Lost West End Restaurants

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.

Continue reading →

Licensed to Sell…

‘ The pub and the church are twin symbols at the heart of every English community, the signs of an integrated social life, and they have been so throughout our recorded history from Chaucer’s time down to the new Elizabethan age’. 

So wrote the anonymous author of ‘ Licensed to Sell ‘ in  the September/October 1952 issue of Today (Photo World).With congregations plummeting year by year, the Church ‘s position in the community may have lessened considerably since the year in which Elizabeth II ascended the throne, but the friendly local remains the favourite meeting place for many men and women, whether they actually drink alcohol or not.

However, back in 1952, when bitter, mild and porter were dominant, lager frowned on as a European interloper, and when to order a coffee as an alternative to alcohol in a pub was almost an insult. As the author put it

‘ Beer is complementary to the Englishman’s character and has therefore set the seal on the local pub as the very hub of every social activity. Certain town councils used to hold their village meetings in the local, and as late as 1794 not only orthodox churchmen but Nonconformists as well did consider it blasphemous to old their meetings within tavern walls and round off their discussions with flagons of good old ale’

‘In the middle ages the people wanted ale, cheap ale, and the sovereigns saw that they got it. There was no tea or coffee and wine was scarce and dear,  so ale was the necessary concomitant of harvesting, feast days, births and marriages. Even when the making of ale passed from the hands of the private householder into the province of the professional brewer, laws were promulgated to protect the public and control the price and quality of the national beverage. The first licensing statute passed in 1495 under HENRY VII empowered any two Justices of the Peace “ To reject and pout away any common ale selling in towns and places where they should think it convenient, and to take sureties of keepers of ale houses in their good behaviour.”

‘ Court and common folk ‘ drank ale, apparently. Look at the allowance given to Lady Lucy, a maid of honour at the court of Henry VIII

“ Breakfast—a chine of beef, a loaf, a gallon of ale. Luncheon—bread and a gallon of ale. Dinner—a piece of boiled beef , a slice off roast meat, a gallon of ale. Supper—porridge, mutton, a loaf and “—you’ve guessed it—“ a gallon of ale “.

Incidentally, this Lady Lucy (1524 – 1583 Pic Above) was the daughter of Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester. She served as a Maid of Honour to Katherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, who was executed for adultery. The King considered marrying Lucy, but instead took Katherine Parr as his sixth and final wife. 

Even Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth, had her gallon of ale for breakfast. The alcoholic  regime didn’t seem to do either woman much harm. Lucy reached the age of 59, while Queen Elizabeth died at 70.

At this point the author doesn’t make it clear that this gallon of Tudor ale must have been very weak indeed. After all, how could any human being glug down four gallons of ale ( ie 32 pints ) a day ? That’s if the ration was a daily amount rather than a weekly one. Nor did this ale taste like the beer that we drink today. Beer, according to the learned Dr Bottomley in his Inn Explorer’s Guide ( 1984), was brought to England by the Dutch in the early fifteenth century. It was much stronger than ale and had a bitter taste provided by the addition of hops.

Continue reading →

More London pubs of the 1960s and how they are today

Inspired by The New London Spy (1966)

The Grenadier, Wilton Row.

‘ This serves very decent food, far better than the average pub meal ( though naturally priced accordingly) .It does have a great deal of physical charm, in a particularly nice setting. Its connection is more to do with the Duke of Ellington than with the Grenadier Guards ( though a Colour Sergeant is detailed to pose for the inn sign whenever it needs repainting, and the barmen wear mess jackets). It used, in fact, to be a mess for the Duke’s officers , and Duke himself is alleged to have played cards there.’

Today, the pub is owned by Sir Jim Radcliffe, the chemical engineer who became boss of INEOS and is now the major shareholder of Manchester United. It was Radcliffe’s favourite pub and it was here that he and his friends planned from scratch the Grenadier car that bears the name of the pub, which he bought from Greene King  in 2022. Madonna and William, Prince of Wales have been recent customers. The pub is said to be haunted by a subaltern nicknamed Cedric who was beaten to death for cheating at cards in 1818. 

The London Spy was correct about the price and quality of the food served here. Dishes from the main menu are still expensive, like all pub meals served in Mayfair, but the food is very appealing. Starters range from £10 to £16.25, while the ‘famous Beef Wellington comes in at a bargain £39.95. 

The Star Tavern, Belgrave Mews West.

‘…This belongs to no clique that can actually be pigeon-holed, but you get the impression that if the master-minds behind the Great Train Robbery ever used a pub, it would be one remarkably like the Star. There is the atmosphere of discreet opulence about the place, and inevitably a Jaguar or two outside…’

Well, rather bizarrely, the speculation of 1966 regarding criminal activity, is repeated as fact by those marketing the pub today. According to this:

‘ Bruce Reynolds, who coordinated the robbery, regularly drove his Aston Martin from his Streatham home to meet (Buster) Edwards and one or two other members of the gang in The Star to go over details during the run up to the robbery…’

Arty pubs

Queen’s Elm,  Fulham Road. Chelsea.

‘One of the most famous ‘ arty’ pubs in Chelsea is the Queen’s Elm, where the importance of the customer can be gathered by the way he is greeted by the landlord, who will rush forward if he is a famous novelist or actor, but who will also—let it be said—cash a cheque for the odd poet ( Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish poet, used the pub when in London).’

Alas, the Queen’s Elm no longer exists, having closed its doors in 1990s.It is now yet another clothes shop. The publican referred to in the New London Spy was the Irishman Sean Treacy, who was one of those rare creatures, a chronicler of his own pub. To one commentator, his memoir, A Smell of Broken Glass was a ‘ masterpiece’. To another writer the pub was a refuge for those barred from the Chelsea Arts Club. The film director, Joseph Losey, liked the place and used it as a location for ‘The Servant’ (1963), which starred Dirk Bogarde.

Finch’s ( aka The King’s Arms), Fulham Road.

