London: The belly of the beast

[Gavin Jones]

In an attempt to use eGullet constructively I would like to explore the 'gastrogeography' of London: To eat the social history of the city.

I plan to explore noteworthy foods, places (& drinks) of London and report here - I'd like some help in deciding what appropriate subjects are.

Some possibilities would be:

Haute cuisine in London, centres on the Roux family and their culinary offspring so to examine this I plan to eat at Le Gavroche.

More complex: Fast-food, London's history and streets are informed by fast-food of various sorts.

The first Mcdonald's in London landed in Woolwich in the 1970's - I plan to hop on a bus and eat a french fry there. But where was the first Wimpy? Which Fish & Chip shop has a historical claim to my attention?

Food has been carried by various immigrant groups. It is probably too late to find a persistence of Roman dining habits in London - and I'm guessing there's no longer a Huguenot snack bar off Fournier street. But there's a huge and edible impact of migration from Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Vietnam and many other places. I'd like to find out more about these foods and its place in London.

TV: An undeniable part of the social impact of food in the last 20 years has been via TV - should I pay a pilgrimage to Fifteen (Jamie Oliver's restaurant), or try and get in the studio audience of 'Ready Steady Cook'?

Commodity: Foodstuffs are tradable assets, and the markets and exchanges where food was sold have shaped this city. I probably need to explore the past (The Fish Harvest Festival, say, or old Billingsgate) and the present - a food based investment portfolio, say, if eGullet is anything to go by, principally composed of Pork Belly futures.

Politics: Where have the epochal political decisions of London's history been taken - and what is their food connection. I'm not constraining myself to dining at Granita for this one.

Anyhow thoughts & advice would be most welcome.

[Andy Lynes]

Politics: Where have the epochal political decisions of London's history been taken - and what is their food connection. I'm not constraining myself to dining at Granita for this one.

You've got to wangle an invite to the dining rooms at the Houses of Commons for that one.

Excellent idea by the way.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

TV: An undeniable part of the social impact of food in the last 20 years has been via TV - should I pay a pilgrimage to Fifteen (Jamie Oliver's restaurant), or try and get in the studio audience of 'Ready Steady Cook'?

The studio audience of "Ready Steady Cook" are always saddened to learn that health regulations prevent them from sampling the food.

[AdamLawrence]

I had lunch in the Palace of Westminster a few years back. It was a press lunch organised by a company whose non-exec chairman was a Tory MP. There were a number of low-rent politicoes in attendance.

Food was average banqueting fare, but what struck me most was the drink. Decent claret, good port, and so much of it! I can't remember ever seeing folk sinking multiple glasses of port and brandy at lunchtime.

Everything anyone ever tells you about boozing at Westminster is true. If I ever - God forbid - found myself there as a 'resident' I'd be an alcoholic in no time.

Adam

[Vanessa]

You've just reminded me of something I once read about the origins of certain types of Italian restaurants in London - maybe this will ring a bell with someone because I can't remember the details at all, but the history seemed interesting. The article was lamenting the demise of Valchera's restaurant in Richmond, a truly old-world Italian restaurant that was replaced by a McDonalds. It went into the history of this genre of restaurant - apparently you could tell by the name and the style of the place, and how they were dying out in London. Was it that they were Swiss Italian immigrants? Or Swiss German? There was definitely a story there. Did they all come over at a specific time early in the 20th century? I recently walked past a similar type of place behind Marble Arch - nearly next door to Green Valley.

v

[Charlene Leonard]

haven't the House of Commons opened their restaurant doors to the hoi poiloi due to the lack of business now parliamentary hours have changed?

[macrosan]

I love it, Gavin, great project

If you're stuck for someone to go with to Gavroche, I'd be delighted to join you, in the interests of research of course. It's on my list

I'm pretty sure the first Wimpy Bar in London, indeed in Britain, was in Coventry Street. Wimpy was an American franchise which was first taken up by J Lyons & Co. I believe they put the first Wimpy Bar in the famous Lyons Corner House on the corner of Coventry Street and Rupert Street, home of the "bottomless cup of coffee". That was in about 1959. Wimpy was then sub-franchised by J Lyons, and my father opened one up in 1962 in Bracknell, Berks. In my holidays, I used to cook and serve the hamburgers, and I confess to liking them The franchise operation was interesting --- the sole requirement was that the franchisee had to buy the patties and the buns from Lyons, and Lyons did the shopfitting. The quality of the patties was excellent.

[Simon Majumdar]

I think you should also visit The Silver Dollar in North Harrow. Reputedly the first Pizza place in the UK and still open. when I used to eat that stuff, their pizzas were very good indeed

[Loula]

haven't the House of Commons opened their restaurant doors to the hoi poiloi due to the lack of business now parliamentary hours have changed?

That's what I thought Charlene, and it's on the Evening Standard website, here but you need to faff around registering and I haven't but remember the article only a few days ago (but can't find it in the recycling box, sorry!).

A friend used to work there and said the booze was astonishingly cheap, but then it needed to be for the paltry wages the MP paid her.

Politics: Where have the epochal political decisions of London's history been taken - and what is their food connection. I'm not constraining myself to dining at Granita for this one.

Granita's not the New Labour of old place anymore, same name but new owners (I think) - they advertise a very cheap prix fixe on a board outside if you fancied a trip for 'background' info.

A brief Billingsgate aside - my local bus has introduced signs which say 'Would all customers returning from Billingsgate please ensure that all purchases are appropriately wrapped for the comfort of other passengers'. In case you are bitten on the leg by a stray trout perhaps?

