The Greasy Spoon | Food & Culture

The Greasy Spoon visits...The India Club

 

 

But where have all the students gone? Photo via: The India Club Restaurant & Bar

I've been writing The Greasy Spoon since 2007, and it's to my shame that until yesterday evening, I had never eaten at The India Club. Which is strange, as the trappings and environs of The India Club are very much to the Greasy Spoon's taste. I can go further (I’m really hanging my head in shame now) and admit to you that until a few months ago, I had never even heard of The India Club, and this is coming from somebody who was actually born here in London- in the Big Smoke, and possibly even during one of the very last November pea-soupers.

According to the restaurant's website, The India League founded the club in 1951: 

as a symbol of post-Independence friendship between India and the UK (founding members included Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten)...The charmingly eccentric India Club has remained much the same since its opening over 50 years ago...Today, enter a timewarp with portraits of the Independence era on the walls, bottle-green leather chairs, red lino flooring and wooden laminate tabletops

The original club was situated at 41 Craven Street and did not move to the current premises until 1964. It now occupies two floors of the Strand Continental Hotel (not to be confused with the Strand Palace); a rickety Edwardian hotel with an elusive entrance found beneath a grimy illuminated sign for Cadbury's chocolate.

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

I asked one of my oldest pals to join me. We arrived at 7.30. The joint was heaving. The restaurant door opened to a layered wall of sound. A polite- if harassed- waiter in a white jacket asked us to have a drink downstairs in the bar and promised to come and find us in twenty minutes. The bar, on the first floor, is a cross between a National Service Officer's Mess, circa 1947 and the Student Union of a red brick university. It's a temple to chipped formica. A girl in skin-tight red leather trousers served us gin and tonics, with a wedge of lime. The restaurant, one floor above, is painted a pleasing saffron yellow and decorated with old black and white photographs of politicians and Indian freedom fighters. There is a whiff of the post-war canteen. The dining room was packed full of shouty old men with silver beards, scarily intellectual looking middle-aged women with cropped hairdos, and students. Lots of 'em.

Thinking about it, and if you will allow me to digress for a minute or two, what exactly is a student? The concept of 'a student' is decidedly European and suspiciously anti-English. Students have long hair, and don't wash; they lie in bed until noon, they watch cartoons on the television during the day, they tear up Parisian cobblestones and throw them at the police; they plot revolution and live in garrets. They eat Pot Noodles and read Karl Marx. When students grow up, they become accountants. 

One of my favourite ghost stories is by Washington Irving. It’s called The Adventure of the German Student (1824) and it says it all:

Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Göttingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until, like Swedenborg, he had an ideal world of his own around him.

 

 

Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

Anyway. The food. We ordered the set menu for two for the eminently reasonable price of £16 a head. It wasn't great, and a report in the Evening Standard earlier this year suggests, perhaps, that a snap inspection of the kitchen would not be a happy experience: the coconut chutney was grim: watery and flecked with mint; a bit gritty. Packet popadums. Lime pickle, presumably from a jar. A lukewarm battered and fried green chilli. Mashed potato folded into a limp pancake. The Butter Chicken was okay- actually quite nice, in a decent, juicy tomato sauce. The Lamb Bhuna, visually, left much to be desired. The dal was thin, slightly greasy, and again, a trifle gritty, although enlivened with mustard seeds. The Basmati rice was basic and unadorned but cooked well.

The total bill came to £25 a head, including service and two pints of Cobra beer. It was if the clock had stopped in 1947; but making you appreciate the food conjured up by the terrific Vauxhall restaurant Hot Stuff even more, where for a similar price, you can enjoy Indian food of value and quality.

  

The India Club. Photo: Luke Honey/The Greasy Spoon

 

But, look, I don't want to be too hard on the India Club. You're not going there for some crooked little finger 'fane daning' experience, are you? My culinary standards are high. If you're a student plotting revolution or a grumpy old man lamenting the past, the atmosphere's terrific. It's fabulous value for money, and the service has charm. It's a buy.