‘ Finch’s is slightly less pretentious than the Queen’s Elm, and is excellently staffed …It is patronised by actual painters and sculptors, Frank Bowling and Elizabeth Frink, for instance. There is also a hard core of regular locals, being the kind of place you could return to after ten years in Tangier and be sure of running into people you used to know in Finch’s in the old days.’

Today, there is a reference in the online entry to ‘ thespian hell-raisers ‘ ( whatever that means) in the sixties when this pub was known as Finch’s, which is perhaps the reason why the owners decided to drop this name and return to the King’s Head. It is now a pretty standard Victorian pub with the usual period fittings. There are no references to Liz Frink and Frank Bowling, whoever he was. 

Continue reading →

London pub culture in the 1960s/today

Extracts from The New London Spy (1966)

‘Pubs are what other countries don’t have. In England, country pubs are perhaps nicest of all. After that come the London ones.

Pubs change character as you tipple down from the top of Britain. In the dry areas of Skye you have none at all. In Glasgow they are just drinking shopos. In Carlisle they are cheerless and state controlled.

But in London, there are pubs for all men and for all seasons.’

…if you took the pub away from London, social life in public would almost cease to exist…’

ROUGH PUBS

…London has its quota for the enquiring drinker who likes a barney, or the proximity of physical violence and available women. The most obvious in this category are those around the docks where seamen drink. On of the nicest pubs, though mot kind of place you’d take a maiden aunt, is the Custom House Hotel, known as ‘ the Steps’, Victoria Dock Road. This is a vast sprawling pub, with a raised bar a the back. It provides live music, as well as throwing in a couple of juke boxes. There are other lively pubs nearby, including the Freemasons Tavern an the Railway Tavern, but the Steps take pride of place. You could be in a waterfront bar anywhere in the world, and the atmosphere would be much the same. It is not unusual to see someone almost kicked o death outside, so unless you are on the look-out for a rough-house or know how to ake care of yourself in a fight, avoid getting into an argument.

A better known, and almost as rough, pub is Charlie Brown’s ( actually called the Railway Tavern, but known generally by its nickname, West India Dock Road, which boasts a splendid museum of curiosa from all over the world, collected by one of the landlords. Another guv’nor was stabbed through the glass door, trying to get rid of an argumentative customer. It is also very handy for one of the best Chinese restaurants in London, the Old Friends, almost next door.

Nearer central London is the Admiral Blakeney’s Head, just beyond the Tower in the now rapidly disappearing Cable Street. Cable Street still manages to hit the headlines with the odd murder and the Blakeney’s Head is as virile as ever. Juke boxes, spades, seamen, tarts mingle in a remarkably friendly atmosphere and there are cafes nearby catering for all nationalities. The police still patrol Cable Street in twos.

For those who like their squalor without the atmosphere of violence, there is Dirty Dicks opposite Liverpool Street Station. This has dead cats, cobwebs and sawdust by way of décor. But is in fact a genuine old pub keeping up the tradition of its founder, who amassed a fortune  and refused to spend money on clothes. There is a curious collection of postage stamps on which couple have written their names.

In the West End there are a number of well-established rough and ready pubs. Much the famous is the Duke of York’s, Rathbone Street, the beat meeting place in London. This marvellous pub, superbly managed in the face of terrible odds, has a fine and bawdy museum, with a portrait of the late ( and lamented) guvnor, Major Alf Klein, framed by a lavatory seat. Every available inch of the wall and ceiling is taken up with paintings, seaside postcards, ties, sailors’ hat bands and other totally obscure objects. Nearby, in Goodge Street, is the One Tun, known simply as Finch’s, which offers an escape from the beats, which have recently been barred the premises en masse.

Continue reading →

More famous lost City taverns

14 Fleet Street the site of the Rainbow Coffee House

The Rainbow and Sweeney Todd’s

At 14, Fleet Street, stood ‘The Rainbow’, which opened its doors in 1657 as one of the earliest coffee houses in Britain. It thrived as a coffee house into the eighteenth century, but it does not figure in Ralph Rylance’s The Epicure’s Almanack (1815), either as a coffee house or a tavern offering food. In 1866 John Timbs ( Curiosities of London ) reported that ‘ it has long been a tavern; all the old rooms have been swept away and a large and lofty dining- room erected in their place’ 

By 1897, when the novelist Arnold Bennett paid a visit,  it had settled into its role as an old fashioned City pub and restaurant. Here is his diary entry for July 13th 1897:

‘I lunched at the Rainbow, a type of City restaurant which is passing away. A large dark room sombrely furnished in mahogany and gas-lighted , even in the sunshine of a hot July day. In the centre a table at which a stout carver in white cap, coat and apron, carves the saddle of mutton and the sirloin of beef—dishes which are never varied and of which the customers seem never to tire. Here come lawyers and other homes d’affaires of middle-age to who luncheon is a serious meal, not to be ordered without minute obstructions to the obsequious water. ‘ Do you call this underdone ?’ , a portly customer asks sharply. ‘Yes, sir‘. ‘Well I don’t. Take It back’. ‘Yes, sir’. Here one drinks either stout from a tankard, or some sound wine; but if one orders wine, one gives the waiter directions as to the temperature. It is de rigeur. The door leading into the dining-room is labelled ‘coffee-room‘ and there is a significant notice ‘ Ladies dining room upstairs ‘. Ladies are not willingly admitted to the ground floor, and those women, if any, who dared to pass that door labelled ‘ coffee-room’ would be requested to leave , or at least pointed at as unwomanly. This is one of the last strongholds of the conservative male. Yet we males respect ourselves; or we have a regard for the decencies. ‘Gentlemen are requested not to smoke pipes in this establishment.’

Writing in the era of the ‘ New Woman ‘, Bennett is conscious of the discrimination against women in the public sphere, but it is to his credit that he pointed this out, even though the comment  was made in a diary. 

In the 1920’s the journalist Anthony Bertram ( see earlier Jot ) was another writer who haunted the ‘Rainbow.’ J. C. Squire and Hilaire Belloc were fellow drinkers and both favoured whiskers. According to Bertram, Squire was very difficult to identify.

