Andy Richardson: Never again after a coffee calamity and burnt eggs

And so the competent and charming member of staff who used to know how to make a decent cup of coffee has been replaced by the klutz who knows his way around a sentence rather than a De’Longhi machine.

Yes, that klutz is me.

I’ll digress before I get into the detail by saying this. If I have one superpower, it’s that I can cook. And not just beans on toast. Decent, complex dishes are safe in these hands. Good produce is worked into flavoursome, pretty plates by a man whose greatest form of relaxation is spending time in the kitchen.

There are many who’d attest to that fact – and none of them would have been paid off. The man who reviews restaurants for a living quite literally knows his onions. And his favourite is Roscoff.

On two occasions, however, the superpower has failed. And that’s felt like Batman being caught without his cape or Spiderman trying to shoot a web having run out of thread.

The first occasion came when two friends – who happened to run a Michelin-starred restaurant that had been named the best in the UK, outside London – came for dinner. And, to amuse themselves, they’d decided that they’d review me, rather than me reviewing them – as I had done several times.

And so they took a red marker to the menu and pointed out the error of my ways, while also offering an I’m-glad-I-scored-that-highly mark of seven out of ten.

The review ended on a low note, I should add, with coffee that was described in terms unfit to repeat in a family newspaper.

Since then, however, it’s been plain sailing. Guests have purred approval. Long hours have been spent prepping or researching cook books, ingredients have been sensibly sourced.

Things have gone so well I might have opened my own restaurant – if I didn’t already know that opening restaurants is a game for which I’m entirely unfit.

Digression over. But remember that thing about the coffee.

The important guest arrived. I asked if he’d like coffee. He said yes. I went to make it. Then I realised that the only person who knew how to use the new coffee machine was She Who Must Be Obeyed. And She Who Must Be Obeyed was out for the day. Damn.

I pressed a button. Nothing. I pressed it again. Still nothing. I pressed it two more times. Then a jet of strong black liquid emerged. Great. That’s coffee, right there. Except it turns out I’d made a quadruple espresso while imagining I’d made something far less, erm, ridiculous.

No matter. I would redeem myself with a dish that I knew the guest enjoyed.

And so on a subsequent visit, chips and egg – I know, it doesn’t get easier – was lined up. After the chat, there’d be a homely, comforting dish. My days of sous vide partridge, complex sauces, fresh pasta, brilliant sashimi and truffled risotto had led me to this. Chips and egg. Sorted. What could go wrong?

And so I retreated to the kitchen. The chips were golden and crisp. I had only to place a couple of Clarence Court Burford Brown eggs into the pan, baste them with hot oil, then flip them to finish in the pan’s latent heat and I’d be home and dry.

Except in the moment that the shells were about to be cracked, the household name walked into the kitchen with She Who Must Be Obeyed.

And then they watched. And, like the time I pressed the coffee machine button four times, I melted as four eyes gazed. And I burned the eggs. How can anyone burn a fried egg? How? Tell me how.

And so the guy with the superpower managed to mess up both a cup of coffee and chips with egg. It’s three strikes and you’re out. But I’m quitting after two. I’m taking my Delia Smith ‘How To Cook’ into my office to read, having made a simple vow: Never Again.