There goes the neighbourhood: How Nigella and a bunch of TikTok tragics are ruining Potts Point

• Potts Point is a sophisticated suburb filled with media and fashion types.
• This great clientele has attracted some excellent food venues.
• But suddenly, it’s been discovered. Interlopers and influencers like Nigella Lawson abound. They have to go!

Right, that’s it. I’ve had it. I’m utterly incandescent with rage, and I’m going to need more than a stiff G&T to calm down. My neighbourhood, Potts Point – once a haven of understated cool, a place where one could enjoy a quiet morning coffee or a genuinely excellent bowl of pasta without being subjected to a cacophony of camera clicks and gushing prose – has been utterly invaded.

It all started, as these things often do, with Nigella. Yes, that Nigella. The domestic goddess, as they call her, who I suspect lives solely on a diet of butter and suggestive glances. She swans into Fratelli Paradiso, my favourite Italian, a place where the waiters know your order before you sit down, where the bread is perfect, and the atmosphere is just… right. And what does she do? She orders the Bomb Alaska. And then, apparently, she pronounces it makes her “purr with pleasure”.

Passions, darling, are for the bedroom, not for public dessert consumption.

The result? Catastrophe. Suddenly, every wannabe foodie with a smartphone and a desperate need for validation was descending on Fratelli Paradiso, clamouring for the very same flaming confection. Trying to book a table? Forget about it. It’s easier to secure an audience with the Pope than a spot for a quiet Tuesday night dinner. The place is now a circus, a shrine to a celebrity’s dessert-induced fervour, and a monument to my lost gastronomic peace.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, like a particularly aggressive rash, Wingstop arrived. An American chicken chain. An AMERICAN. CHICKEN. CHAIN. In Potts Point!

For crying out loud, we have actual, proper, independent chicken shops here that don’t smell like a fryer full of regrets. But no, the media circus, those insatiable vultures, descended. Apparently, people were flying in from Brisbane just to queue around the block for what is essentially Colonel Sanders at twice the price. The sheer absurdity of it all makes my teeth ache.

The pavement outside is now a pilgrimage site for the utterly unhinged, all desperate for a bucket of mediocre wings and a fleeting moment of social media notoriety. It’s an embarrassment. A culinary abomination.

Then, the final nail in the coffin, the ultimate betrayal. Room10. My sanctuary. My morning ritual. A tiny, unassuming oasis where one could reliably procure a flat white of exquisite perfection and maybe, just maybe, grab a decent salad without fuss. And what happens? Broadsheet, that online publication utterly obsessed with artisanal sourdough and the precise shade of avocado, decides to feature it. Specifically, they decided to dedicate an entire article to a perfectly ordinary redecoration! As if this humble establishment was some kind of gastronomic laboratory rather than a place to get a damn good coffee and a bite.

Now? I can’t even get a look-in. The queue snakes out the door, a sea of smug faces clutching their phones, all desperate for the same humble coffee I’ve been enjoying for years. The baristas, bless their cotton socks, are now performing intricate latte art for every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who read an article about “curated salad leaves.” My morning peace, shattered. My caffeine fix, delayed indefinitely.

So, to all the food writers, the influencers, the culinary vandals, the self-proclaimed gastronomes with nowhere else to go: Will you please, for the love of all that is sacred and delicious, leave my hood alone!

Go find your next viral sensation somewhere else. There are plenty of other neighbourhoods in Sydney that haven’t yet been ravaged by your relentless pursuit of the next “must-try” dish.

Potts Point is full. Our tables are booked. Our coffee is taken. Go away!