Supperclubs, trademarks and the London Underground

Many of you reading this will know Ms Marmite Lover. I expect several of you have been to The Underground Restaurant, her Kilburn supper club. I attended before I was a food blogger, and had a memorable day, chiefly because of the sweary biscuits she served. As the self-proclaimed “pioneer of supper clubs in this country,” Ms Marmite Lover is pretty well known. 

The Underground Restaurant launched in January 2009, achieving remarkable success extremely quickly. Supper clubs in London are two-a-penny these days, but Ms Marmite Lover (real name, Kerstin Rodgers) claims to have laid much of the initial groundwork for the current boom. From her home in Kilburn, she puts on dinners, lunches, afternoon teas, themed nights and recently, an Underground market, charging up to £50 pounds for the privilege. While she may not yet be making mega-bucks, it’s clear that what started as part-hobby, part-philosophical statement, is now a brand, generating revenue and a significant media profile for its founder.

Unfortunately for her, success means publicity, and with publicity comes scrutiny. Last week, the Evening Standard ran a story about Transport for London’s challenge to a trademark application for ‘The Underground Restaurant’, filed last year. Ms Marmite Lover confirms that she filed the application, and that TfL have sent her no less than three ‘cease and desist’ letters, demanding that she change the name or shut the restaurant down, on the grounds that she is infringing the company’s ‘Underground’ trademark.

The story met with howls of outrage from the foodie community, some of them justified, many of them not. Despite what some people have claimed, this has absolutely nothing to do with trying to ‘copyright’ the word ‘underground’ (that would be impossible), nor is it accurate to say that TfL has tried to ‘patent’ the word (patents cover inventions, not words). This piece is an attempt to look at the issue slightly more realistically, though I’m not a trademark lawyer, and none of what follows should be taken as legal advice of any sort.

TfL owns a trademark for the word ‘Underground’, registered in Class 43 for food services, restaurant booking services and the like – essentially, it’s the European-approved category for restaurants, catering and so on. This trademark entitles the owner to protection from anyone imitating it, passing off their services as the owner’s, gaining benefit by creating a false association with the existing brand, creating confusion about the origin of services or otherwise diluting the value of the initial mark. 

That said, for a trademark to be usefully enforceable, the owner must normally be able to demonstrate that it is being put to use in the category for which it was registered, and that someone else’s use of it is confusing or damaging in some way. Effectively, if challenged, TfL might be called upon to show that it not only provides some kind of food or restaurant service, but that it is branded with the Underground mark. I asked TfL if they have any such services, but didn’t get a reply.

Now, without going into whether ‘The Underground Restaurant’ actually infringes TfL’s mark – it would require more information than is available to someone not involved in the case – it is fairly clear why TfL are pursuing it. Any large corporation has a responsibility to its stakeholders (even if they are taxpayers) to protect its intellectual property. It’s sound commercial policy to stop people gaining benefit from a brand name that they don’t own. And while Ms Marmite Lover calls TfL’s own trademark “frivolous” (in as far as it covers food), for the moment, the trademark exists.

Does ‘The Underground Restaurant’ gain benefit from a false association with the London Underground? Probably not, but if the question is even worth asking, then it’s probably worthwhile for TfL to investigate it. Does ‘The Underground Restaurant’ create confusion among customers as to the origin of its goods and possibly dilute the TfL brand? Probably not, though Ms Marmite Lover’s house is not far from the Kilburn Underground station, so it’s easy to see why you might ask the question.

The more pertinent question might be whether it’s worth TfL investing money in tackling what is still a pretty small business. Many people would say no - it’s a clear waste of money that TfL could usefully spend on providing a useable transport service. Personally, I have quite a bit of sympathy for that view. But that said, it won’t cost TfL very much to send cease and desist letters, and the company knows that it has deeper pockets than its opponent. It might well be making a sensible calculation that it can nip a potential problem in the bud by throwing its weight around now. It’s not very nice, admittedly, but neither is it illegal. In fact, it’s probably good business.

So given the situation, where does Ms Marmite Lover go from here? Well, she could close down. That’s probably not an option. She could change the name of the restaurant (TfL have apparently suggested ‘Kilburn Underground’, though that doesn’t seem to solve the problem). That seems unlikely. She could wait it out and see whether TfL feels strongly enough to take her to court. The problem is, that could mean ending up in court. Finally, the two parties could reach an agreement.

“I have had reasonable discussions on the phone with TfL's lawyers. They said I'm sure we can come to an arrangement if you use a different font,” Ms Marmite Lover says. “They changed their mind. I'm hoping to come to an agreement with them,”

In all likelihood, they will come to an agreement. It’s in no one’s interests for the case to go to court. And if there’s a slight irony in a proud anti-establishment figure wanting to register a trademark in the first place, then no matter. As Ms Marmite Lover says, she’s “protecting [her] brand.” TfL would say the same, no doubt.

Ben Greeno's Supperclub, somewhere in Hackney

Ben Greeno is a cheat. It’s not that he bowls deliberate no balls, or has affairs, or looks over your shoulder during poker games (as far as I know). He doesn’t, I assume, take dives in boxing matches, defraud international financial institutions or not pay his car insurance. He’s not a cheat in that sense.

No, Ben Greeno is a cheat because he claims to run a simple supperclub. You know, the sort that’s springing up all over London, staffed by excellent amateur chefs and run in a slightly chaotic but extremely fun manner. He does not.

