My 48-hour layover in London in late summer ended up full of good-to-superb examples of traditional British food, some by design but mostly by chance. Since our visit last year had been abruptly altered by the funeral of a good friend, I still had some notes on potential targets.
But tea at the Oxford Street department store Selfridge’s wasn’t on my list, it was serendipity. Dolly’s, their tea room, is named for the Dolly sisters, Ziegfeld Follies stars who became the mistresses of the store’s founder, probably a unique homage. An afternoon tea was just the thing.
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Three different crustless half-sandwiches, larger and tastier than their expensive cousins at New York’s Plaza Hotel, a proper scone with jam and cream as thick as soft butter and a pastry came with a pot of real tea, which had a nifty strainer to catch its own drips, were a fine substitute for lunch. Plenty of multinational people-watching provides entertainment. Department stores are good tea spots and cheaper than the fancy reservations-suggested places like Claridge’s.
Where there is tea, there also ought to be fish and chips, and north to Marble Arch is the Golden Hind (below left). In their 98th year, it’s a very traditional chippery, with greaseless, perfectly cooked fish, the fat french fries that are traditional, and lots of locals carrying in beer and wine from nearby. I had skate, which still had the cartilage in it, fine with me, but most of the fish is boneless. If you’re traveling with non-fish people, the London branch of the steakhouse Relais de Venise L’Entrecote (below right), which does only steak (at a relatively reasonable price) is across the lane and Woodlands, a well-known Indian vegetarian restaurant, is a couple of doors down.
And then there was breakfast. Borough Market is an immense street market with its own website, located on the South Bank clustered around Southwark Cathedral. It’s wondrous for snooping around. Roast restaurant sits on what Americans call the second floor (below) of one of the market buildings, overlooking the buzz, and they serve a serious English breakfast in this very Dickensian neighborhood.
I went for the Full Borough (below), after yearning for the kippers but thinking that St. Louisans would be more interested in a breakfast that didn’t involve warm, strongly-flavored smoked fish. Good bacon, not as crisp as Americans cook it, but that’s to be expected, a “Roast recipe” sausage from the Ginger Pig, a now-famous butcher (whose stall is directly beneath Roast, and they sell – wait for it – pork steaks!), and black pudding, a sausage so incredibly delicious, I’m loath to discuss what’s in it. (Pig blood.) Grilled tomato, grilled mushrooms, good toast and a couple of fresh farm eggs. And, oh, bubble and squeak, which is made of crushed potatoes, cooked cabbage, green onions and a few peas thrown in, all in a patty that’s browned.
The sausage was a far cry from the breadcrumb-heavy, deeply bland English breakfast sausage some of us have come to dread, and the black pudding I’d walk a mile for, with hints of onion and sage. And the latte I ordered was so rich that if I’d added sugar, it would have been like melted coffee ice cream. A beautiful restaurant, good and unobtrusive service, and a menu that deserves the consideration of any London visitor from the States, no matter what meal they’re having.
There’s plenty of good modern and ethnic food in London, but learning, or re-learning, the classics always seems to pay dividends.