‘ Whiskers and moustaches grew on and off him with amazing rapidity. Once in the Rainbow…Squire came in particularly hirsute, and Priestley said to me: ‘ I don’t think a man has any right to muck about with his face like that. A man’s face belongs to his friends. I’ve got to make up my mind all over again whether I want to know Jack Squire.’

Belloc used to come into the ‘Rainbow’ too, delicately and permanently whiskered, and often accompanied by Beachcomber, about who I could tell so many stories that I cannot begin: of how he listened at a pillar box till a crown collected; of how he posed as the man in charge of a charabanc; of how he made barbers sing in chorus; of how he jumped on his hat in the middle of South Harting High Street and shook the local grocer by the scruff of his neck; of how he roared like a lion in the Strand; of how, in short, he lived up to his fantastic imagination .’

The journalist ‘ Beachcomber’, alias J. B. Morton, wrote the ‘ By the Way’ column for the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975. At first he wrote the column in the offices of the Daily Express in Fleet Street. As the column only took a few hours, and he always wrote a week in advance, his afternoons were free for socialising. However,

following his marriage in 1927 and his subsequent move to Sussex, his drinking days with his fellow journalists were severely curtailed. Nevertheless, he became friends with another Sussex resident and fellow Catholic, Hilaire Belloc, with who he shared some political views. The pillar box anecdote is certainly true. According to one source, ‘while walking through Guildford one day with Gerald Barry, Morton stopped at a pillar box. He talked into its opening. ‘Are you alright, my little man? Don’t worry, we’ll soon get you out.’ Soon, a concerned crowd gathered to see who was trapped inside. Someone summoned the fire brigade to help, while Morton and Barry made a discrete exit. Events like this were quite frequent: on another occasion he littered Virginia’s Woolf’s front doorstep with dozens of empty, quart-sized brown beer bottles.

Continue reading →

Literary pubs of the Square Mile

3) The Red Lion, Poppin’s Court.

Among London’s  ‘ lost pubs ‘ The Red Lion, which was  tucked away in Poppin’s Court, off Fleet Street, just before Ludgate Circus,  is one of the least known, although, as we shall see, it ought to be celebrated.  A frequent haunt of writers and journalists working in the Street of Shame,  it is the subject of an affectionate portrait in The Book of Fleet Street ( 1931), by Clennell Wilkinson, who wrote for The London Mercury. Clennell christened it ‘ The Compositor’s Arms due to the fact that it stood close the Head Office of the printers’ union. The author was a frequenter of this pub from October 1921 to August 1925, but after he had finished going there he never returned.

‘ It was the discreetist little pub you ever saw…and formed part of the great estate of the Bishops of Ely, stretching southwards from Holborn to the very banks of the river at Blackfriars. But you might go past the entrance to that court without noticing that there was a pub there…’

‘The proprietor, a sturdy forthright fellow, who rather liked to have us about the place—would in fact do anything for us except read us—is now alas, dead. So are George Mair and Jimmy Allison, and Bohun Lynch, and John Freeman, and too many others of his customers of those days. But I like to think that the Perfect Barmaid, who afterward became his wife, is still presiding with that gentle, dignified efficiency of hers, of not over this establishment, then over some other…

The connection between pubs and literature is less marked today than it was in the days when Englishmen could really write. Shakespeare would be utterly puzzled to understand why even now I feel I ought to make some apology for mentioning The ( London) Mercury in this connection; he would be astonished if he could see the thin sneer with which these lines would probably be read by some of his most enthusiastic modern admirers. Big drinks are out of fashion—that’s the truth. If they had served American cocktails in Poppin’s Court—but I digress…’

Continue reading →

A Supper a la Grecque in 1788

The Brock brothers of Cambridge—famous illustrators of Jane Austen, Charles Lamb and Swift, among many others—were all fond of using Georgian antiques and costume as ‘props‘ in their illustrations to canonical texts. They collected all sorts of antiques for this purpose and for all we know they may even have indulged in ‘themed ‘dinner parties on special occasions. The celebrated architect Sir Albert Richardson (1880 -1964) was another ‘old fogey‘ in this respect. His house in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, which was inherited by his grandson, Simon Houfe (b.1942), the industrious author of many reference works on book illustration, was chock full of Georgian furniture and other antiques of the period. As someone with a strong sympathy for the Georgian era, it is easy to imagine him holding ‘Georgian dinner parties‘ complete with period crockery, eating utensils, silver candlesticks and cruets, with the host dressed in a Georgian wig, tunic breeches and shoes with steel buckles. 

Doubtless in an age when the Classical world was revered, there must have been many re-enactments of Roman feasts. Perhaps the architect Sir John Soane, whose house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was ( and still is ) crammed with Classical sculpture, plaster casts  and Classical  relics of all kinds, had dinners that celebrated the Ancient World. We now know that the Victorian architect Thomas Talbot Bury attended what his trainee, John Wornham Penfold in his diary for 1846  called a ‘  Palladian Party ‘, although it is not known whether Bury was the host or guest at this occasion. 

However, accounts of such parties that celebrated the Classical world are thin on the ground (or almost unknown ) in English literature, which is a shame. In French cultural history there is at least one. A description of the ‘ Supper a la Grecque ‘, which was eaten in Paris in 1788, in the year before the Bastille fell, is taken from Austin Dobson’s inestimable Bookman’s Budget (1917), and derived from the Souvenirs of the hostess Mme Vigee-Lebrun, ‘ the artist on whose habitually informal and unpretentious receptions it was a hastily improvised reception ‘  ( Dobson).

