Schmidt’s
Famous for its reasonably priced ‘ continental ‘ dishes, Schmidt’s, located at 33/43 Charlotte Street, off the north side of Oxford Street in an area dubbed ‘ Fitzrovia’ was essentially a delicatessen with a restaurant at the rear. It opened in 1901 by butcher Friedrich Schmidt as a delicatessen that served a largish German community in the area. A restaurant was added after the First World War, which served mainly German food, such as wurst, frankfurter, pork knuckle and other hearty dishes, and soon became very popular, despite anti-German feeling following two World Wars.
It was infamous for its surly and sometime downright rude waiters (though a few diners disputed this ) and in the absence of high quality but cheap continental restaurants, especially in the Fitzrovia area, it attracted a clientele that valued German food. Of the journalists and writers who dined there, one of its most famous was T. S. Eliot who when Chairman of Faber and Gwyer ( later Faber & Faber) was a customer while working at the company’s Queen Square HQ, just a fifteen minute walk away. Unfortunately, we don’t know how often Eliot dined there, or whether he went at lunchtime or after work, or even if he took poets, such as Auden, MacNeice or George Barker there for lunch. Louis MacNeice, who worked at the BBC in Langham Place, which is a ten minute walk away, may have been one of the poets, but it is a sad fact that most writers don’t actually mention in letters or diaries where they dine, unless it is with a famous individual. Another diner was the Soviet spy Donald Maclean who spent his last evening at Schmidt’s before leaving permanently for Moscow in 1951. It would be nice to know what he ordered—perhaps something traditionally British for his last ever night in Britain.
We don’t know if Schmidt and his family had strong political views—left or right—but it is interesting to note that the first edition of Socialist Register, a radical leftist newspaper with an international flavour, was launched in the restaurant in 1964 by Ralph Miliband and John Saville.
The views of the celebrated taxonomist and horticulturalist W.L. Tjaden, who was also a regular diner at Schmidt’s in the fifties were more likely leftist than conservative, but his private diaries of 1950 -57 betray no evidence that this Treasury official and graduate of the LSE was political active in any way, although we do know that as a resident of Welling he voted in the 1950 election that brought the thirty-four year old Edward Heath into Parliament as the member for Bexley. Each Friday for a number of weeks in 1950 Tjaden, accompanied by a friend from the Treasury, Dick Clague, lunched at Schmidt’s. Unusually, given that the gardener was obsessive in the details he gave of his activities as a horticulturalist and exhibitor at various flower shows, he chose not to record what meals he enjoyed at his favourite restaurant, which is a pity as this information might have told us something of his character. What perhaps can be deduced from his choice of eating place is that his underlying parsimony, which is frequently reflected in his diaries, was a strong factor. Schmidt’s was ‘great value for money’. What remains a puzzle, however, is how Tjaden and Clague managed to get from the Treasury at the bottom of Whitehall to Fitzrovia, a distance of one and a half miles, have their meal and return to work, within their ‘ allotted lunch hour’. Today, the ‘ lunch hours ‘ of Whitehall ‘ mandarins ‘ are doubtless ‘ flexible’, but Tjaden in 1950 was a very junior Treasury official who was even obliged to work on Saturday mornings!
Schmidt’s was a very popular venue right up to its closure in 1976 and all those who have recorded online their memories of the restaurant, have testified to the quality of the meals served there. The wait for food was often frustrating, many said, but when it did finally arrive, sometimes lukewarm, it was well cooked and the portions were generous. Some idea of the range of dishes served can be had from a menu dating from the 1960s or early 70s and published online. From it we can see that as well traditional German dishes, such as pork knuckle and schnitzel, and eastern European food, such as Hungarian goulash, it also, rather bizarrely offered mock turtle soup and Heinz Tomato Soup, supposedly for traditional English diners like William Tjaden.
R.M.Healey
I have a hazy memory of a visit to Schmidt’s in about 1968 on a school A level trip to London with our Economics teacher. It must have been cheap as we were all on pocket money. I remember having Wiener schnitzel (my first ever) but can’t remember what else. I remember subdued lighting and dark wood panelling. I don’t remember anything about the staff or quality of service. We were going on to the Criterion theatre to see Roy Dotrice in Brief Lives so it couldn’t have been too slow.
In the late ’60s-early ’70s, my rather austere and reserved father used to take the late teenage/young adult me and my sister to lunch periodically. He lived in Fulham, so – given his very limited experience of London life – heaven knows how he knew about Schmidts. Nevertheless, the venue became the only meeting place for our lunches. I was happy to have eaten there quite a few times as it held a strange sense of occasion and marginal but faded grandness and history. It had that unmistakeable “European” feel (perhaps the rather austere feel of the building and staff matched my Father perfectly and that was why he felt as comfortable there as he ever could in public). Most importantly, to us young ones, the food seemed exotic, flavourful and – yes – Continental. I can’t recall what Dad and my sister used to order, but I inevitably ate exactly the same meal at every visit simply because it was so delicious: a main course of Rheinischer Sauerbaraten (beef marinated for a couple of days in juniper berries, sugar, vinegar and other spices and then roasted). As night follows day, this was followed by Schwarzwelder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Gateau). To me, both courses represented the most intensely and almost exotic taste of central Europe. Both were so utterly delicious to that learning palate that they have left a mark to this day. And those lunches remain as one of my most lasting memories of that different era that we call our past.