I'm a great believer in the idea that atmosphere and continuity are just as important- if not more important than the food. Step forward: The Gay Hussar, Odin's, Daquise, The New Piccadilly Cafe, The Polish Club, The Vine Bar, Piccadilly; the former Joe Allen's, the original Ivy, Wilton's, and the old Annabel's. But as the majority of institutions on this august list are now kaput, you will understand that the rest of London struggles to appreciate my point of view.

Until very recently, The India Club was under threat of demolition- those pesky property developers at their diabolical work yet again, and I am thrilled to learn that the joint intervention of a 26,439 signature petition and Westminster Council has saved the restaurant for the time being, or at least until another wave of development hits London town.

 

The India Club Bar & Restaurant, Hotel Strand Continental, 143 Strand, London, WC2R 1JA (020 7836 4880)

 

Clientele: Students, Swiss Cottage Intellectuals, Out of Work Actors, Silvered Beards, Grumpy Old Men

Ambience: 1950s Officer's Mess meets Noisy Student Union Canteen

Food: Bog Standard

Service: Charming

Cost: £

 

The London Steak House

 

"Just a Beaujolais sir, but a good bottler..."  The Servant (1963)

 

One of my earliest restaurant memories is being taken by my grandfather to The London Steak House, somewhere near the old Roman Wall in the City of London. We were the only customers in an empty restaurant. I remember a few things. The head waiter falling over backwards to fawn over my grandfather (he looked distinguished- my grandfather, not the head waiter- not unlike David Niven with flamboyant Harvie & Hudson shirts, an Errol Flynn moustache and well-cut suits with narrow Edwardian cuffs and drainpipe trouser bottoms).

The London Steak House, I seem to remember, was a (relatively upmarket?) chain- but to an eight or nine year old's way of thinking, achieved sophisticated heights. Here a waiter would advance, and in a hushed tone ask if Sir would prefer "English, French or German Mustard?" All Colman's of course. I seem to remember thick (burgundy?) carpets, padded banquette seating and linen tablecloths. The claret was served in a ducky wicker cradle. My grandfather kept them waiting for about a minute while he swirled the wine around his glass and sniffed. It was a terrific performance. I was terribly impressed.

 

The London Steak House, Old Brompton Road (1966)

 

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". Back then (this was the early 1970's), people aspired to middle-aged sophistication, to becoming a grown up. Recently I've had fun flipping through old House & Gardens from the 1960's and 70's. Full of advertisements for cognac, expensive cigarettes, fine liqueurs and Martini. Libraries with chocolate lacquered walls, Chinese ancestor portraits and bookshelves lined with fine leather bindings seemed de rigeur. A place to relax at night with a balloon glass of armagnac, admire your collection of Marquis de Sade firsts and listen to the Bach 48 on the Bang & Olufsen.

 

Middle-aged aspiration, the true spirit of the 1970's, Dormeuil (1979)

 

I don't know why when somebody mentions the 1970's everyone starts thinking of Mr Travolta, white suits, hairy chests matted with sun oil, 100% polyester flares and Night on Disco Mountain. I remain unashamedly fond of Disco, for in truth, Studio 54 was a deadly sophisticated affair, a sybaritic rendezvous where Truman Capote, the Jacquelines Onassis and Bisset could intermingle with the likes of Andy Warhol, Disco Sally and the urbane haute monde. And for every tenth thousand turmeric-sprayed Austin Allegro (with square steering wheel and brown deckchair striped seats in static inducing draylon) there was one hand-made Rolls Royce Camargue, coachwork courtesy of Pininfarina, a car in which Lady Penelope herself might have cut a dash.

I found very little about The London Steak House on the net, apart from a stylish matchbook on Ebay, with black salt and pepper pot graphics set against a brown ground and the photograph shown above. Note the half-decent abstracts on the wall, and the serving trolley (Flambéed Steak au Poivre and Crêpes Suzettes?).

