The pleasures of the table
are common to all ages and
ranks, to all countries and
times; they not only harmonise
with all the other
pleasures, but remain to
console us for their loss.—
Brillat Savarin.
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.