The Reporter, of October 28, 1874, says of the “Cheese”:—
“We have occasionally used this old-fashioned house for over a quarter of a century, and can conscientiously assert that for its chops and steaks, cold beef and salad, and marvellous rump-steak pudding, and for the alacrity with which these edibles are supplied the establishment is unmatchable in the metropolis. Besides, the malt liquors are of the strongest and the best brew, and the whiskies are mellow and old; whilst the ancient punch, which is served exactly as compounded in the days of Dr. Johnson, is simply nectar worthy of elevating even the gods.”
Under the heading “Some Gossip about Famous Taverns,” a writer in the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette says:—
“What man who has ever been called into Fleet Street, either on business or pleasure, does not know the sawdusted floor and old-time appointments of the Cheshire Cheese? Who would dare to confess ignorance of the Brobdingnagian chops, the world-famous point steaks, the stewed cheese, which constitute its main attractions all the year round? Who has not here devoted himself during the hot summer months, in the cool dining-room which seems ever impervious to the sun’s rays, to the manufacture of an elaborate salad to enjoy with his cold beef? And who, again, has never yet been so fortunate as to witness that appetising procession to be seen every Saturday during the winter months, when Mr. Moore, the master of the house, in dress coat clad, and armed with a mighty carver, precedes into the room that mighty steak and oyster pudding, the secret of whose manufacture has never been allowed to penetrate beyond the mazes of Wine Office Court.”
And again the same writer observes:—“The secret of the success of the Cheshire Cheese is that everything sold within its doors is good. For this we prefer its sanded floors to marble halls, for this we listen curiously to the weird cry of the waiter up the crooked staircase of ‘Rudderhumbake,’ which, by old experience, we know heralds the approach of a choice cut from the mighty rump of a succulent shorthorn or an Aberdeen steer.”
The Philadelphia Times of October, 1884, thus refers to the “Cheese”:—
“A famous man who haunted the ‘Cheese’ was Voltaire, side by side with Bolingbroke, Pope, and Congreve, and there is to-day an old play in manuscript in Scotland, written in Rare Ben Jonson’s day, in which these lines occur:—
“Heaven bless ‘The Cheese’ and all its goodly fare—
I wish to Jove I could go daily there.
Then fill a bumper up, my good friend, please—