Retro diners are currently toute la rage in Old London Town at the moment (Soho is full of 'em), which is fine- good even; but wouldn't it be refreshing if some brave entrepreneur decided to look up for once, rather than down, ditched the 50's Americana Shack Look and aimed at something, well, just a little bit more sophisticated? These days everybody aspires to be a dungaree-wearing, Pepsi drinking, bearded 17 year old hick from the Deep South rather than a Bentley driving clubable chairman with an interest in rare books, antique furniture and Dry Martini cocktails.

So in memory of The London Steak House (long may it Rest In Peace), here's my recipe for a simple cognac infused Green Peppercorn Sauce. You have it with steak. The green peppercorns come in little jars full of brine.

 

The Greasy Spoon's Green Peppercorn Sauce

 

2 tablespoons peppercorns

Knob of unsalted butter

1 chopped shallot

Dash of Cognac

1 teaspoon of Flour

100ml Beef Stock

60ml Double Cream

 

Heat a small to medium sized saucepan and add the butter. Fry the chopped shallot and the green peppercorns very briefly. 

Add the dash of cognac, and stir. Add a teaspoon of flour and stir, making sure it cooks properly.

Now add the beef stock and bring the sauce to the boil. Turn down the heat and let it bubble away gently. After a few minutes, add the cream and let the sauce reduce gently. 

Season to taste, and serve with steak.

You may need to play around with the quantities of flour, stock and cream. The sauce needs to be just right. Not too thick (and floury) and not too thin (watery). I've found chef Michel Richard's similar recipe from The Washington Post which looks great. He adds a tablespoon of Soy Sauce, which, I think will help to bring out the beefy, meaty, umami flavours.

 

 

The Greasy Spoon Visits...The Gunton Arms

 

 

One of the many beauties of England is the diversity of its landscape and architecture. The grey limestone of the Cotswold Hills surrenders to the warm red brick, clay and flint of the The Chilterns in the space of a few miles. Each county- however small- has its own identity. Norfolk, the most English of counties, is no exception, with its wide, open skies, undulating barley fields, ancient copses, Dutch gables and bleak, windswept salt marshes. 

 

And late August is an especially poignant time to visit, reminding me of the spectacular and languid cinematography in Joseph Losey's "The Go-Between", when the great fields turn to the colour of straw, and the heat and dust throw up spectacular Harvest Moons.

 

The Gunton Arms sits away from the Cromer Road, on the edge of a heart-breaking thousand acre deer park. The house itself, gabled, and built presumably, in 1840's chalet style, has more than a whiff of the Hunting Lodge about it. The art dealer, Ivor Braka, spent two years restoring the place with the help of the interior decorator and antique dealer, Robert Kime; re-imagining the interior as a relaxed country house of the Old School (Voysey-esque paper and worn leather in the hall, inlaid Hoshiapur side tables, deep free-standing bathtubs, recycled Persian runners, racing prints) accented with a choice selection of contemporary Brit Art, the likes of Mr Hirst, Miss Emin and Messrs Gilbert and George. It sounds incongrous, but here it works, harmonising into a relaxed whole, albeit with a slight edge. It's all a bit rock n' roll.

 

At first glance The Gunton Arms doesn't shout from the rooftops, but with time there's the realisation that everything works beautifully, with great attention to detail- there's a hidden light in the wardrobe, curtains have been beautifully sewn, the beds are spacious and comfortable, there are digital Roberts Radios by your bedside, your keyring is attached to a tiny deer antler from the park- a lovely touch. This is understatement taken to a high art. It's also staffed with a seemingly never-ending supply of helpful and charming young people.

There are eight bedrooms. We stayed in "Langtry" (it is thought that the Jersey Lily stayed in the house during the 1890's; it's relatively close to Sandringham). 

 

The restaurant (The Elk Room) is dominated by a huge pair of pre-historic Elk Antlers displayed over an open spit and grill: here you can watch the chef toast your Cumberland sausage. This must be an evocative room in autumn, especially when venison makes a welcome return, and the heat of the fire banishes the October chill. The menu is inspired by Mark Hix; this is very much my sort of thing: British food, cooked extremely well, for the food at the Gunton Arms is rather good.