‘ Sitting one evening in expectation of her first guests, and listening to her brother’s reading of the Abbe Barthelemy’s recently published Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grece, it presently occurred to her to give an Attic character to her little entertainment. The cook was straightaway summoned, and ordered to prepare, secundum artem, specially classic sauces 1) for the eel and pullet of the evening. Some Etruscan vases were borrowed from a compliant collector of the premises, a large screen was decorated with drapery for a background, and the earliest comers, several very pretty women, were summarily costumed a la grecque out of the studio wardrobe. Lebrune-Pindare ( the then popular poet ), arriving opportunely, was at once unpowdered , divested of his side-curls, crowned as Anacreon with a property laurel-wreath, and robes in a purple mantle belonging to the Count de Parois, the accommodating owner of the pottery. The Marquis de Cubieres, following next, was speedily Hellenized, and made to send for his guitar, which his taste for the antique has apparently already prompted him to gild like a lyre. Other guests were similarly 

1) Probably some combination of grated cheese, garlic, vinegar and leek…

Continue reading →

The  Cradocks visit the Art Deco gem known as the Monseigneur Restaurant and Grill, 16 – 17 Jermyn Street, London

This eating place has undergone various transformations since its heyday in the nineteen thirties. In the mid fifties, when the following description was published by  Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, it was the haunt of literary agents and publishers, among other types.

‘ As the Ivy restaurant is to the theatre, so Monseigneur’s is to that critical, cocktail of pedants, psychiatrists and introverts, the book publishers and the literary agents, the majority of whom are addicted to good food. A minority in our experience requires more of a wine than it is young and not corky. Only a fraction can distinguish between wines that have been fairly ordinarily handled and wines that have been cherished in the great tradition. For this reason the Monseigneur, where the food is never less than good  and is sometimes more than very good, suits this brigade down to the socks. Signor Gualdi suffers from insufficient cellarage and keeps a relatively small stock of wines. Such as he keeps will serve you well—in their category, but his wine list does not soar vinously, as he will be the first to agree. Indeed, this courteous and experienced restaurateur soars above the only point of criticism to his own lasting success and the gratification of many contented diners. Among these, in other days, Signor Gualdi numbered the then Prince of Wales, who was particularly addicted to a house speciality of 1955, Choux Monsieur, a welcome and original addition to the hors d-oeuvre trolley. Equally agreeable is the house custom of a dish of the day, Silverside of Beef and Dumplings on Wednesday, Bouillabaisse on Fridays, are days in which we have interested ourselves profoundly. The coffee, too, is excellent, made on the proprietor’s remarkable little table Vesuvius at luncheon-time, when the restaurant seethes with custom and by night, when the tempo is suited to a more leisurely pattern of dining, which is pursued in great comfort.’

What the Cradocks omit to mention among their catty remarks on literary agents is that the Monseigneur Grill was a significant example of Art Décor design and internal décor. Certainly the RIBA seems to think so, as its archives contain a number of striking photographs showing the interior of the restaurant. Designed by architects William Henry White & Sons in 1931 and decorated by French decorators Marc-Henri and Laverdet ( who also designed the interior of the Whitehall Theatre in 1930 ) in a flamboyant style, its dining area was decidedly spacious, but lacked a certain intimacy.

Continue reading →

More extracts from Bon Viveur (1955)

 

Sheekey’s

‘Fanny ‘ and Johnnie Cradock evidently enjoyed seafood and were fussy about how it was cooked and served. They particularly hated oyster stew that had been ‘stewed indefinitely’. Here is their entry on the fish restaurant Sheekey’s, which is still there in St Martin’s Court, Covent Garden, seventy years on, though  operating on a much larger scale as J. Sheekey .

Nell is still there, still opening oysters superbly and still warming us with her bright smile and flashing cockney humour.

    This restaurant could scarcely be plainer. It is a small scrubbed temple dedicated to fresh fish, so pray do not hold us culpable if you accept our recommendation: ask for two lamb cutlets, a salad and some spinach and then moan, ‘ but dahling, I loathe fish’. Stay away, if you cannot enjoy a wedge of fresh turbot (5s.), pink, wet crab and lobster salads (7s), Scotch salmon in season (8s 6d), oyster stew which is not stewed indefinitely ! a heinous offence! And a dozen oysters, which in season are the pick of the Whitstable and Ham Oyster Beds daily dredge.

    Rejoice, too, that you can purchase those sound fishy partners, Hock and Chablis by the glass for 4s., or fly higher if you prefer with one of several varieties of sound, dry champagne. Additionally, after the oysters, Frances dotes upon the big jugs of crisp celery, the tin brown bread and butter, the Stilton, or Wensleydale, and the good black coffee thereafter. A perfect meal for under a pound—without wines—and one of the most nourishing and sustaining that we know.

Proprietors: Mr and Mrs Williams

Questions remain regarding the history of Sheekey’s. The restaurant’s website is good on marketing the place, but not so informative on its history. Considering the restaurant is so proud of its long history, one might expect considerable detail on how it reached its present reputation. Instead all we get are a few words on its humble origins as a roadside seafood stall. One would like to know, for instance, who the fabled ‘Nell ‘was, or who were Mr and Mrs Williams, the owners in 1955. Presumably, like many other restaurants of note, this couple liked to conjure up a feeling of nostalgia for the ‘good old times ‘by retaining the name of the first owner. But was it necessary to change the perfectly acceptable Sheekey’s to J. Sheekey?  

Anyway, things have changed a lot since the Cradock’s visited the place. Long gone, not surprisingly,  is the ‘perfect meal for under a pound ‘. Today it is reckoned that diners would get little change from £100 for an a la carte meal. As for the set lunch (Sun – Friday, 12 – 4.45 pm), two very modest courses ( no oysters here) would set you back £33. As for oysters, the cheapest come at six for £27 and the most expensive ( Loch Ryan ) at six for £39. Back in 1955 you were offered ‘ the pick of the Whitstable and Ham Oyster Beds. But there is no mention of these famous beds in today’s menu.

The mains fish dishes are frankly expensive (‘overpriced for what you get’, as one displeased diner put it on Trip Advisor ). Compare the 1955 turbot at 5s. with the 2024 roasted fillet of cod at £36, or the 1955 ‘ Scotch salmon ‘ at 8s 6d with the 2024 miso salmon at £34. But that’s inflation I suppose!  Nor are vegetables included in the price. Diners have to pay extra for these, and celery is not included.

