TO ALL GOOD GOURMETS
[PREFACE]
In describing in this book some of the restaurants and taverns in and near London, I have selected those that seem to me to be typical of the various classes, giving preference to those of each kind which have some picturesque incident in their history, or are situated amidst beautiful surroundings, or possess amongst their personnel a celebrated chef or maître d'hôtel.
The English language has not enough nicely graduated terms of praise to enable me to give to a fraction its value to each restaurant, from the unpretentious little establishments in Soho to such palaces as the Ritz and Savoy, but I have included no dining-place in this volume that does not give good value for the money it charges.
Twelve years ago I wrote a somewhat similar book, "Dinners and Diners," which ran through two editions, but when I looked it through last year I found that there had been so many changes in the world of restaurants, so many old houses had vanished and so many new ones had arisen, that it was easier to write a new book than to bring the old one up to date. Mr Astor very kindly gave me permission to use in this volume any of the series of "Dinners and Diners" articles that appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, but it will be found that I have availed myself very sparingly of his kind permission. The chapters of this book appeared, with very few exceptions, in Town Topics, and I am indebted to the editor of that paper for his leave to gather them into book form.
Mr Grant Richards, the publisher of this book, quite agrees with me that no advertisements of restaurants shall find a place within its covers.
Should "The Gourmet's Guide to London" find a welcome from an appreciative public, and should, in due time, other editions of it be called for, I shall hope to broaden its scope to include in it some of the hostelries of Brighton and other seaside towns, also those of the great cities and great ports, and to describe some of those fine old country inns scattered about the kingdom where good old English cookery is still to be found in good old English surroundings.
For the French of the menus I do not hold myself responsible. The kitchen writes the French that it talks and who am I, a mere Briton, that I should attempt to alter it?
N. NEWNHAM-DAVIS.
[CONTENTS]
| page | ||
| [I] | OLD ENGLISH FARE | 1 |
| [II] | SIMPSON'S IN THE STRAND | 6 |
| [III] | A WALK DOWN FLEET STREET | 12 |
| [IV] | THE CARLTON | 19 |
| [V] | TWO LITTLE SOHO RESTAURANTS | 26 |
| [VI] | A RAG-TIME DINNER | 32 |
| [VII] | THE CAFÉ ROYAL | 38 |
| [VIII] | OYSTER-HOUSES | 46 |
| [IX] | WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH | 53 |
| [X] | THE CECIL | 59 |
| [XI] | CLARIDGE'S | 67 |
| [XII] | THE EUSTACE MILES RESTAURANT | 73 |
| [XIII] | THE PRINCES' RESTAURANT | 81 |
| [XIV] | THE CRITERION | 86 |
| [XV] | SOME CHOP-HOUSES | 92 |
| [XVI] | SOME GRILL-ROOMS | 99 |
| [XVIII] | IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS | 115 |
| [XIX] | A REGIMENTAL DINNER | 122 |
| [XX] | "JOLLY GOOD" | 128 |
| [XXI] | IN THE SHADOW OF THE PALACE THEATRE | 134 |
| [XXII] | THE WELCOME CLUB | 141 |
| [XXIII] | GOLDSTEIN'S | 147 |
| [XXIV] | THE MITRE | 152 |
| [XXV] | IN THE HANDS OF PI(E)RATES | 158 |
| [XXVI] | APPENRODT'S | 166 |
| [XXVII] | THE BURFORD BRIDGE HOTEL | 174 |
| [XXVIII] | THE RITZ | 180 |
| [XXIX] | SOME OUTLYING RESTAURANTS | 190 |
| [XXX] | THE KING'S GUARD | 195 |
| [XXXI] | THE OLD BULL AND BUSH | 201 |
| [XXXII] | THE BERKELEY | 206 |
| [XXXIII] | THE JOYS OF FOREIGN TRAVEL | 214 |
| [XXXIV] | A SUPPER TRAIN | 220 |
| [XXXV] | THE ADELAIDE GALLERY | 226 |
| [XXXVI] | THE COMPLEAT ANGLER | 235 |
| [XXXVII] | ARTISTS' ROOMS | 241 |
| [XXXVIII] | THE PICCADILLY RESTAURANT | 249 |
| [XXXIX] | THE RENDEZVOUS | 255 |
| [XL] | THE PALL MALL RESTAURANT | 261 |
| [XLI] | IN JERMYN STREET | 267 |
| [XLII] | THE MEN WHO MADE THE SAVOY | 272 |
| [XLIII] | THE DUTIES OF A MAÎTRE D'HÔTEL | 279 |
| [XLIV] | THE SAVOY TO-DAY | 283 |
| [XLV] | THE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS | 290 |
| [XLVI] | THE MAXIM RESTAURANT | 294 |
| [XLVII] | BIRCH'S | 300 |
| [XLVIII] | A CITY BANQUET | 308 |