Over two successive nights, we sampled (amongst other things) a Middle White Pork Terrine with Piccalilli (£7.50), Cornish Squid with Heritage Tomatoes and Chili (£6.50), Scallops marinated in olive oil and lemon juice, a Cider and Ham Hock Pie (£12.00), Barbequed Beef Brisket with Slaw (£14.50), home-made bread, and Ivor's Crab and Chili Pasta with Parsley (£12.50).

The terrine was superb, full of meaty flavour, and nicely offset with a tangy Piccalilli, properly made in the old-fashioned way. The Cider and Gammon Pie, again, came with a rich sauce, and is possibly one of the best pies I have recently tasted. The scallops, sadly, failed to meet their mark, their delicate sweet taste over powered by an unneccesary marinade, and Ivor's own pasta (although admirable in concept) was too salty and too spicy for most palates- but hey, these are trifling quibbles over what was otherwise, a delightful experience. The house wine (Am anti del vino prmitivo salento, 2011) was also a relative bargain at £16.00 a bottle: smooth, full of blackcurrent and velvet plum; a relevation. Iced tap water is served (in old whisky advertising jugs) without request.

 

After dinner we took our drinks into the garden and as darkness fell, watched the deer herds drift across the landscape.

As you've probably gathered, I like the Gunton Arms- very much indeed. They've got it right. Spot On. It's thoroughly unpretentious. There may be some who dislike the lively bar- it's very much still a pub, with a snooker table, television, rock music and bags of peanuts hanging from a saucy display card- but this is a good thing. There's nothing worse than a Farrow and Ball'd gastro-pub which alienates the locals, many of whom have probably been going there since before you or I were born.

There may be others who wring their hands over the torn leather, the slightly louche atmosphere, the naughty Tracy Emin plates hanging over the bar, the deer droppings in the park. And to them, I say, it's your loss and our gain. Four Cheers for The Gunton Arms! We will be returning.

Photographs from The Gunton Arms website.

 

The Gunton Arms, Cromer Road, Thorpe Market, Norwich, NR11 8TZ (01263 832010)

 

 

La Trattoria Terrazza

 

 

        Mr Jagger samples the delights of the Positano Room, 1966

 

More about La Trattoria Terrazza, the most fashionable restaurant in Swinging Sixties London. Yesterday I spent a snowy afternoon re-reading The Spaghetti Tree- and what an entertaining story it is! Franco Lagattolla and Mario Cassandro opened La Trattoria Terrazza in 1959. It very quickly became the fashionable haunt of artists, writers, models, film directors, actors, photographers and society hangers-on. In 1962, the London Daily Sketch ran a feature which noted that on one certain night, between 6.30 and midnight, the following people ate at La Terrazza: Ingrid Bergman, Leslie Caron, Danny Kaye, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Laurence Harvey, Sammy Davis Jnr, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton. They forgot to include Ari Onnassis. This is astonishing when you discover just how small La Terrazza actually was at that time. Len Deighton, immortalised the restaurant in his spy novel, The Ipcress File: 'In London with a beautiful girl,' Deighton wrote in 1961, 'you must show her to Mario at La Terrazza.'

 

I'm trying to work out exactly why La Terrazza was so successful, and I think, after much thought, there are at least two reasons. The innovative food, and Mario's considerable charm. The initial interior of La Terrazza, sounds, frankly, pretty naff: a kitsch mural of Vesuvius, framed by bunches of plastic grapes and hanging wicker work chianti bottles- nothing out of the ordinary there; but the food, obviously, by the standards of the day, was.

A quick glance at a 1967 menu shows that Franco and Mario were offering: fritto misto mare (fried octopus), rognoncini con funghi al barolo (sautéed calves kidneys/mushrooms/red wine sauce), salsiccie fresche con spinaci (Italian sausage on spinach, tossed in olive oil and garlic), and cervella di vitello alla monteverde (calves brain sautéed in special batter). Of course, nowadays, any decent Italian restaurant worth its salt might sell such dishes, but back then, after fourteen years of deprivation and rationing, this was exciting, new and different (rationing in Britain, unbelievably, only ended in 1954, a mere five years before La Terrazza opened).