[Tonyfinch]

I'm not constraining myself to dining at Granita for this one.

Well that's just as well because Granita is mediocre in the extreme-always was even when whoever owned it before owned it.

I went there several times in the mid nineties hoping to catch Gordon and Tone in order to tell them that I'll run the country if they were going to squable, and I don't think I had a single interesting or memorable dish, let alone meal. It was also uncomfortable and noisy. One of those restaurants where I really couldnt see what any, let alone all, of the fuss was about.

Edited February 25, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Kikujiro]

Gavin, what will be the product of this research?

[Gavin Jones]

The product will be food-related eGullet content.

Plus some sort of purposeful activity for me, possibly including paunch reduction.

I am not sure I want this to be quite as Jonathan Meades meets Iain Sinclair as it sounds.

re: the Granita comments. I should also point out that this is not a pursuit of delicious food, if there are arguments for the social/historical significance of the food then cram it down my cakehole I shall.

So I will have to eat the first 'Big Mac' of my life, I fear.

[StephenT]

Gavin, there were a number of restaurants mentioned on the "most important restaurant to open in London" thread and most of them had reasons that they might be so considered. Could be worthwhile going through that thread and seeing if there are any there that'd fit in with your ultimate purpose. Some will be extinct and/or rather expensive iirc.

[Wilfrid]

Nothing wrong with Meades meets Sinclair. Pataphysicians everywhere salute you.

I'd be interested in the fate of hot eels, pie and mash, if you can fit them in. Death of a working class staple.

[Gavin Jones]

I remember.

Rules definitely gets in as old-style heritage restaurant.

Alastair Little would have been my choice for his work at Kensington Place, development of rustic Italian chic & as exemplar of the generation of British cooks who started in the 70's/80's. However he is apparently no longer cooking at his eponymous places - as a consequence of divorce. Poo. For some unidentifiable reason I would try to avoid dining at an AWT establishment, though he has shown a certain entrepeneurial invention.

I argued for Veeraswamy but I think from the social history point of view it may not be a defensible example of the social impact of food from the Indian sub-continent.

Sketch obviously wouldn't get in as it has had zero impact.

[Wilfrid]

Gavin, I am expecting no less than a reinterpretation of Baudrillard's words, from a gastronomic perspective:

"The disappearance of history is of the same order: there too, we have gone beyond this limit or boundary where, subjected to factual and information-al sophistication, history as such ceases to exist. Large doses of immediate diffusion, of special effects, of secondary effects, of fading - and this famous Larsen effect produced in acoustics by an excessive proximity between source and receiver, in history via an excessive proximity, and therefore the disastrous interference of an event with its diffusion - create a short-circuit between cause and effect, similarly to what takes place between the object and the experimenting subject in microphysics (and in the human sciences!). All things entailing a certain radical uncertainty of the event, like excessive high fidelity, lead to a radical uncertainty with respect to music. Elias Canetti says it well: "as of a certain point", nothing is true anymore. This is also why the soft music of history escapes us, it disappears under the microscope or into the stereophony of information."

[macrosan]

Is either Kettner's or Gennaro's still around ? And how about Wheeler's (althopugh my last meal in Old Compton St was pretty awful) ? Gay Hussar ? Langan's Barsserie ? What's the name of Chaucer's pub in Southwark - The George ?

[Kikujiro]

Alastair Little would have been my choice for his work at Kensington Place, development of rustic Italian chic & as exemplar of the generation of British cooks who started in the 70's/80's. However he is apparently no longer cooking at his eponymous places - as a consequence of divorce.

Was AL at Kensington Place?

Both AL and Rowley Leigh were at 192, as were many others.

[g.johnson]

These clever froggy chaps can never quite decide whether they love or loathe physics, can they? Understanding it, however, is clearly beyond them.

[Kikujiro]

The other day a taxi driver told me about a great pie and mash place in Exmouth Market. I was a bit surprised when he didn't go on to charge me thruppence ha'penny and turn into a pumpkin on the stroke of midnight.

[Kikujiro]

Kettners is still there, but it's a PizzaExpress-cum-champagne bar.

[Simon Majumdar]

The other day a taxi driver told me about a great pie and mash place in Exmouth Market. I was a bit surprised when he didn't go on to charge me thruppence ha'penny and turn into a pumpkin on the stroke of midnight.

Clarke's in Exmouth Market, Isn't it? It's OK

what about

The Eagle ( first Gastro Pub )

Brick lane Beigel bakery

S

[Kikujiro]

M&S prepared foods.

Ubiquitous and always Italian-run sandwich bars: evaluate and explain.

Are any of the green huts that serve greasy-spoon food to taxi drivers still in existence?

[Wilfrid]

Gennaro's is long, long gone, Martin. Kettner's remains a remarkable building, but was purchased by Peter Boizot, owner of the Pizza Express chain back in the '80s. When he sold Pizza Express, he retained Kettner's, and last time I looked it was still serving dodgy pizzas. What a wasted space.

Gavin, in addition to Soho, Fitzrovia could stand some further exploration. That which was once the White Tower has an interesting history, and I'd love to know what's on the premises today. And then there's that grand old French restaurant on Charlotte Street, which for years served hors d'oeurvres from a trolley to the likes of John Gielgud and Alec Guinness. L'Etoile - back in the '90s, it was taken over by the former maitre (or maitresse) d' from L'Escargot , Elena, and is now Elena's L'Etoile. Now? Well, it was when I last looked.

Edited February 25, 2003 by Wilfrid (log)

[Kikujiro]

Any food manufacturing left in London?