Yankees’ food is dandy

From ‘Godfather’-coded Mayfair dining rooms to fried chicken chains everywhere, the UK is having an Americana takeover and resistance is futile, writes Hannah Twiggs

- By Hannah Twiggs

We wouldn't vote for them. We wouldn't live there. We complain about their guns, their politics, their Supreme Court rulings. And yet we'll queue 45 minutes in the rain for a smashburger with neon cheese and pay £100 a head for mafia-coded rigatoni. We'll pretend Nashville is a vibe and not a state of mind when we're line-dancing in Chiswick. America might be unravelling, but to Brits, it's never looked so good on a plate.

We wouldn't vote for them. We wouldn't live there. We complain about their guns, their politics, their Supreme Court rulings. And yet we'll queue 45 minutes in the rain for a smashburger with neon cheese and pay £100 a head for mafia-coded rigatoni. We'll pretend Nashville is a vibe and not a state of mind when we're line-dancing in Chiswick. America might be unravelling, but to Brits, it's never looked so good on a plate. London - and much of Britain - is in the grip of an Americana boom. From packed honky-tonk diners in west London to heaving Tex Mex joints in Manchester and Blackpool, it’s clear that American food is having a moment. Never mind our obsession with gut health or disdain for Trump - we’ll take the brisket, the burgers, the mac and cheese and all the martinis, thank you very much.

Perhaps the most telling sign of this appetite is the impending arrival of Carbone - the celebrity-fuelled, old-school Italian-American dining room that’s been a Manhattan status symbol since it opened in 2013. Soon to open at the glittering Chancery Rosewood hotel in Grosvenor Square - the redeveloped site of the former American Embassy - the London outpost will join the brand’s glossier Miami and Las Vegas siblings.