And I forgot to mention that Franco and Mario introduced informality to the restaurant scene. Until then, fashionable restaurants, such as Le Caprice, were grand, carpeted institutions where a coat and tie were de rigeur, where waiters wore starched shirt fronts and funeral black tail-coats, where the dishes of Escoffier were served "silver service"- an elaborate ritual which involved waiters spooning out food from silver tureens at the table.

Instead, the charming waiters at Le Terrazza wore hooped Neapolitan fisherman's jerseys (I bet you anything they flirted away like crazy), the food was brought straight to the table, piping hot; staff and clientele were on first name terms, and any pretence at a dress code was abandoned- Tony Snowdon was admitted wearing his trademark polo-neck; from that day, they never looked back. In many ways this was the birth of the modern restaurant we have today.

And then in 1960, the cartoonist and designer, Enzo Apicella, re-designed the downstairs space to create the Positano Room: a cool, white, spare space; a modernist re-interpretation of the rustic. In came green-tiled floors, roughly plastered white walls, multi-coloured down-light spots over each table, arched ceilings, modernist rush-seated armchairs, and rustic lobster pots. Apicella went on to re-design many famous restaurants, including San Lorenzo and the Pizza Express chain. 

 

               Enzo Apicella in the Positano Room, 1960

Here's the recipe for La Terraza's most popular signature dish Petto di Pollo Sorpresa, taken from Franco Lagattolla's The Recipes That Made a Million. Based on Chicken Kiev, it has the addition of parmesan and parsley, giving it that certain Italian something:

"First, have your butcher cut and skin four tender breasts of young chicken,leaving the wing-tip bone. Carefully, without breaking the flesh, flatten them with a flat-sided mallet-cleaver, very, very thinly. 

Place a 50g conical-shaped piece of well-chilled butter, which has been mixed with finely chopped garlic and parsley, a teaspoon of grated parmesan cheese, salt and milled black pepper, in the centre of each piece of chicken.

Roll them up tightly leaving the bone exposed rather like a handle. Seal in the butter by pressing the edges very firmly. Roll the chicken breasts in flour, dip into seasoned beaten egg and then carefully cover with breadcrumbs.

Deep fry the chicken breasts in hot oil until they are cooked and golden outside with the now melted savoury butter bursting to be released."

 

The Greasy Spoon visits...Brasserie Zédel

 

 

 

We've just had dinner at the Brasserie Zédel, currently one of the hottest restaurant destinations in London. It's managed by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, former owners of Le Caprice, and current proprietors of The Wolseley and The Delaunay. I've got a quite a bit of time for Messrs Corbin and King: they've got the formula for the near-perfect restaurant down to a fine art. Let's remind ourselves about The Wolseley: I like the democratic service; a smart establishment where clients are served on an equal basis. My mother, for instance, is a regular; she's treated as royalty by the staff, and it's her favourite haunt when she's up in London from the Country. This is a Good Thing. I like the way they offer you a copy of The Daily Telegraph to read while you're waiting for your guest to arrive; even though you're probably only going to have a cup of coffee and a small plate of something or other.

And the service at Brasserie Zédel is very much along these lines- it deserves an eleven out of ten rating. Professional, discreet, not at at all in your face, utterly appropriate for the relaxed flavour of the joint; and in a restaurant with such a huge amount of covers there always seems to be a flunkey in a long starched apron hovering nearby waiting to attend to your every whim. This, frankly, in our day and age, is a remarkable achievement- and especially when the Brasserie Zédel offers food at such a reasonable cost. And democratic the Zédel most certainly is, with a strikingly mixed clientele. It's packed out: East End trendies, old biddies up from the Shires, Hammersmith PR Girls, fidgety couples on a first date (their eyes met over the office photocopier), hard-cropped Swiss Cottage intellectuals (sweet brown sherry at the Wigmore Hall), Fulham Sloanes, lavicious plutocrats (too many buttons undone, hairy chests matted with sun oil)- out to impress with a round of oysters and a bottle of iced Sancerre.