Continue reading →

Fanny and Johnnie visit Quo Vadis, one of Ian Fleming’s favourite restaurants

(..thanks Flashbak)

We don’t know whether Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, aka ‘Bon Viveur’, were fans of James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming , but the three writers had one thing in common. They all liked dining at Quo Vadis in Dean Street, in the heart of London’s Soho.

Throughout the fifties, when Fleming was writing the Bond thrillers, he was dining and drinking regularly at a number of top London restaurants, particularly favouring L’Etoile, The Ivy, Overton’s, Pimms, Quo Vadis , the Ritz Grill, the Savoy Grill, Scott’s, the ‘ Big ‘ Wheelers and Wilton’s. Of these famous eateries Fanny and Johnnie only chose to write about Quo Vadis, the Ivy and ‘Big’ Wheeler’s in their 1955 Bon Viveur guide, possibly because they felt that the others didn’t need the publicity, or perhaps because the  food and wine they served was over priced 

Fleming had no such scruples. According to one source, he was particularly drawn to the rather rich French cuisine that many of his favourite eating places were happy to serve. He also drank heavily and smoked at a time when this unpleasant habit was permitted, and even encouraged in restaurants. No wonder he died at the age of 56.

If the dishes sampled by Fanny and Johnnie in the London restaurants they did cover in their guide, were any indication of their tastes, they and Fleming were equally drawn to continental cuisine. This is obvious in their entry on Quo Vadis:

Scarcely just a restaurant any more, but additionally an institution, a landmark, an integral part of Soho life. Signor Leoni’s restaurant, with the wall paintings and the air of having been there for ever, has nothing to envy in terms of famous clients from the most fashionable Mayfair restaurant squib exploded in a blare of phoney publicity . ‘Everyone’; goes to see Leoni, who exudes friendliness and enthusiasm and who can be passionately severe without the slightest effort if some part of his standard of cooking and service momentarily slips.

Leoni recommends ( and we, of course, concur) that you should try his Omelette Leoni ( 4s 6d) , his Pollo alla Yolanda ( with cheese and asparagus tips , 9s 6d. , his Calves Head Florio ( 4s 9d.), Artichokes in Hollandaise ( 6s 6d) , Lasagne Verde (3s 6d), and one of these two special house gateaux Gianella or Lorenzia. There are all provided a la carte . In addition, the table d’hote three course luncheons ( 8s 6d) and dinner ( 10s 6d) invariably includes such Italian favourites as Minestrone, Pollo Romana, Ravioli, Tagliatelli and Risotto.

Leoni will willingly help you make a happy marriage at the table with one of the many Italian wines he sells. He may evince a special partiality towards the white Sabioncella Leoni Reserve’47 ( 22s 6d per bottle, 11s per half-bottle) and the red, costing 23s. 6d per bottle, 12 6d. per half-bottle. And why not ?Both these wines come from Cannero, on Lago Maggiore, which is his birthplace. The event which has pleased the proprietor most this year in the winning by his team of chefs of no less than three gold nedals1st class and one Silver Medal at the International Catering Exhibition, Berne, 1954.

Continue reading →

Fanny and Johnny visit the Rex Whistler Room restaurant

In 1956, over sixty years before the Tate Gallery ethics committee decided to close it over criticisms of its ‘racist’ mural, Fanny and Johnny Cradock paid a visit to the famous Rex Whistler Room restaurant in the Tate Gallery. They were there to sample the menu brought in by its new owner, a Mrs Adams, to replace ‘railway sandwiches, canteen tea and dish-water soups ‘. In place of these the visitors found:

‘ palatable soups (9d), respectably-fried fillets of Dover Sole and properly-cooked chips (3s 9d) , adding for good measure grilled trout and turbot for 4s 6d, chicken,  ham and mushroom vol-au-vent garni for 6s, and a nice homely plate of braised beef and vegetables for 4s 9d. Fresh fruit salad with ice-cream and cream costs only 1s 9d. Chef makes a tour of the restaurant daily to ensure all is well with his clients.’

Rather bizarrely, no mention is made by Fanny and Johnny of the astonishing mural, ‘ ‘An Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats ‘ by the twenty-one year old wunderkind of British decorative art, Rex Whistler, which by now had been there for thirty years, possibly because the couple were there to discuss food, and anyway most cultivated diners-out in the metropolis would already have been aware of the art work. Fast-forward to 2020, when the restaurant was last open to the public. The mural was still there, but in place of fish and chips diners with large pockets could expect to find very fine dining indeed and a reputable wine cellar commensurate with a gallery containing the greatest of British art.

But all was to change following an online post by an activist group calling itself ‘ White Pube’. This called attention to the imagery employed by Whistler, which included stereotypes of Chinese people and, worst of all, the figure of an enslaved black child being kidnapped by traders, hauled along by a rope in front of its distressed mother. According to the post, the notion of dining in the presence of imagery that represented the worst examples of the racism inherent in colonial power was an affront to present day values of equality and diversity. The online response elicited by this attack strongly suggested to the Tate trustees that the issue required immediate action and so a committee containing the great and the good was formed to debate the issue. 

Continue reading →

Bon Viveur visits The Marquee, Egon Ronay’s restaurant near Harrods

Egon Ronay, along with Raymond Postgate, has become a byword for good food guides in the UK. But did you know that  the ‘ Bon Viveur ‘ double act of Phyllis ‘Fanny ‘ Cradock and wine expert husband ‘Johnnie ‘ reported on it with great enthusiasm in their 1955 guide to hotels and restaurants in London and the provinces ?

Here is their report:

‘London’s most food-perfect small restaurant. Two restaurants, in fact, for the price of one. By day this chic rendezvous draws women of international elegance who provide the restaurant with an ever-changing mannequin display as they nibble the now famous brioche toast and drink impeccable coffee in tall glasses. It is, in short, a baby Sacher’s ( from Vienna) , where Viennese and Swiss gateaux compete in popularity  with Hungarian Dobos. By night the counters of patisseries and cocktail snacks disappear. Padded banquettes, candlelight and pink tablecloths form  background to tranquil dining and the light flickers on climbing plants, the striped, canopied ceiling, the fruit baskets and the impeccable cheese board on the cold table. The Marquee is always filled with couples—romance thrives upon good food and wine. We single out for special commendation the luncheon-time Omelette du Chef with fresh crème and mushrooms (6s 6d) and the Poulet au Riz Sauce Supreme ( 6s. 6d ) plus an excellent table d’hote luncheon for 7s 6d.

