate clicks? Is Brooklyn’s “compensation” as much for the public humiliation as it is for choosing the dishes and appearing in the press shots? Didn’t think I’d say this, but I feel quite bad for him.

The Brooklyn Beckham Uber Eats stunt is in many ways a metaphor for the media industry itself: a bit cringe, a bit desperate, and very undersupplied. The legacy media forefathers had more money and relevance, but in 2024 the meat and potatoes of daily clickbait pieces are churned out by anonymous employees who aren’t nearly paid enough.

In other words, digital media is eating itself. So I decided to interpret that literally by reviewing the reviews for a confusing media stunt aimed at garnering reviews.

Evening Standard: Very Mean. Viscerally mean. Simply no need to be this pretentious about a celebrity spag bol

An absolutely scathing take from David Ellis and Abha Shah. I hope they got the Chartbeat traction they so clearly craved. 

Shah and Ellis both focus on the blandness of the dishes and menu, with the former calling it: “A middle-of-the-road (or ‘mid’ as I’ve been told) line-up.” Such aloof superiority to the menu AND youth slang feels very very ‘arsh. That said, “failure to ignite anything but my fury” is a very elegant turn of phrase and I wish I’d written it myself.

Ellis chooses to open his review with a humble brag: “I like Brooklyn Beckham. We got leathered in White City together once; he was sweet, a little green, we talked dads.” I wonder if Brooklyn remembers that night too? “Uber Eats would do to remember the existence of salt, of seasoning,” he continues. I can’t exactly explain why, but that phrase reminds me of when I was in DT class at school and my teacher asked if I had ever painted anything before because my project looked so shite. Obviously, mate! I’m just not very good at it, which is why I’m in DT class! Now are you going to help me, or just stand there being rude!?

He concludes by saying, “If they served it in a care home, you'd think it was cruel.” OK, sure.

Daily Mail: Surprisingly chirpy. Packaging obsessed. On the ground reportage

Usually the Daily Mail hates anything to do with “wokey” young people – unless, of course, they’re wearing a bikini and can go in the sidebar of shame. However, reviewer Ariane Sherine is optimistic about Brooklyn’s dishes. She’s particularly impressed by the “chic” packaging: “incredibly fancy glossy black bags with woven fabric handles.”

I would go so far as to say the word count on the bags discussion is a little too high. I sympathise with leaning into the theme of the review, but I simply do not care. 

Another big part of her review is that she doesn’t live in the catchment area, which either she or whoever edited the piece describes as “trendy and multicultural” and “slightly dodgy”. Reader, she had to get an Uber to Cambridge Heath to order the dishes. I do however respect that she didn’t just try the lazy option and order the dishes through the PR agent like I did. She got on the ground for the story. 

She was also a big fan of the bolognese (unlike another Daily Mail review behind a paywall which describes the sauce as tasting “like he dipped his toes into it”), giving it a 9/10. Did they even eat the same dish?

The Telegraph: Gorgeous prose. Savage put-downs. Existential questioning

Ed Cumming’s review for the Telegraph is a little more on the Standard end of the spectrum in the sense that it’s not very nice. Commenting on the multinational nature of the menu, Cumming states: “The dishes owe less to local delicacies than to the universal qualities of plane food. The wagyu bolognese reveals little evidence of the 12 hours of cooking, nor of the wagyu.” He calls the chicken tikka masala “truly inedible”. 

He does admit that the cauliflower is “surprisingly piquant” (that word has always rubbed me up the wrong way; you could have just said spicy), and the Nanny Peggy sandwich would be “just the thing” on a hangover. 

His conclusion hints at the core truth of Brooklyn Beckham’s takeaway menu: Don’t take it too seriously. “It is naïve to ask questions like ‘What does it taste like?’ or ‘Is it worth buying?” muses Cumming. Ever the avant-gardist, Brooklyn Beckham is inviting us to ask a whole other set of questions: Just why? Who are we? What’s the point?” 

iNews: Love the headline but camera angles are bizarre

By far the best headline was written by Kasia Delgado from iNews. This also makes it the most effective food review, as we are all familiar with the specific youthful flavour of “my first bolognese sauce”. It’s palatable because mince and onion and tomato are obviously fine together, but amateur as hell. Kasia puts this down to a lack of garlic and “Italian thrill”. 

However, it’s a bit fucking rich that the first paragraph of Kasia’s review rinses Brooklyn’s photography book when all the pictures in this review look like screenshots from Zoom. What’s with the webcam mukbang? Reminds me of having long-distance “dinner” with my mum during lockdown.

The Sun: Straight to the point, no mucking about!

The Sun’s Brooklyn Beckham review is beautiful in its simplicity. Of the breakfast sandwich, Ellie Henman writes, “Honestly, it tasted amazing,” adding, “the egg, bacon and sausage ratio was perfect.” 

On the wagyu bolognese: “Also very tasty, with a rich sauce and pasta that was on the right side of al dente.”

Unlike some of the other journalists, who wrote long, verbose paragraphs describing the ribbons of fettuccine and “robust” bacon, Henman did not waste a single word in her concise review. And I respect that a lot, given the material.

VICE: Utterly pointless

A review of the reviews? The worst of the worst. I also have absolutely no right to say anything because my food critiquing skills are about as good as Brooklyn’s chicken tikka masala. Who commissioned this?

@iamhelenthomas