Nights in London

by Thomas Burke

If the Cockney goes on like this, he will spoil Soho, and he will lose his own delightful individuality and idiosyncrasy.

But, apart from the invasion of Soho by the girl-clerk and the book-keeper, one cannot but love it. I love it because, in my early days of scant feeding, it was the one spot in London where I could gorge to repletion for a shilling. There was a little place in Wardour Street, the Franco-Suisse—it is still there—whose shilling table d'hôte was a marvel: And I always had my bob's worth, I can assure you; for those were the days when one went hungry all day in order to buy concert tickets. Indeed, there were occasions when the breadbasket was removed from my table, so savage was the raid I made upon it.

There, one night a week, we feasted gloriously. We revelled. We read the Gaulois and Gil Blas and papers of a friskier tone. There still exists a Servian café where all manner of inflammatory organs of Nihilism may be read, and where heavy-bearded men—Anarchists, you hope, but piano-builders, you fear—would sit for three hours over their dinner Talking, Talking, Talking. Then for another hour they would play backgammon, and at last roll out, blasphemously, to the darkened street, and so Home to those mysterious lodgings about Broad Street and Pulteney Street.

How the kitchens manage to do those shilling table d'hôtes is a mystery which I have never solved, though I have visited "below" on one or two occasions and talked with the chefs. There are about a dozen cafés now which, for the Homeric shilling, give you four courses, bread ad lib, and coffee to follow. And it is good; it is a refection for the gods—certain selected gods.

You stroll into the little gaslit room (enamelled in white and decorated with tables set in the simplest fashion, yet clean and sufficient) as though you are dropping in at the Savoy or Dieudonné's. It is rhomboidal in shape, with many angles, as though perspective had suddenly gone mad. Each table is set with a spoon, a knife, a fork, a serviette, a basket of French bread, and a jar of French mustard. If you are in spendthrift mood, you may send the boy for a bottle of vin ordinaire, which costs tenpence; on more sober occasions you send him for beer.

There is no menu on the table; the waiter or, more usually, in these smaller places, the waitress explains things to you as you go along. Each course carries two dishes, au choix. There are no hors d'œuvres; you dash gaily into the soup. The tureen is brought to the table, and you have as many goes as you please. Hot water, flavoured with potato and garnished with a yard of bread, makes an excellent lining for a hollow stomach. This is followed by omelette or fish. Of the two evils you choose the less, and cry "Omelette!" When the omelette is thrown in front of you it at once makes its presence felt. It recalls Bill Nye's beautiful story about an introspective egg laid by a morbid hen. However, if you smother the omelette in salt, red pepper, and mustard, you will be able to deal with it. I fear I cannot say as much for the fish. Then follows the inevitable chicken and salad, or perhaps Vienna steak, or vol-au-vent. The next item is Camembert or fruit, and coffee concludes the display.

Dining in these places is not a matter of subdued murmurs, of conversation in dulcet tones, or soft strains from the band. Rather you seem to dine in a menagerie. It is a bombardment more than a meal. The air buckles and cracks with noise. The first outbreak of hostilities comes from the counter at the entry of the first guest. The moment he is seated the waitress screams, "Un potage—un!" The large Monsieur, the proprietor, at the counter, bellows down the tube, "Un Potage—Un!" Away in subterranean regions an ear catches it, and a distant voice chants "Potage!" And then from the far reaches of the kitchen you hear a smothered tenor, as coming from the throat of one drowned in the soup-kettle, "Potage!" As the customers crowd in the din increases. Everywhere there is noise; as a result the customers must shout their conversation. As the volume of conversation increases the counter, finding itself hard-pressed, brings up its heavy artillery.

"Vol-au-vent!" sings the waitress. "Vol-au-vent!" chants the counter in a bass as heavy and with as wide a range as Chaliapine's. "Vol-au-vent!" roars the kitchen with the despair of tears in the voice; and "Vol-au-vent!" wails the lost soul beyond the Styx. By half-past seven it is no longer a restaurant; it is no longer a dinner that is being served. It is a grand opera that is in progress. The vocalists, "finding" themselves towards the end of the first act, warm up to the second, and each develops an individuality. I have often let my Vienna steak get cold while listening and trying to distinguish between the kitchen lift-man and the cook. Lift-man is usually a light and agreeable baritone, while the cook has mostly a falsetto, with a really exciting register. This grand opera idea affects, in turn, the waitresses. To the first-comers they are casual and chatty; but towards seven o'clock there is a subtle change. They become tragic. They are as the children of destiny. There is that Italianate sob in the voice as they demand Poulet roti au salade! as who should cry, "Ah, fors è lui!" or "In questa tomba...." They do not serve you. They assault you with soup or omelette. They make a grand pass above your head, and fling knife and fork before you. They collide with themselves and each other, and there are recriminations and reprisals. They quarrel, apparently, to the death, while M'sieu and Madame look on, passive spectators of the eternal drama. The air boils. The blood of the diners begins to boil, too, for they wave napkins and sticks of bread, and they bellow and scream defiance at one another. They draw the attention of the waitress to the fact that there is no salt on the table; what they seem to be telling her is that the destinies of France are in the balance, the enemy is at the gates, and that she must deliver herself as hostage or suffer dreadful deaths. Everything, in fact, boils, except the soup and the coffee; and at last, glad to escape, you toss your shilling on the table and tumble out, followed by a yearning cry of "Une salade—une!"

Even then your entertainment has not ceased with the passing of the shilling. For there are now numerous coffee-bars in Old Compton Street where for a penny you may lounge at the counter and get an excellent cup of black coffee, and listen to the electric piano, splurging its cheap gaiety on the night, or to the newsmen yelling "Journaux de Paris!" or "Dernière Heure!" There are "The Chat Noir," "The Café Leon," and "The Café Bar Conte"; also there is "The Suisse," where you may get "rekerky" liqueurs at threepence a time, and there is a Japanese café in Edward Street.