| [XLIX] | THE CAVENDISH HOTEL | 313 |
| [L] | THE RÉUNION DES GASTRONOMES | 320 |
| [LI] | THE LIGUE DES GOURMANDS | 325 |
| [LII] | THE CAVOUR RESTAURANT | 333 |
| [LIII] | VERREY'S | 338 |
| [LIV] | THE CATHAY RESTAURANT | 345 |
| [LV] | THE WHITE HORSE CELLARS | 353 |
| [LVI] | THE MONICO | 360 |
| [LVII] | THE ITALIAN INVASION | 365 |
| [LVIII] | THE HYDE PARK HOTEL | 371 |
| [LIX] | YE OLDE GAMBRINUS | 378 |
| [LX] | MY SINS OF OMISSION | 384 |
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
| THE CHESHIRE CHEESE | [Frontispiece] |
| to face page | |
| M. ESCOFFIER | [24] |
| M. RITZ | [184] |
| JOSEPH CARVING A DUCK | [276] |
| MRS LEWIS | [314] |
[I]
OLD ENGLISH FARE
When a foreigner or one of our American cousins, or a man from one of the Colonies, comes to England, the first question he generally asks is: "Where can I get a typical good old English dinner?" Good old English fare is by no means too abundant in London—and old English fare I would define as being the very best native material, cooked in the plainest possible manner. We talk of English cookery, though it should really be termed British cookery, for Irish stew and Welsh lamb, Scotch beef and cock-a-leekie soup, and even a haggis, can fairly be included in the comprehensive term.
When men on short commons on an exploring expedition, or on a sporting trip, or on active service, talk of the good things they will eat when they get home to England, the first idea that occurs to most of them is how delightful it will be to eat a good fried sole once again; and with fried sole may be coupled English bacon, for no bacon anywhere else in the world is as good as that which the kitchenmaids fry in thousands of British kitchens. Perhaps the Channel sole and the bacon of the Southern Counties, Oxford marmalade and Cambridge sausages belong to the home breakfast-table more than to meals in the haunts of the gourmet, though the sole plays a most important part in many dinners, and the Christmas dinner turkey would be unhappy without its accompanying sausages. It is, however, at lunch-time, the time of pasties, puddings and pies, that old English cookery is seen at its best.
I do not know of any eating-house that makes a speciality of the mutton-chop pudding with oysters, that Abraham Hayward praises so unrestrictedly, but now and again I meet in restaurants such good English dishes as Lancashire hot-pot and gipsy pie, which is an admirable stew of chicken and cabbage; shepherd's pie, in which the minced meat is covered with a well-browned layer of mashed potato, I am given sometimes at shooting luncheons. Toad-in-the-hole and bubble-and-squeak are pleasant memories of my schoolboy days, but if some Frenchman, who has studied Dickens, asked me where he could eat the stew described in "The Old Curiosity Shop," which consisted of tripe, and cow-heel, and bacon, and steak, and peas and cauliflower, new potatoes and asparagus "all worked up together in one delicious gravy," I should have to admit my inability to direct him. A fish pie is excellent at any meal, but a woodcock pie or a snipe pudding, I think, should be reserved for the dinner-table. The pork-pie now seems sacred to railway refreshment-rooms, picnics and race-courses. Oysters are real British fare, though other countries have learned from us to appreciate them; but I fancy that the old Romans first taught the gentlemen who clothed themselves in woad tattooings what delicacies they had waiting for them in their shallow waters. Oysters are admirable creatures when eaten out of their deep shell, and they play their part well in oyster soup and scalloped oysters and oyster fries. And there are many puddings and "made dishes" that would be incomplete without the presence of oysters in them. Jugged duck and oysters is a good old British dish, and there are oysters in the majestic pudding of the Cheshire Cheese. I may perhaps be allowed to suggest to some cooks who put the oysters into puddings and pies with the other raw materials that a better way is to cook the dish, then remove the crust or paste, slip in the oysters, fix the crust again and cook till the oysters are warmed through.