In the afternoon the Savoury Gateaux, 2s per slice, is a superlative bonne bouche ; foie gras mousse , mousse of smoked salmon , egg puree and anchovy paste are layered with brioche bread and subtly garnished into gateaux form,

By night Bisque d’Homard (4s 6d) and a magnificent 9s 6d Bouillabaisse lead on to Quenelles de Brochet-the real Quenelles for 7s 6d., a delicate 7s 6d Sole Florentine, Rognons Bange (7s 6d.) with cream and wine, and occasionally a gateaux which is without equal in this town, rather ineptly christened Walnut Souffle Gateaux. But do not bother about its name. Taste it. It is made without any flour at all and is rich in cream and rum. The commendable wines include a light, clean steinwein to marry with fish dishes ( 27s 6d) , ’47 Haut Brion ( Chateau-bottled)  37s. 6d., ’45 Leoville Barton 29s. 6d, and ’49 Vosne Romanee 21s. Amusez-vous bien mes enfants!

Continue reading →

Dining on the north Norfolk coast before it was as trendy as it is today

Judging from their entries in their 1956 guide to good eating, Bon Viveur ( Fanny and Johnny Cradock ) had nice things to say about eateries in coastal Norfolk. Here are two of the restaurants they wrote about:

The Golden Lion Hotel, Hunstanton.

Nearest railway station: Hunstanton.

This is a place to take the family in summer for a seaside holiday. It is a solid hotel solidly set down at right angles to the sea and the golden sands. We can still remember a guinea fowl and an apricot pie  with fresh cream at astonishingly moderate fee and the samphire ( seaweed) which grows hereabouts and which chef serves among his hors d’oeuvre. His Norfolk Mussels Meuniere are likewise delectable.

Bed and breakfast 19s. 6d.

En pension from 35s.

Breakfast from 4s. 6d.

Luncheon 6s. 6d. to 7s. 6d.

Dinner –8s.6d. to 10s.6d.

Along the coast from here, at Snettisham, the pickling of samphire still goes on in the cottages. The old ’uns in the village will reminisce of mussel and Stewkey Blue cockle collecting which was done in those days in tiny carts drawn by St Bernard dogs. Inland, you must explore the stately homes of the county—Raynham Hall, seat of ‘Turnip’ Townsend, designed by Inigo Jones; Blickling Hall, Jacobean architectural jewel, and Holkham Hall, enshrined in Ilex Groves.

A recent visit in late May by your Jotter confirmed that Hunstanton on a hot summer’s day is still an attractive holiday spot for families , with its funfair, crazy golf  and  golden sands extending four miles down to Snettisham, where incidentally eight years before this entry was written the largest trove of Iron Age gold and silver in Europe was discovered in a field by a local ploughman, an event commemorated today in the name of the antiquarian bookshop in the village ( Torc Books). Some of the old cottages where samphire was pickled are doubtless  holiday homes, though samphire ( which is not botanically speaking a seaweed ) still grows on the mudflats in north Norfolk, although mussel and cockle collecting has long gone.

The station at Hunstanton is now a huge car park, but the imposing Golden Lion Hotel, the oldest building in the town( 1846) is still there, though  a double room without breakfast will now set you back £120. The restaurant  still serves samphire as a starter , but guinea fowl, mussels and apricot tart  have been replaced by steaks, the inevitable sea bass and vegetarian options.

Continue reading →

Gilbert Harding’s Treasury of Insult

Gilbert Harding

When we last discussed the late great broadcasting personality Gilbert Harding we focused on how his studied rudeness was in most cases utterly defensible. He ensured that those people who annoyed him and were duly given the treatment they deserved, were the same kind of people that were likely to annoy most other thinking people. Thus he became a sort of hero to many who could only fantasise about emulating  Harding’s rudeness. 

There is a general perception today that Harding  reserved this brutal honesty for TV and radio appearances, but like so many ‘ celebrities ‘ of our own times, he added to his earnings by bringing out books that encapsulated the Harding personality. In a previous Jot we looked at a book of his musings on the inanities of everyday life. This time we are going to pick some of the best bits from Harding’s Treasury of Insult (1953), which is not so much an anthology of invective as  a distinctly superior miscellany of quotations and anecdotes from the sixteenth century to the nineteen  fifties. .

Some of the extracts are prefaced by a piece of Harding scorn. Others need no such introduction. We will begin with what we now call the ‘ hospitality sector’. Harding’s love of dining out and his attraction to pubs was almost wholly responsible for his corpulence, which led to his suddenly death in a taxi aged just 54 ?

We could start with Dr Tobias Smollett, the eighteenth century novelist:

‘The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum and bone ashes; insipid to the taste and destructive to the constitution. The good people are not ignorant of this adulteration; but they prefer it to wholesome bread because it  is whiter than the meal of corn; thus they sacrifice their taste and their health, and the lives of their tender infants to a most absurd gratification…I shall conclude this catalogue of London dainties, with that table-beer, guiltless of hops and malt, vapid and nauseous; much fitter to facilitate the operation of a vomit, than to quench thirst and promote digestion…’

As Smollett pointed out, shoppers and diners knew about adulteration, but it took a German chemist, Dr Frederic Accum, to tell the whole shocking story in his classic expose, Death in the Pot (1820). Nowadays, of course, we much prefer wholemeal bread to the white loaves made by the infamous Chorleywood process that gave us ‘Mother’s Pride ‘, which though it contained none of the deleterious additives detailed by Smollett and Accum, doubtless tasted little better than eighteenth century white bread. 

Continue reading →

Curries in 1924

Talented artist, friend of Beardsley and writer on cookery, G. F. Scotson Clark ( see previous Jots) , was particularly fond of curries which, though they had been the staple of Anglo-Indian families since the late eighteenth century, were only just becoming popular with restaurant customers in the United Kingdom when his first book, Eating Without Fears , appeared in 1924. Here are his views on curries. 

