The Gourmet's Guide to London

by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis

There also, in Chance Alley, is Baker's Chop-house, which, that there may be no mistake as to its pretensions, describes itself on a board at the Lombard Street entrance to the alley as a tavern, and a chop-house, a coffee-house, and soup-rooms. It is a dignified little house, which bears its years well—it was founded in the seventeenth century—and which, with its two bow-windows with small panes of glass and its glass door in between, commands confidence even before one has crossed the threshold. Inside one of the windows are wire screens to give privacy to the company in the house, but the other window begs all men to look in and see the fish and the joints, the vegetables, the salad stuff, and, perhaps, a loin of cold beef, samples of what the larder contains. Beyond this rampart of good things edible you may see dames and damsels attired in black, busy in a glassed-in little room drawing beer, taking payment from satisfied customers for what they have eaten, and a grave gentleman, with white hair and beard, making entries in a large ledger; for the little portioned-off space you are looking into serves as bar and counting-house, some old punch-bowls on a shelf giving it its right old-world note.

Once inside the door you find yourself in as snug and cosy an eating-house as you can find in London. The ground floor is partitioned off into many boxes. There is one to your left as you come in, the counting-house being on your right, and two, one of them with a curtain to give it privacy, facing you, and another just beyond the grill, and yet another one below the round clock in a black frame which is on the back wall. The partitions and the walls are of wood panelling painted and grained to resemble light oak, but whoever the craftsman was who worked at it with feather and comb, he must have passed away long ago, for the painting, like everything else in the house, has been mellowed by time. The partitions are carried up high wherever there is any possibility of a draught reaching anyone sitting in one of the boxes, and in the high partitions the top panels are of glass. There are pegs for hats and coats on the wall and a stand for umbrellas near the fireplace. The fireplace, a big grill in a stone frame, is in one of the side walls, and close in front of it, his body partially sheltered by a wooden screen, stands the cook, white-bearded and in white cap, white jacket and apron. At his elbow is a compartment, a big box without a lid, in which are chops, steaks, and all other things grillable, and any man who thinks he is a judge of a raw chop or steak, looks over into this box before he finds a seat for himself, and indicates to the cook which particular fragment of red meat he wishes to have prepared according to his liking. Above the fireplace is a framed water-colour picture of the outside of the house, and on either side of this work of art are pewter plates in a splendid state of polish. The other interesting work of art on the walls is a portrait of "James," who was a waiter at Baker's for thirty-five years. James was, I imagine, early Victorian. He has a benign appearance, and his watch-chain is almost as large as a cable. The waiters of to-day are as British as James was, and they go about their business with much quickness and dexterity. To complete my description of the lower room at Baker's, I should add that there is sawdust on the floor, and that a narrow staircase, the steps of which are covered with lead, leads up to the rooms on the other floors.

You will have seen written in little frames on one side of the counting-house window looking into the chop-room some of the dishes of the day that are ready—curried chicken, Irish stew (one-chop and two-chop portions), stewed steak, and the like, and your waiter will tell you of other good things—pies and puddings, each a portion for one—that are ready. If you are for something from the grill, you make your selection from the cook's stores. If a cut from the joint is to your taste, you go upstairs to the big room on the first floor, where there are red walls and no partitions.

A basket of great chunks of household bread is on the white-clothed table at which you find a place; your chop, if you have selected a chop, will come to you on a willow-patterned dish, and you will transfer it to a willow-patterned plate. In old days all meat at Baker's used to be served on pewter. But if the four plates over the fireplace are the only survivors of the pewter set, your beer will be brought you in a pewter tankard, and most of the glass is of old pattern. When you come to the cheese stage your slice of Cheddar and pat of butter are both excellent. Indeed all the food at Baker's is good. No eating place which does not give good food at reasonable prices ever survives in the City, and Baker's has seen nearly three hundred years pass away. Who the original Baker was who gave his name to the chop-house no one knows, but a guess is made that he was a relation of that Mr Baker who was Master of Lloyd's Coffee-House in Lombard Street in 1740, and who carried to Sir Robert Walpole the news of Admiral Vernon's taking of Portobello, being suitably rewarded as a bringer of good tidings.