The typical British dinner most often quoted is that which the Lord Dudley of the thirties, a noted epicure, declared was a dinner "fit for an emperor," and it runs thus: "A good soup, a small turbot, a neck of venison, duckling with green peas, or chicken with asparagus, and an apricot tart." Of British soups turtle always takes precedence in the list of honour, but as the turtle comes from Ascension or the West Indies, it can hardly claim to be a denizen of these islands. Hare soup and mock turtle, mulligatawny, mutton broth and pea soup are distinctively British, though the curry powder in the mulligatawny—a soup which takes its name from two Tamil words: Mŭllĭgă = pepper, and Tunni = water—comes, of course, from India. Oxtail soup has a good British sound, but I fancy that French housewives first discovered the virtue that there is in the tail of an ox.
Lord Dudley loved a turbot, but other judges of good British dinners sometimes give the preference to cod. Walker, of "Original" fame, gave a Christmas Day dinner to two friends, and the fare he provided for them was: crimped cod, a woodcock a man, and plum pudding. One of the most typical British dinners I have eaten was that which a gallant colonel, who very worthily filled the mayoral chair at Westminster, used to give annually at the Cavour Restaurant. It consisted of a large turbot, a sucking-pig nicely roasted, and apple pudding. Roast sucking-pig is a dinner dish better understood in England than anywhere else in the world, except, perhaps, in China. When the Duke of Cambridge, brother of George the Fourth, was entertained in princely fashion at Belvoir, and was shown the menu of a dinner on which a great French chef had exhausted all his inventiveness, and was asked if there were any dishes not included in the feast for which he had a fancy, answered that he would like some roast pig and an apple dumpling, both good British dishes. His son, the Commander-in-Chief of our days, also had a liking for pork, and, at one time, word went round the British army that at inspection lunches it was wise to give his Royal Highness pork chops. Of course, the British army overdid it, and the old Duke had so many pork chops put before him in the course of a year that at last their presence on the menu was far more likely to assist in the securing of an unfavourable report on a regiment than was their absence. Gravy soup, a grilled sole, a boiled hen pheasant stuffed with oysters, and an open tart formed the favourite dinner of a renowned gourmet of my acquaintance.
Of the made dishes that belong to British cookery, jugged hare, I think, has the leading place. Yorkshire pudding is as British as Stonehenge is, and mince pies can claim to be to-day exactly what they were when the Puritans used to preach against them. Marrow bones and Welsh rarebits, buck rarebits, and stewed tripe and onions are old British supper dishes, but the early closing laws have killed the old-fashioned British supper in eating-houses.
Good British cookery in London has not fared well in its battle against the invasion of good French cookery, and the number of houses which made a speciality of British fare has decreased woefully in the last twenty years. The old Blanchard's and its half-a-crown British dinner is a memory of the past (for the new Blanchard's turned towards the goddess A la), and the "Blue Posts" in Cork Street has been converted into a club. It was curious that the prosperity of this typical old English house depended to a great extent on a German head waiter; for Frank, who had all the best traditions of British cookery at heart, had served under the old Emperor Wilhelm in the great war, and had been wounded by a French bayonet thrust. There were certain rules of the house that were excellent. One was that, no matter what orders you might give beforehand, no fish was ever put near the fire until the man who had ordered it was inside the building, which ensured it going to table cooked to the second; and another was that the steaks, which were a great stand-by of the house, were cut from the mass of beef just in time to be transferred at once to the grill, thus making sure that none of the juices should drain away.
