Where to Lunch in London, and Where Not to Lunch
It may be set down at the outset that there are no restaurants in London equal to Delmonico’s in Fifth avenue, or the Café Savarin in the Equitable Building, New York, and no London restaurant serves a table d’hôte dinner at any price equal in quality and style of service to that furnished at the select and elegant “Cambridge,” Fifth avenue and 33d street, New York.
Neither is there a restaurant of the third class that will compare with Mouquin’s, in Ann street, where everything is cooked to a turn, and where even a fastidious gourmet need not find fault. There are two or three Italian places in Regent street where they serve a “Chateaubriand,” enough for two persons, for one dollar, but nowhere do you get a dish of maccaroni that is more palatable than at Mouquin’s, and neither in London nor Paris do you get as good Burgundy for the price as Mouquin’s beaujolais—half bottle, forty cents.
The foreign halls are more richly gilded, and the furniture is of finer texture, but if you are looking for as good food and as well served at that at Mouquin’s, at Mouquin’s prices, you will look in vain.
In the price of wines, however, no first-class hotel or restaurant anywhere that I know of sells wines as low as the manager of the Hotel del Monte, Monterey, Cal. In France, on the Swiss border, I found vin ordinaire almost as cheap as water, in the small inns. The Hotel del Monte, please bear in mind, is a superbly appointed and grand establishment, and they serve you a half bottle of good California Zinfandel for fifteen cents. But then this hotel company own their own vineyards, and make no profit on wine served at table. It is a sort of “sample” or advertisement for their wines.
“The Aerated Bread Shops,” which are as “thick as flies” in London, are probably good enough places to drop into if you are in a great hurry, for a cup of coffee or cocoa and a roll or piece of dry, digestible seed cake. If you abhor marble tables, if you must have a serviette and you would avoid a crowd and mixed company, keep out of the “aerated bread shops,” and by the same token and by all means keep out of the Lockhart lunch shops. The “aerated bread shops” are tolerable; the others are not.
Much more worthy of patronage than aerated bread shops or Lockhart’s lunch shops is the confectionery and cake counter of William Buszard, 197 and 199 Oxford street, where everything is clean and inviting. A similar place of the first-class is that in “the city” of Alfred Purssell & Co., No. 80 Cornhill, E. C. The proprietor of this establishment is related to the late William Purssell, founder of the famous restaurant in Broadway which still bears his name. There are several pleasant places in and near Piccadilly where you may obtain a cup of tea or cocoa and a dainty sandwich, just enough to “stay the appetite.” One of the best of these is Callard’s, 146 New Bond street, but even in this neat and clean little shop they don’t know what a serviette is.
Romano’s, called “The Vaudeville,” 399 Strand, is recommended for its moderate charges, but this is a place I have never tried. So much for the confectioners and the cheap restaurants.
The Tivoli restaurant, up stairs, connected with the Tivoli Music Hall, is in the Strand, just East of Charing Cross. “La Haute Cuisine Française,” as they term it, is in charge of a famous chef, M. Gerard. A Table d’Hôte Luncheon, at 2s. 6d., from 12 to 3; Parisian dinner, at 5s., from 6 to 9, served in the Flemish Room.
Londoners are proud of their Holborn Restaurant, 218 High Holborn, where the glass and the brass and the marble columns are resplendent and imposing, and where you are regaled with vocal music (English glees) during the dinner hour, but the meals are not daintily served: the butter is not cold, and the plates are not warm, and unless you order a costly meal at the Holborn Restaurant, the waiter may wait on you with condescension. Dinner, three-and-six.
If you are in “the city,” in the neighborhood of the Bank (the Bank of England), and you have a desire to see how and where some of the brokers and commission merchants lunch, step into the Winchester House in Bishopgate street—a well-lighted, well-furnished restaurant, where no charge is made to customers, strange to say, for use of water and soap.
Ladies who are in the neighborhood of Westminster Abbey or who have business at the American Legation, are recommended to the Army and Navy stores, in Victoria street, opposite the Windsor Hotel, where a dainty lunch is served at a very moderate sum. You can do your shopping in the same large establishment. They sell everything, from a poached egg to an Axminster carpet or a wedding outfit. The Army and Navy stores is on the coöperative plan. To gain entrance you must either use a member’s ticket number or use good judgment.
Gatti is a well-known name in the Strand, where the Gattis have two large, gaudily furnished restaurants, one of which extends to King William street. The Gattis are also owners of the Adelphi Theatre, where you may always enjoy a drama—if you enjoy melodrama. The Gattis are Swiss, and one of the brothers is a legislator in one of the Swiss Cantons. They commenced in a small way, in the east end of London, many years ago and made a reputation for their ices. They long since moved to the west end, where they increased their business and they now conduct a thriving trade. All Gatti’s waiters are foreigners. They are a talkative set and some people might prefer that their linen be nearer the color of snow.