The customers of Baker's Chop-house are excellent walking advertisements of the house. They all seem to be prosperous City men, young and old; they are well groomed and they look well-fed and contented.

When you have finished your meal at Baker's you leave twopence by your plate as the waiter's tip, you give the grill-cook another penny, if you have eaten grilled fare, as you pass him on your way out, and then, pausing at the wicket of the counting-room, you recite to the lady who faces you the things you have eaten and what you have imbibed, and she, doing a sum of mental arithmetic, tells you instantly what you have to pay. As a souvenir of the house she will give you a post card, if you ask for it, carrying a miniature copy of the work of art over the fireplace.

But there are chop-houses in London outside the City limits, and I know of three of them within arrow-flight of Piccadilly Circus. There is Snow's, for instance, in Sherwood Street, almost in the Circus. Snow's has a reputation for its steaks, and I know men who declare that the best bacon and eggs in the world are those brought in between two plates from the kitchen and placed on the tables at Snow's. It has lately been rebuilt, and is a modern reproduction of a Tudor house, its three little gables and the green gallery before its upper windows being very picturesque. The old tables and the old partitions are in their old places in the lower rooms, but the walls of glazed tiles and the curved brass hangings for coats and hats are scarcely Tudor. The company at Snow's at its busy times of the day is a curious mixture. Your neighbour at table may be a clergyman up from the country, or the man who shaves you at Shipwright's round the corner, or a young artist, or a taxi chauffeur.

Stone's in Panton Street, which dates back to 1770, is another chop-house, though it is better known as a wine-house. It has its coffee-room, where good, plain grilled food is obtainable, though it rather sinks the title "chop-house" in the more aristocratic "à la carte restaurant." Stone's has always been a favourite resort of men of the theatre.

Not very many Londoners know of the Sceptre Chop-house, Number 5 Warwick Street, a little street which runs parallel, on the east, to part of Regent Street, for it is not in a main thoroughfare. It is a typical early Victorian chop-house, and it used to be a haunt of Charles Dickens when he was making his first successes as an author. The front of the house has been newly painted, but the interior remains as it was in 1830, when it first opened its door. Its window is frosted half-way up to obviate the necessity for blinds, with a pattern and announcements that the house supplies chops and coffee left in plain glass amidst the frosting. I warrant that window created considerable enthusiasm in Warwick Street in 1830. At least three of the proprietors, past and present, of the Sceptre have their names recorded on the front of the building. Sanders' name is almost obliterated on the length of brass that forms the window-sill, and shows faintly on the glass of the door. Gosling is preserved to memory by his name in gold letters over the door, while Purcell's is very large above the window. Inside, the long room is a harmony of quiet colours. There is brown boarding half-way up the walls, and above that green that rests the eye. By the door is an enclosed cosy corner, with a mirror in an old black frame over the fireplace. All down the room are low mahogany partitions with seats cushioned in black. The tables are of mahogany, polished by constant rubbing of the waitresses' napkins, and no tablecloths ever hide the deep colour of the old wood. At the end of the room is a screen of three arches of dark wood. The two side arches are filled with panelling and mirrors; but through the centre arch can be seen the kitchen with its sawdusted floor, its ranges of plates and dishes, and the cook and the cookmaids in print dresses going about their work. The waitresses in black dresses and white aprons and caps bustle up and down the room and in and out of the kitchen. A stove heats the long room, and glazing in the roof gives it light. A staircase of black wood leads to the upper rooms, and by the doorway into the street is a little compartment, no larger than a sentry-box, which is the pay-desk.

The food at The Sceptre is of the simplest kind, and a haricot chop or roast chicken are about its highest flights. Your soup, mutton broth, or mock turtle or kidney costs you 4d. or 6d., according to the size of the soup plate. You can pay 9d. or 10d. for your chop and 10d. for your steak. A cut from the joint, for The Sceptre gives you a choice of three joints, is a 9d. matter; but you can get a very ample helping of apple tart for 3d. It is under the heading of entrées that The Sceptre puts such high flights of cookery as curried mutton and rice, boiled tripe and onions, Irish pie and mixed grill.