But there are still some temples of British cookery left in Cockaigne, and to some of them presently I will direct your steps.
[II]
SIMPSON'S IN THE STRAND
A wide entrance glowing with light, with Simpson's plain to see, on a wrought-iron sign above it, is in the great block of the Savoy Hotel building in the Strand, for the new Simpson's, though it retains all its old associations and its old manager and its old head cook—Mr Davey, the polite, white-haired little ruler of the roast, who wears a velvet cap, and who for forty-six years has seen the joints turn before the vast open fire in the kitchen—is now under the rule of the great organisation that controls the Savoy.
Come into the entrance hall, where you can give up your hat and coat to an attendant; though if you have been accustomed all your life to take them into Simpson's you will still find in the dining-room stands on which to hang them. The hall, with its marble pillars, white panels and groined roof, is light and airy; a staircase runs down from it to the smoking-room, and another one runs up to the dining-rooms upon the first floor. There is a tobacconist's stall in it, and if the door of the expense bar to one side be open you see through it shelves of bottles and flasks. Through the wide door leading into the big dining-room you see white-jacketed waiters moving hither and thither, and white-coated and white-capped carvers pushing the dinner waggons, crowned with big plated covers, before them, and as a background the fine fireplace, with its carved wooden overmantel and its little marble pilasters, and a picture of a knight and lady of Plantagenet days feasting let into the central space.
Mr N. Wheeler, the rosy-faced manager, white-haired, and wearing the frock-coat of ceremony, will probably greet you as you go into the dining-room. He has seen all the various transformations of Simpson's Chess Divan, which was originally Ries's Divan, and he probably knows more about good old English fare than any man living. When we have eaten our turbot and saddle of mutton we will ask him how it is that these two best of British dishes are sent to table at Simpson's in such absolutely perfect condition. But before we choose our seats at one of the tables let us look round the room. The old Simpson's is still fresh in my memory. The painted garlands of flowers and studies of fish, flesh and fowl on the walls, glazed to a deep rich colour by the London atmosphere, the ground-glass windows, the big bar opening into the room, with Rembrandtesque shadows in its depths; the great dumb-waiter, which looked like a catafalque, in the centre of the room; the folded napkins in the glasses on the mantelpiece; the horsehair-stuffed, black-cushioned chairs and benches; the divisions with brass rails and dingy little curtains on the rails.
The pens with their brass rails are still in the old place, but they are modernised pens; the wood is oak, and there is a comfortable padded back of brown leather to lean against. The eating-room has been transformed into a banqueting hall. The walls are panelled with light oak, with pilasters to give variety, and an inlay of lighter wood at the corners of the panels. There is a white frieze with good modelling on it, and round the white-clothed tables which fill but do not crowd the floor space are chairs copied from a fine Chippendale example. A good old English clock is on a bracket, and fine cut-glass lustre chandeliers hang from the ceiling. In old days the waiters at Simpson's were mostly British veterans, and in the upstairs room Charles Flowerdew, the head waiter, a genial old soul who always offered his favourites amongst the customers a pinch from his snuff-box, had a wealth of anecdotes about the great men of the Victorian era who were habitués of Simpson's. The waiters of to-day are Britons, but they are young men, and if anyone has doubts whether Englishmen properly trained can be as quick and silent in the service of a dining house as foreigners are, I would advise the doubter to eat a meal at Simpson's and to watch how the waiters do their work. The boys who take round the vegetables become in time full-blown serving-men. The waiters no longer wear the dress-coats, heroes of many clashes with sauce-boats and plates of soup, which used to be the official garb of the British waiter. They wear white washing jackets, with at the breast a little black shield, and on it the crest of the house—the knight of a set of chessmen. All the tips are pooled, with the result that all the serving-men work for the general good.
