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.