In Regent Street
If you are in the neighborhood of Piccadilly Circus, a fair place to get luncheon at a fair price is “the Florence” in Rupert street, Regent street. It is an Italian restaurant; the lunch is served table d’hôte and the price is one shilling and sixpence. But there is no profit to the restaurateur in the mere lunch: you are expected to order wine—indeed that is the expectation in all English restaurants and hotels—all hotels that are not temperance houses. At the Florence you can get dinner from six to nine, for half-a-crown—sixty-two cents—and you order wine of course.
If you are fond of high living, and you don’t mind paying for it, take a meal in the middle of the day or early in the evening at the Hotel Continental. It is in the lower part of Regent street, on the corner of Waterloo place, within the shadow of the Duke of York column. It was one of the first houses in London to adopt the French style in name—Hotel Continental in lieu of Continental Hotel—and it was one of the first to serve a first class dinner in the French style. The reputation for its cuisine is second to none, and the hotel prides itself upon the accuracy of the names and vintages of the wines supplied. It has the monopoly in London of that famous brand of champagne, “Medaille d’Or” which received the grand prize in the French Exhibition of 1878 over sixty other competing wines. Cigarettes made of the finest tobacco are manufactured expressly for the hotel in Constantinople and Salonica.
There is always a very gay scene in the Hotel Continental supper room after the theatres close; it might become too lively in the early hours of the morning, but the police regulations oblige such places as the Continental to close their doors at one A.M. Dinner from seven-and-six to twelve-and-six, without wine, of course; for although you are in the Continental you are not on the Continent. A. Y. Wilson, who has been connected with the house since its opening, is the manager.
More attention is given to “the inner man” in London than in any other place I wot of. They seem to live to eat there, not eat to live, and yet some one has noted this difference—you eat dinner in London, while in Paris you dine. Mention the subject of restaurants in London and the majority will ask you, “Have you dined at Verrey’s in Regent street?” Yes, I’ve been to Verrey’s and I found it very gloomy, and very expensive not to say oppressive. You are in the middle of the house and the room is lighted from a skylight. It is not at all cheerful.
Blanchard’s, “The Burlington,” 169 Regent street, is patronized by the higher classes. Dinner from five shillings to twelve-and-six. No higher priced dinner in London.
For a healthful, nicely-served meal, whether it consist of a mutton chop and a boiled potato or a dinner of several courses, much better than the aforesaid establishments in Regent street is the Café Royal, at No. 68 Regent street. In the “Grand Café Restaurant Royal,” where dinner is served, prices rule high. For luncheon go into the “Grill Room” of the Café Royal. You will find the rates reasonable, the food of the best, the appointments on a grand scale, and the service satisfactory. These remarks will also apply to “The Monico,” at Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury avenue.
The St. James Restaurant, which extends from Piccadilly to Regent street, with entrances on both streets, is a large, showy place, with plenty of glitter about it, and wearing the big-sounding title of St. James Hall. The rates are not low, the food is not of the choicest quality, the service is not of the best, and the waiters may over-charge you unless you watch them closely. The charge for washing your hands at the St. James, be you a patron or not, is two-pence. This is a regular charge made by the proprietors, but if you don’t also fee the man who hands you a towel or fills your basin, you might get a cold reception down-stairs the next time you call, and you may fill your own basin.
At the Criterion, in Piccadilly Circus, you can take your choice; go up stairs, and the charges are higher; down in the basement the same dishes are served at a lower price. To quote their bill, “table d’hôte three-and-six, le diner Parisien, five shillings.”
English people when they are thirsty drink beer, wine, or something stronger; Americans who live in cities, American women at least, prefer something weaker, soda water, for instance, which, charged with gas, looks cool and inviting as it comes bubbling from a highly polished, silver-plated fountain. Not until recently could American taste in this matter be gratified in London. Now there are two “American confectioneries” kept by Fuller, one, the principle establishment, at 206 Regent street; the other, at 358 Strand, both central locations. The first is close to Oxford Circus and not far from the Langham Hotel. At Fuller’s you can get ice-cream soda and “caramels fresh ever hour.” In fact, on a pleasant summer day Fuller’s, in Regent street, will remind you of Huyler’s on Broadway, and if you are a New Yorker, you will meet many familiar faces there. If you retain a juvenile penchant for peanuts, that taste can also be gratified at Fuller’s.
The Grill Room of the Grand
So many of the transient guests at hotels in London are out shopping and sight-seeing, that they generally take only breakfast, or, at most, breakfast and dinner, at their hotels, always lunching wherever convenience may permit. The meals at European hotels being usually a separate charge, the hotel is a sufferer by this custom, so that at some, if not most houses, it is understood that, if you take your meals out, a higher charge will be made for your apartment. The manager of the Grand Hotel, however, has opened a restaurant of his own, in his own house, which is so attractive that it not only keeps together his regular guests, but allures “the outside world,” and thus the “Grill Room,” as it is called, of the Grand has become famous in London.