And now to look at the bill of fare. There are no such foreign innovations as hors d'œuvre allowed at Simpson's, where the only concessions to France are in the wine cellar and that little French rolls as well as household bread are in the bread baskets. You can obtain a fish dinner of three kinds of fish for three and ninepence; but we will order just what we feel our appetite demands, and take no account of set dinners. If your taste is for turtle soup, a plate of that luxury will cost you three shillings, but, if one of the simpler British soups will content you, hare, pea, mock turtle, Scotch hotch-potch, oxtail, giblet or mulligatawny are priced at one shilling or one and sixpence. Then comes the important question of fish, and the choice really lies between a Sole Souchet, which Simpson's ought to write Zouchet, boiled codfish and oyster sauce, and boiled turbot and lobster sauce—the last one of the dishes on which Simpson's prides itself. Until I chatted with Mr Wheeler on the subject I always understood that a turbot to come to table in perfection should be hung for several days, but Mr Wheeler denounces this as rank heresy. A turbot should be nicked to draw off the blood of the fish, it should be soaked for twenty-four hours, and then it is ready to be boiled. It is instructive to watch a real habitué of Simpson's who prefers cod to turbot when a portly white-clad carver wheels his waggon up to the table. There must be the right proportion of liver with the fish and the due quantity of oyster in the sauce, or there will be dire threats of report to higher quarters. A boiled potato to anyone who knows what is good English fare is not to be accepted without criticism, and he would be a bold carver who dared to give the knowledgeable man a helping of saddle of mutton without a slice of the brown. But before we go on to the supreme matter of the saddle let me point out to you that whether you eat sole, or cod, or turbot, it means an item of two shillings on your bill.
The joints ring the changes on roast sirloin, boiled beef, boiled leg of mutton, roast loin of veal and bath chap, and saddle of mutton, and it is the saddle that is the favourite dish. Forty saddles a day is the quantity consumed at Simpson's, and now that the new room is opened sixty are required. Simpson's employs a buyer whose duty in life is to travel about England buying saddles wherever the finest mutton is to be procured. For fourteen days the saddles hang in the stock-room at Simpson's in a temperature of 38°, then they are moved for two or three days to another store, through which there is a current of air, and then they are ready for the fire. And whether you eat of the mutton, the beef, or the veal, your portion and the accompanying vegetables will cost you half-a-crown.
We will not trifle with such kickshaws as salmi of game, or Irish stew, or jugged hare, and to finish our dinner we will take a helping of one of the pies or puddings on the bill of fare, or, better still, a good scoop of Stilton cheese or a wedge of Cheshire.
If you wish to be as British in your drinking as in your eating, there is cool British ale from the cask, which comes to table in a tankard, and cider, and the whisky of Scotland and that of Ireland. The house is also celebrated for its moderate-priced Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, bottled in the cellars.
If we go upstairs before leaving we can see the dining-room to which ladies are admitted—a handsome room of white with marble pillars—and you will notice the great bunches of wild flowers which adorn all the tables. On this floor there is a smaller private banqueting-room, and the new white Adams' Room, the double windows of which look into the Strand on one side and the entrance courtyard on the other. It is a handsome room, with settees by the window tables, and at night hanging baskets and lamps on the cornice throw light up to the ceiling to be reflected down into the room.
Down in the smoking-room on the basement level you will find a little band of chess-players, faithful to the old Divan, hard at the game, using the old chess-boards and the huge pieces of the Divan days, and it may further gratify your love for antiquarian lore to know that Simpson's stands on the site occupied by the old Fountain tavern, of which Strype wrote: "A very fine tavern, with excellent vaults, good rooms for entertainments, and a curious kitchen for the dressing of meat." It was at the Fountain that the opponents of Walpole held their meetings and that the Earl of Derwentwater and the other Jacobite lords on trial for rebellion, being taken daily backwards and forwards between the Tower and Westminster, made favour with their jailer to let them halt for an hour to eat what they expected to be their last good dinner on earth.