‘ I was brought up on curry. Mine is an Anglo-Indian family. So fond was my mother of curry, that she used to declare she was weaned on it. In our old home one day we would have” Uncle Edward’s “curry, on another,“ Uncle Charles’s”. Uncle Charles was the only member of the family who was a Madrasi. All the rest were Bengalis, and our early recollections of Uncle Charles—when I was about seven or eight years old—are that his curries were infernally hot. The older he got—and he was close to ninety then—the hotter became his curries, until at last no one but himself could eat them. He lived in a curious old house in Bayswater, a house literally walled with books. The doubled drawing-room upstairs was always scattered with papers. He wrote from morning till night, but what he wrote I know not, except that he was the author of a Telegu dictionary in some twelve volumes, which I am sure no one ever read…

There is no necessity for a curry to be hot—hot with pepper to burn the tongue. Too much curry powder, or curry powder insufficiently cooked, is generally the cause of this. At the same time it should be piquant and not like a  stew with a flavouring of curry.

When the gas was cut off by the Gas Board at his small ‘ Bohemian Club ‘in London frequented  by ‘ artists, writers, barristers, soldiers, sailors, the clergy, including two bishops’, Scotson Clark volunteered to cook an Indian dinner using only a chafing dish and a spirit stove. The menu was: 

                                                                    Mulligatawny Soup

                                                                          Kedgeree

                                                                     Curry of Veal and Rice

                                                            with Bombay Ducks, Chutney, and

                                                                    West Indian Pickles

                                                                     Iced oranges

                                                                      Fruit Curry

The complicated  recipe for mulligatawny soup is as follows: 

Continue reading →

Sound advice and some complaints from Johnnie and Fanny Cradock

Taken from Bon Viveurs’s London and the British Isles (1956).

1) For wine drinkers.

Whenever possible order your wine in advance of your meal so that whites may be properly chilled and the reds brought gently and slowly to room temperature. It ruins a wine to stuff it into a pan of hot water…Do not smoke while drinking wine…Take a mouth of claret or burgundy, for example, draw in a good lungful of cigarette smoke and see how much bouquet and flavour you can detect through the smoke barrage. Now rinse out you r mouth with lukewarm water. Stub out that cigarette, eat a crust of bread and start all over again. If you do not notice a difference, SMOKE; you must be choked with catarrh and would not taste anything anyway. Do you begin to follow now?

Do not obey the final idiocy, which we have heard declaimed in public recently and also read in famous publications,‘ put yourself in the hands of the wine-waiter’! Do nothing of the sort. The chances are ten to one he knows less than you do! Either he knew years ago and is now too old and tired to remember, or care; or else he doesn’t know because he is too young, having grown up through the war years when he could not learn because there was practically no wine. He was, anyway, not a waiter in all probability during the war. Let us remember this with respect, he much more likely was a member of one of His Majesty’s fighting forces.

Avoid at all costs being a vintage or price snob. It is fallacious to suppose that you must purchase great wines in order to have vinous pleasures. You choose how much you want to spend. You keep the wine list and read it as slowly and carefully as you like. You select the wine you want to try. But if this happens to be one which you have never tasted before, copy out the details about it and add your own comments on its colour, nose, bouquet and its flavour. Remember, a wine connoisseur is a man with a long memory, and memory, like everything else, must be helped and trained at the beginning. 

Arrange your meal—however simple—the way you want. Do not be bullied by us or by anyone else either. Choose the wine or wines and build the meal around it or them. Choose the food and select the wines to blend harmoniously with your chosen dishes. Just remember, wine should not be the boss and food should not be the boss. Your aim is to achieve a happy marriage in which each p-lays a part producing a balanced harmonious whole in which flatters and enhances the other, and does not strive to steal a majority of the thunder.

Continue reading →

London restaurants in Fanny and Jonnie Cradock’s Bon Viveur (1956) that are still open today

.

1) The Ivy

‘A classic name in the restaurant world and one most significant to the men and women of the theatre, the Ivy has at last changed hands. Since its inception until, last year it was under the administration of M. Abel, who so many will think of in his present-day retirement with affection and respect.

Now an entirely new ‘ character’ takes over—a big, boisterous, gentle, tough, kindly Edwardian fish king with a tremendous laugh, and a fair measure of that divine inheritance which is cockney humour. Waving a vast paw, he tells you, ‘I’m in fish, m’ father was in fish, I know fish, and yet I still put vinegar on my oysters because I like ‘em that way. It’s the fish lark that has given me four restaurants in London.’ Here he is apt to pause and reflect—the four restaurants seem both to astonish and tickle him. In a world overrun with meagre men Bernard Walsh stands out, nor alone for his height and build—nor for his silver side-whiskers and fancy weskits, but for his overall rumbustious largeness. Thirty-eight pancakes is his normal portion. ‘I like pancakes’, he explains. He probably has more friends among the press than any other restaurateur in London, and that speaks as loud and hearty as his laugh.

As he also likes meat, and Bernard, we say ‘gets what he wants’, the meat and the fish are quite excellent at the Ivy. Oysters are opened at the table ( the Bill of Fare states this), gives the prices—12s. No 2 Natives, 15s. No 1 Natives, 21s. Colchester—and Bernard adds as we twinkle at each other, ‘ I take the boast, ‘natives’ off my menu, when every fish-boy knows the town has run out of ‘em—which is more than some restaurants do.’ He is correct.

Correct, too, and good value are his Moules Mariniere ( 6s 6d), superb lobsters ( the scene on one occasion when these were cooked in the morning for evening service instead of in the afternoon!), served Cardinal, Newburg, Mornay and Thermidor for 11s. 6d.; his entrecotes( 7s. 6d.), mixed grill ( 10s. 6d.) , chops ( 7s.6d.) and lamb cutlets ( 7s.6d.).