The Zédel is to be found in a windowless, slightly airless yet marbled basement, formerly the site of the uber-trendy 90's haunt, The Atlantic Bar and Grill- and what on earth happened to that? You walk down a flight of stairs, reminiscent of a Thirties' Picture Palace, all woven wool Deco carpet and shiny brass ticket kiosk. There's also an "American Bar" along Savoy lines. Oh, it's the talk of the town, all right.

The food is in that classic Parisian brasserie style. It's astonishingly affordable. There's a three course Prix Fixe at £11.25 a head. So far so good, But I'm not going to shout out from the rooftops. It's good, but it ain't that good, and for the prices they're charging, you're going to have to appreciate that their helpings are going to be a trifle ecomomique with the actualitié. I had the terrine de jambon persillé (£5.25), followed by a steak haché with frites served in a paper bag and a pepper sauce (£7.50). Both were goodish, the steak probably better than the slightly anti-sceptic and formulaic terrine. But the delicious and perfectly cooked ratatouille (£2.50) I would order again, without hesitation. 

 

But I have a problem. I like the Brasserie Zédel, I really do; but there's just something lacking. It's without doubt a pastiche of the original La Coupole in Montparnasse, beloved of Henri Cartier-Bressson, Josephine Baker and Henry Miller. It reminds me of a brand new "French" restaurant as seen in Sunny Los Angeles. Everything is shiny, refurbished and spanking clean. You need a pair of sunglasses to glance at the refurbished gilded Edwardian Corinthian Columns. Is this the new London? For some, this isn't going to be too much of an issue, but for me it lacks that genuine patina of age, of a hundred years of nicotined plaster, of a Remembrance of Things Past, it lacks that certain je ne sais...

London has never been a brasserie sort of place, which is a genuine shame, as I am undoubtably a fan of the genre. And now suddenly there's a vibrant Parisian style brasserie in our midst, as if it had been there since the glory days of The Titanic: as if it had witnessed two world wars: full of people gesticulating, having affairs, making new contacts, sucking oysters from the shell, flirting, arguing, having a great time; with slick waiters acting as if they have been in business for over a hundred years... and yet...and yet, it's only been there for two months.

I'm torn between two schools of thought. It's a fake- but a very good fake. But for my money, I'd rather spend a bit more dosh- what's left of it- at The Wolseley, which somehow manages to re-create a fin de siècle vibe without screaming 'pastiche'. And that's no mean achievement. And, my god, I do miss those cigarette girls. Those thin uniformed girls in black stockings- with the trays.

 

The Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, London, W1F 7 ED (020 7734 48888)

 

 

The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York

 

 

Photograph from The Kitchen Files

Still on the subject of classic American restaurants, here's a photograph of The Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York. Back in the late 90's I used to spend quite a bit of my time in America (various auctions in New York and Philadelphia) and the Grand Central Oyster Bar, alongside P. J. Clarke's on Third Avenue was one of my favourite destinations.

The Grand Central Oyster Bar really is the most extraordinary place. It's massive: a cavernous warren of vaults, decorated with a mosiac of glittering Byzantine tiles in the Beaux-Arts manner. Imagine such a thing underneath Paddington Station! 

It was founded in 1913, and originally served "Continental" (i.e. French) food, although it became famous for its oyster stew. From memory, there are various murky fish tanks dotted around the restaurant. I like the way you can point a long finger at your lobster of choice, and then a few minutes later the critter is paraded though the restaurant, held high by a waiter on a silver plated serving dish.

 

 

Old Original Bookbinder's Restaurant, Philadelphia

 

 

 

Here's a terrific technicolor photograph of the Old Bookbinder's Restaurant, Philadelphia, taken from Vincent and Mary Price's "A Treasury of Great Recipes", published in 1965. The "Treasury" was really just an excuse for Vincent to eat at various horribly swanky restaurants around the world, no doubt at the publisher's expense. It's a fun book, and includes recipes for the restaurants' signature dishes and original menus in facsimile.