While within and a part of the Grand Hotel, it is not reached by the main entrance in Northumberland avenue. It is at the eastern end of the building, around the corner, in the Strand, and is in what we would call in New York a basement, but no ordinary “basement” is this, and the staircase leading to it is anything but ordinary. The Grill Room of the Grand is a well-lighted, cheerful apartment, richly carpeted and finely furnished. The chairs are comfortably upholstered, the walls are gorgeous with polished tiles, the table furniture is dainty, the food is of prime quality, and the tariff of charges moderate.
Don’t be surprised at the charge, two-pence, for washing your hands in the Grill Room lavatory, and unless you occupy a room, the charge for use of lavatory in the hotel proper is three-pence; but it is worth half a crown merely to see the lavatory, or rather the staircase and landing leading to it, so beautiful are the colored marble fountain, the eastern rugs, the fernery and the Oriental lamps, with which this lower part of the house is decorated. The view of this lower part from the marble staircase on the main floor has been called fairy-like; it is certainly very pleasing.
Strangers are not allowed the run and freedom of the hotels in Europe as they are in “the States.” They can’t use the smoking-room, read the newspapers, loiter about the halls, make a general rendezvous of the house and help themselves to stationery in European hotels as they do on this side. Their hotels lack some of our popular features and the excellent service and discipline of the American hotels, but, on the other hand, they are not so noisy, and are more private. American hotels suit Americans, and the hotels in England satisfy the wants and desires of English people.
Simpson’s Divan
A Characteristic English Restaurant.—A good, plain, thoroughly wholesome English dinner is served in an appetizing way by English waiters at Simpson’s, in the Strand, next door to Terry’s Theatre, opposite Exeter Hall. You get a bowl of good soup, a course of fish, a cut from the joint, a salad, two kinds of vegetables, with bread and butter, a biscuit and a bit of rich Gorgonzola or dry Wiltshire cheese to wind up with, and your whole bill will be four shillings, to which add threepence for “attendance,” which is charged in the bill, and about threepence more which you will hand to the waiter. A feature of the place is that the hot joint, over a chafing dish and on a small table, is wheeled round to you, and it is there cut before your eyes and transferred to your plate. You can get a lower-priced dinner in London, and higher-priced dinners where you please, but none of a better quality and none that is more satisfactory unless you demand fancy fol de rols, indigestible entrées and French dishes made of little or nothing.
Simpson’s is justly celebrated for its “fish” dinners. Both these and the meal above described are served in the middle of the day and in the evening also. On Sunday the evening dinner only is served; the place is closed until 6 P.M.
Simpson’s enjoys the patronage of Henry Irving and of other people famous in the theatrical world, just as it did in the last century. Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, by the way, is in the Strand, near Simpson’s, but on the opposite side of the street. In the summer of 1890 I saw D’Oyly Carte enjoying his dinner at Simpson’s. This is a special compliment to the place, because that magnificent hotel, the Savoy, in which this theatrical manager is interested, is just around the corner from Simpson’s, on the Thames Embankment. During the summer of ’91 I met at Simpson’s another theatrical manager, our own Augustin Daly, with his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Daly occasionally left the Hotel Métropole, where they had apartments, to partake of one of Simpson’s substantial, well-cooked and appetizing meals. There’s no Simpson now, the founder died long ago, but “Simpson’s” is there yet, as it was a hundred years ago, although it is now a limited company. Howard Paul eulogizes this place, and Stephen Fiske recommends it. Besides being a brilliant writer on dramatic matters, Mr. Fiske has made a study of the gastronomic art, and he lived in London continuously during nine years. The reading public put faith in Stephen Fiske’s dramatic criticism; his intimates also trust to his good taste and judgment in ordering a dinner.
It is a well-known fact that changes in the employees at this establishment are seldom made. Some of the waiters have stood at the tables for nearly two decades, and the head waiter has been there (probably not always as head waiter) for more than thirty years. The name of this head water is Charles Flowerdew, so he informed me, and I can impart this piece of information—that this same Flowerdew is a character worth studying. There is nothing of the “Yellowplush” type about him, but he is such a character, courteous and civil (yes, seemingly servile to an American’s eye), such as Dickens delighted to draw.
Mr. Flowerdew knows all the old customers at Simpson’s, and, what is of more consequence to a hungry man, he knows all the choice cuts. He will suggest the best dishes, the rare bits, and he will serve you from the joint, ad libitum, as he proudly remarks. When next you go to London, go to Simpson’s, 103 Strand. You will be sure to meet a few London notabilities, you will be sure of a good dinner, and last, but by no means least, you will see the polite and dignified Mr. Charles Flowerdew. Managing director, E. W. Cathie.