Continue reading →

Eating without Fears: a second helping

In our first Jot on the artist and cook Scotson-Clark, we referred to the time he spent working in the City just after he had left school. After reading further into his very autobiographical book we now know much more after about this period in his life. It seems that one of his jobs was as a clerk in ‘ a very old-established wine business ‘. He describes the premises with the eye of a painter:

‘ The office was spacious, with large windows. In the winter a comfortable fire burned in the large open grate in the outer office. Green silk curtains screened the lower part of the windows from the vulgar gaze of the passer-by, and corresponding green silk curtains screened the upper part of the desks from the customers or visitors who chanced to call. The ledgers were so large that it was as much as I could do to carry them from the safe to my desk. Quill pens had retired in favour of steel ones on my entry, as had the sand-box in favour of blotting paper. There was no evidence of wine about the place—that would have been vulgar—but the atmosphere was charged with a delicious blend of the sweet aromae of wine, brandy and corks, that came up from the cellar…’

Scotson-Clark then goes on to describe the process of wine-tasting performed by the chief of the business, ‘a most polished gentleman if the old school’.

‘ I have often him with six or seven glasses of wine before him—each glass with a hidden label on the foot, reject four o five on the bouquet alone and then the remaining ones would be tested and arranged in their order of merit before the labels were looked at. And then came the final test of colour. A special old Waterford glass was used for this. It was most beautifully cut, though the lip was as thin as a visiting card. The stem was a trifle dumpy because it had been broken many times and blown together again, and with each repair , so had the stem shrunk. Then there was a special glass for claret, one with an out-turned lip. He liked it because it distributed the bouquet. Now the dock glass you will remember is slightly larger at the bottom than at the top, the alleged object being to concentrate the bouquet so that it escapes just below the nostrils…The glass should be wide enough at the top to admit the nose of moderate proportions, for the bouquet of the vintage is of great importance as the taste.

Champagne should not be taken from a tumbler except as a “corpse reviver” in the forenoon, and at that hour and, for that purpose, an inferior wine is as suitable as a good one, especially if it be “Niblitized”, that is, has incorporated in it a liqueur glass of brandy and a squeeze of lime, with the rind dropped in the glass. Neither the palate nor the stomach is in a fit condition to receive champagne before 8 p.m., and then it should be taken from the thinnest of thin glasses, either of the trumpet or inverted mushroom shape….On principle I am against hollow stems, except as curiosities. Nor do I like coloured glasses, except for hock which is apt to be slightly cloudy

Continue reading →

The artist as cook:

George Frederick Scotson-Clark

Some cooks may be artists in their own way, but artists are rarely cooks. But if this little book, Eating without Fears, a minor  best-seller in 1924 ( we have a third edition which we found in the Jot 101 archive at HQ) is any indication, the fin de siecle artist, G. F. Scotson –Clark was certainly both, albeit in a very minor way.

Scotson-Clark, the son of a famous organists and composer was the same age as his fellow illustrator and friend Aubrey Beardsley, and was in the same class with him at Brighton Grammar School.  But while Beardsley left school to pursue a brilliant but short career, his friend decided to try his luck in the City ( his biographers described him as a ‘ businessman ‘), only to change direction at the age of twenty when he emigrated to the United States. Here he may well have continued as a businessman for all we know, but what we do know is that his natural talent for drawing ( he appears to have been self-taught) saw him supplying art work for several American newspapers and magazines, including the New York Sunday World. He also designed posters for The Outing and worked as a stage and costume designer.

Then, in 1897, aged twenty-five, Scotson-Clark returned to England, where he remained until his death. He continued to design posters, mainly for the theatre, and his interest in the Music Hall is strongly evident in perhaps his best-known ( and certainly most expensive book), The Halls, which appeared in 1906. Scotson-Clark, though talented as a graphic artist , lacked the amazing originality of Beardsley, hence perhaps his comparatively low-profile as an illustrator today. His plates for The Halls, for instance, are strongly influences by the ‘ Beggarstaff Brothers ‘ who were very popular at around the same time. 

Continue reading →

Compton Mackenzie on his ‘tricks of the trade ‘

Whisky_Galore_film_posterCompton Mackenzie is not a writer who raises much interest among readers nowadays. Few literary people today could name more than two of his many novels, the most famous of which, Whiskey Galore, was made into a hit film. However, back in the early fifties,  readers of his article, Tricks of the Trade ‘, which appeared in the January 1953 issue of The Writer, would have lapped up this very frank account of his daily writing routine, which retains its interest today.

 Mackenzie begins his account by declaring that due to the loss of one eye, he may soon face the possibility of having to dictate his words, something he dislikes. For the moment, however, he still writes ‘every word’. He then reveals some surprises:

 ‘ I wake about noon…drink a cup of coffee and read my letters…I answer about 4,000 a year, which if you figure it out, means at least six weeks of eight-hour days. Too much! After the letters come the papers, but there’s not a great deal on which to waste time there. I get up about one, and if it’s fine take a stroll round the orchard with a glass of milk at the end of it. Then I dictate answers to those letters and with luck settle down by 3 p.m. to work at whatever book I’m writing. I always have to work in chairs because for over forty years I have had to fight with sciatica. A break of a quarter of an hour for tea, and then work goes on until nine, sometimes later. At 9p.m.a very light meal, and then, in a different chair from the one in which I have been writing my book, I write any article or broadcast I have rashly promised to do. Music on gramophone or wireless until midnight, and then sometimes under pressure I work on without music until one or one-thirty. As soon as I’m in bed I enjoy the longed for recreation of doing The Times crossword puzzle. If I do it in under an hour I win: if I’m longer The Times wins. If I’ve failed to finish in an hour The Times is allowed a walk-over and I put the puzzle aside. Then I read until 4 or 5 a.m., sustained by a bar of chocolate and a glass of milk.’

 Mackenzie then reveals that he writes using a ‘ very thick Swan pen with a very broad nib ‘ and that he avoids writers’ cramp and developing a large corn on the middle finger by holding the pen ‘ very lightly ‘. He is very particular (one might argue, rather obsessive) about the paper he uses and how he creates the physical book. Continue reading →