Thursday, March 18, 2010

Oh no! Goodbye, Farmer Brown! (Il Castelletto, New Row)



This is a truly devastating revelation. The little known, out-of-the-way cafe that (in my opinion) served the best straightforward sausage sandwich in central London is no more.

It has been replaced by a generic 'Italian' cafe called Il Castelleto which, at the time of reviewing, had not even fully removed the old signage from its shopfront.

Once I was over the shock of Farmer Brown's demise, I decided to try the new establishment out in the hope that they had retained the same supplier of sausages:



They hadn't. I'm afraid what would once have been a delicious sandwich filled with two fat Cumberland sausages, has been replaced by a bland sarnie indistinguishable from those bought in many other Soho cafes. Microwaved at my request (because the shop's griddle had not been turned on and would have taken 5 minutes to heat up), the sausage was your usual salty, flavourless cafe fare, and the bread was no more than ordinary.

1 out of 5. RIP Farmer Brown. you will be sorely missed.