This is very much my sort of thing: fawning waiters in dinner jackets, bouillon ladelled from a silver tureen, the copper canopy over the roaring fire, oysters, chafing dishes over little spirit lamps, an avuncular maitre d'. Bet you anything he was always called by his first name. He's got to be a "Charles". Note the model yacht in the top left hand corner, sitting next to the exposed brickwork. Can't you just see the clientele offsetting their lunch bills against their tax returns? It's like something from The Seven Year Itch.

 

 

 

Rex Whistler and The Tate Gallery Restaurant

 

 

Rex Whistler (1905-1944), "Self-Portrait", 1940, National Army Museum

One of my favourite biographies of the 1980's is Laurence Whistler's The Laughter and The Urn, an affectionate portrait of his brother, the artist and illustrator, Rex Whistler. Rex was killed in July 1944 as the Guards Armoured Division attempted to break out of the salient at Caen. His languid self-portrait, painted in 1940, is now in the possession of the National Army Museum. He's sitting on the edge of the balcony of one of those Nash stucco terraces in Regent's Park, self-aware in his new uniform of the Welsh Guards; Sam Browne belt unbuckled, cocktail tray and paint brushes at the ready.

Rex Whistler died at far too young an age. He is remembered now for his charming, delightful, whimsical if frivolous, illustrations (Beverley Nichol's Down the Garden Path, immediately comes to mind); he was after all, a friend of Stephen Tennant and a Bright Young Thing, but his later work shows the promise of greater things. Here's his portrait of Sargeant Isaacs, Welsh Guards:

 

 

Rex Whistler (1905-1944) "The Master Cook", Sergeant Isaacs of the Welsh Guards, 1940 or 1941.

 

 

Rex Whistler (1905-1944), "Caroline Paget", circa 1938

 

In 1926, The Tate Gallery commissioned Whistler to redecorate the murals of their then refreshment room, now the Rex Whistler Restaurant at Tate Britain (the restaurant is currently closed for re-fururbishment until 2013).

With quirky wit, Rex called his murals The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats: "a hunting party is formed, including a princess and her maid, a prince, a colonel, a captain, a pantry boy and the son of an impoverished nobleman. At the start of the mural they are seen leaving a palace and riding across the countryside, spearing sturgeon, hunting for truffles and other delicacies. The hunters encounter wild and mythical beasts on their journey through the mountains and forests including a leopard and a unicorn".

 

 

Rex Whistler (1905-1944), "The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats", Tate Gallery, London, 1927

 

Yesterday I mentioned my "cook books to save in the event of a fire shelf". I've got another one to add (this is growing by the day). It's The Tate Cookbook, by Paul King and Michael Driver, published by The Tate Gallery in 1996. It might just be still available new, otherwise you should easily be able to track one down through amazon or abebooks. I really love it. Published in an elegant format, with a terrific dust-jacket by William Strang ("Bank Holiday", painted in 1912) it's generously illustrated with food-related paintings and drawings by the likes of William Nicholson, Vanessa Bell, Elisabeth Blackadder, William Scott, Duncan Grant, Stanley Spencer and Walter Sickert.

Inside, there's a selection of relatively simple, elegant (like "iconic", a much over-used word, but I'm going to use it again without hesitation in this case), recipes with a British, even Nursery twist: buttered crab, venison pâté en croûte with Cumberland Sauce, poached pears with stilton walnut quennelles, omelette arnold bennett, breast of pheasant with pâté croutons and Madeira sauce, whisky and coffee ice cream, brioche and butter pudding, lemon soufflé. All this is similar, in some ways, to the 1920s' and 30's recipes in Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food.

 

 

William Strang (1859-1921), "Bank Holiday", 1912, dust-jacket design for The Tate Cookbook

 

Related articles

The unseen artist - Rex Whistler
The Savoy's Cream Cheese and Marmite Sandwiches
Portraits of maternal bliss, Tate Gallery.
Chefs in Art

Old Covent Garden Market

 

 

 

We spent yesterday evening watching Julien Temple's brilliant film, London: The Modern Babylon: a slightly surreal scrapbook of London images, beautifully edited, thought-provoking and at times, moving. It's a more than a worthy addition to the growing backlist of London documentaries, which include Norman Cohen's The London Nobody Knows (1969) and Patrick Keiller's London (1994). Julien Temple has caught the zeitgeist: with the success of the Olympics, London's suddenly very much the place to be at the moment; there's a positive vibe in the air. With all its chaos.

