L ‘ Eto
“Mortal vertigo” Marquez
Some periods in this life are meant to be explored; others must be endured. Unfortunately, the one I am currently living through falls into the latter category.
There has been a death in the family. I have begun my tenure in a new and joyless department at the job that I began as an embittered concession to the bleak necessities of pecuniary accumulation. My therapist and my flatmate — two anchors of my life — have both been absent. Consequently, the existential horizon has shrunk; and my prerogative is to make it through the day rather than make something of the future. Thankfully, I have furrowed out some time during the brief reprieve of the weekend to escape from the torpor into the potential haven of a patisserie.
Nestled among the pediments and porticos of Notting Hill’s opulent residences, L’Eto is the most decadent bakery I have visited since I began this motley string of reviews. The staff are polite but disapproving; perhaps the failing is mine for arriving at a bourgeoisie hotspot wearing dishevelled jeans, a wastrel hoodie and a venomous demeanour.
The decor is strange but not unpleasant; the owners seem to have tried to emulate a cabinet of curiosities, but were subsequently compromised by the realisation that the macabre and alien artefacts usually found in these closets would be anathema to the refined and prissy tastes of their clientele. Therefore, the shelves are loosely clustered with nondescript books and sanitised ornament. The true mystery is why they have elided this with saccharine early 2000s pop music — Toxic by Britney Spears plays as I arrive.
The ingredients contained within the breakfast spot’s offerings are mostly unknown to me. For my food, I decide on one of the few cakes that I have benchmark for, a Bramley apple tart, and elect an entirely unfamiliar proposition for my drink, an Okinawa latte (which a subsequent google reveals is meant to taste ‘deep, rich, and malty, like roasted caramel’).
Perhaps my palette is insufficiently refined to appreciate its intricacies, but the outlandish beverage seems insipid and unremarkable. The coffee is barely detectable, and the only other flavour present is the ghost of a smooth vanilla that tantalises but does not deliver. Somehow, it makes me feel glutted without consisting of anything. I have spent £7 on a phantom; who’s glass container far exceeded its liquid contents. A fishhook of despair latches into my cerebellum and starts to drag me down.
Thankfully, the apple pie is my rescuer — detaching me from the disappointment of the most expensive coffee I have ever bought and casting me into a confectionary paradise. I cannot discern what, precisely, it consists of: the densely clustered shavings of sweet apple and liberal serving of icing sugar are obvious, but there are clusters of cinnamon lullabies and other pockets of fragrant flavour that repeated inquisitions with my fork cannot help me fathom. The strands of sweetness remain distinct, but weave and interact with deft and varied intricacy — occasionally finding their perfect counterpoint in the acerbic fruits scattered across the surface. Nothing in it is groundbreaking; but this is not required when the classic ingredients it consists of are harnessed with such delicacy and unleashed with such mastery.
Due to my current hardships, my life has become purely reactionary: more of an exercise in survival than a flourishing; more reaction than response. This, though, makes the moments of ephemeral joy I snatch at desperately all the more precious when my fingers successfully close around them. Although I feel exploited by the price of the coffee, the cake has precipitated an elation sufficient to extract me from the abjection of my circumstances. Levity, no matter how short lived, is attainable in a mouthful — if you have the luxury of a pink note generated by a job that drains you at your disposal…
