Café review: FERNANDEZ & WELLS (Somerset House)

Fernandez & Wells is the café situated directly adjacent to where the Somerset House ice rink presently is. Given the attraction of the ice rink in the winter and the outdoor cinema in the Summer, Fernandez & Wells is guaranteed plenty of visitors which might explain the negligent running of the place.

Of the beverages offered, which include all of the standard hot drinks, my attention was drawn to the lemonades advertised near the tills, almost exclusively because of the funky packaging it came in (pictured above).

When I sat down to eat, I was horrified to discover that the only table that was free still had debris from the previous customer strewn across the table. This is absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable. Given how popular the café is (I visited December last year), the management really should have had the foresight to hire extra staff. If they were charing £3+ for the crap pictured above passing it off as a cake, God knows they could afford an extra pair of hands.

During my unpleasant time in F&W, I clocked two waitresses, both stood behind the till. This would have been fine if they were serving different customers too expedite the transaction process, but only one was serving; the other was gaffing about with the display. And the woman serving me had evidently never been told about the concept of 'service with a smile'.

Overall, considering how much they had the temerity to charge for a drink and cake, F&W didn't even try to give their customers an experience deserving of what they paid for it. Wild horses couldn't drag me back to this dive; insalubrious café society.

Grade: E

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This is my first café review. For my bar and restaurant reviews, click here.

Christmas lights around Somerset house.

And a bonus picture of the city looking pretty at night:

Walking in an Overpriced Wonderland.

Autumn time, and the living is cold.

Films watched this week:

A Common Thread

Claire Moutiers is an emotional, unusual teenager with a head full of curly pre-Raphaelite hair a serious predilection for embroidery. She also happens to be pregnant. The film follows her journey as she gives up her humdrum job in a supermarket to work for famous sequinist Mme. Mélikian, who is mourning the loss of her son.

Directed with meticulous detail by Éléonore Faucher and with gorgeous scenes of the two women working on a piece of embroidery, A Common Thread is quite slow-moving and definitely goes with its own pace, but it’s a seriously beautiful movie encompassing themes such as maternity, creation and loneliness. 

Lola Naymark is terrific as the mercurial, feisty lead, and you find yourself rooting for her throughout, even if you don’t know her that well. And there is an unbelievably erotically charged scene where the love interest (played by Thomas Laroppe) kisses a highly pregnant Claire near a tree which is pretty much my highlight of the whole movie.

A Streetcar Named Desire
When I first saw this film in 2003, I completely fell head-over-heels in love with Marlon Brando, the art of acting, and movies. Having studied the text for English Literature AS and had to sit an exam on it (“Stella is also a victim. Discuss.”), I feel I know the text quite well, and am truly amazed with what Brando did with Stanley.

Actually, in many ways, he presented Stanley in too nice a light; in several scenes he lacks the edge of maliciousness that Stanley Kowalski had in the novel and his choice to tell Mitch seems more about Blanche’s history seems to genuinely be out of concern for his mate rather than a personal vindication, but, considering all the moral codes of the 50s, Elia Kazan really manages to stay as true to the play as he can, and the film contains two of the best male and female performances of all time. 

Breakfast at Tiffany’s
We had my favourite actor, now let’s talk about my favourite actress, the Goddess that is Audrey Hepburn. Breakfast at Tiffany’s has everything that I love about New York, Henry Mancini's score is a classic (Audrey singing Moon River is one of the most iconic moments in cinema), and 99% of the supporting players are likeable (Mickey Rooney is my second least favourite Rooney of all time; his racist “performance” is a joke.)

The film hasn't aged well (it is not acceptable to have a Caucasian play an East Asian character, and a stereotype of one at that), but is still worth watching for Hepburn's movie-star charisma alone.

Far from Heaven
I love the lushness and richness of the set design so much in this movie that I have to watch this every October to relate to the falling leaves and glorious colours in the movie.

Technicals aside, this is also one of my favourite movies for emotional reasons; the story of Cathy Whitaker, the “perfect wife” whose life slowly falls apart in front of her as she discovers of her husband’s interest in men is heartbreaking as it is engrossing, and Julianne Moore transcends as Cathy, giving one of my favourite performances of all time.

She’s a joy to watch from start to finish, and in particular, he scenes 24’s Dennis Haysbert tingle erotically with the unsaid. Oh, and Elmer Bernstein’s score is beautifully evocative of the era.

Autumn Sonata

A truly magnificent film, and I love it more than many if Bergman’s more critically acclaimed ones, such as The Seventh Seal. A powerful and almost unbearable tense drama on family, inadequacy and playing the piano, Liv Ullman is so incredible that she even outshines Ingrid Bergman. 

The late night showdown between the mother (Bergman) and Ullman (daughter) is one of the most painful and draining scenes in cinema history.