 

 

All this coincides with the re-publication in paperback of photographer Clive Boursnell's Old Covent Garden; an evocative collection of images taken during the 1960s' and 70's, before the fruit, vegetable and flower market was relocated to the brutalist wasteland of Nine Elms. I can just about remember the old market as a child- we must have driven past it on the way to the theatre. Newspapers lying on the cobbles, cartons of rancid fruit, Victorian green painted barrows, the smell of sulphuric, rotting cabbage. To think that the bowler hatted bureaucrats had plans to drive a motorway right through the middle of it! Can you imagine?

 

Alfred Hitchcock set one of his last films, Frenzy, there, two years before the market closed. I'm also a huge fan of Cecil Beaton's romanticised designs for My Fair Lady.

Old Covent Garden: The Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Markets by Clive Boursnell is published by Frances Lincoln in paperback and is priced at £12.99.

 

 

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Harry's Bar, Venice

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure how many "Harry's Bars" there are in the world. Quite a few, I expect. There's that famous pub in Paris, there's the late Mark Birley's smart dining club in London; I would imagine there are some pretty divey bars in god-forsaken fleshpots using the name. But for me, the one and only, the place that can truly describe itself as "Harry's Bar" is the famous institution in Venice, opened by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1931.

I've unashamedly described my love for this place over the years- and I make no apologies for it. I like its wooden simplicity (a bit like a saloon in a varnished schooner), I like the fact that the food is prepared by "cooks" rather than "chefs"- suggesting a remarkable honesty, at least when it comes to the food. I like the immaculate service- the way you can return a decade later, and there will be the same barman behind the counter, I like the continuity; the idea that the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Truman Capote and Peggy Guggenheim might just, if you played your cards right, come over and say hello.

 

Very many years ago, as a callow youth (all of nineteen years old) I developed an interest in the Dry Martini. I was in Venice with my girlfriend of the time. We were shy and naive. We had never been to Harry's before. We plucked up courage and pushed through the hallowed swing doors. It was pouring with rain. We found a seat at the bar and ordered two dry martinis. Harry's serve them in tiny, rather stylish little tumblers with their famous Deco motif, frosted, very cold and straight from the 'fridge. The barman- Mr Claudio Ponzio please step forward- was charming and treated us as if we were royalty, even though starry people like Roger Moore and Michael Caine happened to be sitting over in the corner. The next day we came back, and Claudio had "your usual, sir?" waiting for us before we had even arrived, served up with a wry smile. Now, that's why I like Harrys' Bar.

 

        Mr Claudio Ponzio in action

There will be certain people- visitors to Venice- who will grumble about the place "not being as good as it used to be". They will complain about the quality of the Bellinis; about the number of badly dressed tourists packing out the downstairs bar, they will dismiss the exorbitant prices in the separate restaurant. Despite its fame, Harry's remains remarkably unpretentious- and this, I think, might be the cause of the trouble.

But I do think- and I've been meaning to say this for some time- that's it's often a question of respect, which Venice, as one of the greatest tourist destinations in the world often doesn't get. The last time we were there (a few months ago) we were greeted with a reserved charm, and offered a little dish of canapés. Just for us. We had just been to La Fenice- or possibly High Mass at St Mark's (I forget which, my wife is a Catholic) and were dressed appropriately, a suit for me, my wife as immaculate as ever. You get back what you give.

 

 

 

May I also recommend The Harrys' Bar Cookbook by Arrigo Cipriani? If our house ever caught fire, this would be first cookery book that I would try and save. We use it the whole time. The recipe for Minestrone is certainly the best version I've made- so far. Pollo alla Veneta and Insalata di Cape Sante are particular favourites.