The following are extracted from a London letter in the New York World of September 14, 1884, and are interesting:—
“London abounds in historic taverns, but of them all none are more historic and interesting than the ‘Cheese.’ To eat a steak here is not to masticate fried cork, while the tankards of bitter ale, foaming and delicious, with which you wash down the steak are worth a long journey to enjoy. The folk-lore of this famous haunt is interesting, not alone to tavern-loving, but to general posterity, although as to a complete and detailed account of its very early history there is much of obscurity. While there are no positive proofs, there are authentic legends that Shakespeare spent many an idle hour at this place, because it was on his way to the Blackfriars’ Theatre, in Playhouse Yard, Ludgate Hill, of which he was so long a time absolute manager. In his time the play began at 1 p.m. and ended at 5 p.m., at which hour the wits of the town mustered forces in Fleet Street haunts.
“In modern times, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, and now to-day that prince of diners and bons vivants, George Augustus Sala, have frequented the Cheshire Cheese and waxed eloquent over its comforts and subtle charms. Both Dickens and Thackeray knew how to appreciate a good inn, and, after singing the praises of the bill of fare, pay deserved compliments to the waiters. Men who serve the frequenters of the Cheshire grow gray in the service, and each boasts his own particular customers. Of the younger waiters all are most civil, and the young women at the bar are not only polite, but lady-like in manners and appearance.
“It is surprising how soon one gets used to the innovation of the feminine bar-tender, and it is not to be questioned that it is a good custom, productive of greater refinement among the male frequenters, and, where the young women conduct themselves modestly, in no wise degrading to their minds or morals.
FRONTISPIECE OF BILL OF FARE.
By Cruickshank
“It matters little what hour you select to visit ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese,’ you will have plenty to amuse and instruct you, and always find the pretty barmaids in the bar room attentive and clever. The cutting of the rump-steak and kidney pie is a spearing process performed by the proprietor, and often as many as three, even four waiters are needed to lift the huge smoking hot pie to the centre table, while often from thirty to sixty hungry men wait at the various tables for a triangle of this toothsome viand. Take my word for it, you will have a great desire for a second help, and even though, like myself, you are a petticoat wearer, no one will annoy you or even look surprised at your devoting an evening among the odd masculine characters nightly frequenting ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.’”
In an article written by Mr. W. Outram Tristram, and illustrated by Mr. Herbert Railton, the English Illustrated Magazine of December, 1889, gives, under the title of “A Storied Tavern,” a most interesting account of this old house.
“Here,” says the writer, “is no home for kickshaws and cigarettes. From this kitchen comes no sample of fashionable culinary art, that ‘art with poisonous honey stolen from France.’ Nothing of that kind obtains at the Cheshire Cheese. Here the narrowed kingdom lies of point steaks turned to a second and served hissing on plates supernaturally hot, of chops gargantuan in size and inimitable in tenderness and flavour, of cheese bubbling sympathetically in tiny tins, of floury potatoes properly cooked, of tankards of bitter beer, of extra creaming stout, of a rump-steak and oyster pudding served on Saturdays only,[8] and so much the specialty of the house, that I must deal with it hereafter. All smacks here of that England of solid comfort and solid plenty.