With experience at everyone’s favourite restaurant that they haven’t been to, Noma, and big plans of his own Stateside, Ben is no amateur (even if he clearly loves his food). Do you own a water bath for slow cooking an egg over more than an hour? Have you ever served said egg, as your third course, with snails and wild garlic, its texture like good giant frogspawn, its yolk otherworldly? I didn’t think so.


Do you have the time, inclination and skill to prepare Jerusalem artichokes so they look like scallops, coat them in butter and tweezer them, salty, onto a plate alongside glorious hazlenuts, giving the whole the appearance of a Japanese garden? I don’t (especially not the skill).


When we have mackerel at home, Cute Letts and I, we tend to grill it or bake it whole. It’s delicious. If we’re feeling particularly ambitious, we might try to make a ceviche. But it would be a rare day that saw us attempt to present it raw with nasturtium flowers and dill cucumber pickle.


On the other hand, everyone can do pork belly, can't they? It’s easy. Cook it for ages with the right amount of salt and you’re bound to produce a winning dish. Cooking it like Ben Greeno does however, is not quite so straightforward. The pork tasted extraordinary – that’s almost a given here. But the ‘pickled walnut crumble’ topping it was absurdly good: pickled walnuts, blitzed crackling and some breadcrumbs created a salt and sour extravaganza that perfectly complemented the sweet pork. Broccoli worked beautifully with the dish.


I can’t cook desserts at all, so I won’t even pretend that I’d attempt something like Ben’s apple concoction. It was excellent by normal standards, but probably my least favourite dish of the night, given what had gone before. An attempt to do too much with too little perhaps. Apple in lots of different shapes is still apple, and the long, cylindrical pieces proved a real challenge, not giving into spoon work and having to be eaten more or less whole. They were tasty, sweet with muscovado and lightly spiced, but for me, slightly underwhelming.


No matter, salty caramel on teaspoons more than made up for any lingering disappointment.

Supper clubs are generally about atmosphere first and food a close second (certainly in my limited experience at three of them). Ben Greeno’s was about food first, but the atmosphere was brilliant too, helped by the warm-up glass of cider. Everyone had brought plenty of wine, which helped. Excellent company from guests including 360 degrees cheese and Ben’s delightful next door neighbour added to the charm, while Ben proved a genial host. We left at about eleven, but would have liked to stay much later. Others, I assume, did.

Supperclubs like this rather screw up my marking system. The only other one I’ve reviewed seemed so good that it deserved a 9/10, bearing in mind that supperclubs are not, nor should be, marked as if they were comparable to restaurants. But by that rationale, Ben would probably deserve a 10. My only disappointing supperclub visit occurred well before this blog started. It would probably have received a 5 by these standards.

I’m going to cop out and not give this one a mark. Ben Greeno’s is a terrific supperclub, but I don’t think he’s really competing against other places that are so-called. For £35, you get excellent restaurant-quality food, professionally presented, produced and served. I’d get down there fast if I were you. It won’t last forever.

The Old Hat Club, 11 July, somewhere near Angel tube station

Disclaimer: I should declare an interest. The Old Hat Club is run by some of my favourite people, and my experience there was the reason for the launch of this blog. So you should take everything that follows in that context. That said, it’s still an amazing little place, and I don’t think my generous review would have been any less so if I hadn’t already known Harry, Emma, Ami and Tim (or HEAT, if you prefer).

First, the clientele: you know this scene has got a little bloated when more than half the guests at a pop-up restaurant are food bloggers. That’s like, cannibalism, man. The reason was all the lovely Prosecco, supplied by Riccardo, who had invited said bloggers to promote his rather good drink. A good reason, indeed.

Guests were welcomed with a cocktail – a strawberry and Prosecco concoction laced with black pepper. A little bit of summer in a glass, and something to lubricate the vocal chords. Outside in the garden, next to the frankly intimidating (in a manly way) wood burning oven, we were offered some super black pudding pastry canapés, and some even superer red pepper and bottarga follow-ups, all fresh from the aforementioned oven.

Then inside for lunch proper, and scrowlers stuffed with herbs (the fennel and dill stood out, but there were others) on tomatoes on bruschetta for starter. This was the course of the day, seriously good. A note on scrowlers: they are sardines, but clearly someone thought the world needed lots of words for that particular fish, so some Cornish folk call them scrowlers. Even more impressive was that some unlucky soul had successfully removed every single bone from the fish before stuffing – not easy. The contrast between the sweet tomatoes and fishy, salty scrowler is one that others have exploited in the past. But that’s because it’s great. Sometimes, there’s a reason for doing it like they do it in the Med.

Then onward, to a main course that played on the same tongue-lust for salt and sweet. The slow cooked pork with crackling was melty enough to feel indulgent, yet robust enough to give you something to chew. This atop a sweet, smoked, butternut squash puree – that magic oven again – and some ridiculously naughty, crunchy, goose-fat and smoke covered potatoes. Only something so wrong could taste so good.

That the pork was the least interesting course should tell you everything you need to know about the dessert. A kind of Moroccan citrus tart with sorbet, it was sweet, bitter, giving and cakey in one easy mix. The ginger and sour cherry Florentines that followed were the icing on the cake (or rather, the crunchy biscuit on the tart).

For £30, you won’t do a lot better in London. Anywhere. Really. Just ask all those bloggers.

Phil Letts' take: 9/10