For the past year or so, your author has been meeting a few friends every once in a while for an early breakfast somewhere in London, and Simpson's in the Strand has long been on the cards for some time. Yesterday, the chance arose for breakfast in the Grand Divan restaurant, originally opened in 1828 as Samuel Reiss's Grand Cigar Divan, and soon becoming a chess club and coffee house, before eventually finding its niche as the place to eat traditional meaty English dishes about 1870, attracting such notable customers as P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used it as a location in Sherlock Holmes short story
The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.
The Grand Divan restaurant on the ground floor is certainly a luxurious place to eat breakfast. It was eerily deserted at first, but slowly began to fill with a few customers as the 9am witching hour approached. The food was good, and not prohibitively expensive, although the serving staff did have a frustrating habit of bringing things that were not ordered, which subsequently appeared on the bill. All in all, it was a good place to breakfast though, and the best thing about eating early is that things can be kept relatively inexpensive even in the grandest settings in London, as wine is not on the menu.
For more, see
http://www.simpsonsinthestrand.co.uk/
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From the menu it would appear that the 'Great British Breakfast' (£12.50) does not include either tea/coffee (£3.75) or toast (£2.50), both of which are staple ingredients of a cooked breakfast. So with service the bill would come to more than £20 - value for money? At least they've refrained, for the time being, from charging separately for butter and marmalade.
ReplyDeleteYes, but it's one of London's top historic restaurants, next door to the Savoy. There are plenty of places you can get a much cheaper Full English with everything included and I've written about them too. My top ones are the Regency Cafe in Victoria and Terry's Cafe in Borough - http://www.tiredoflondontiredoflife.com/2014/02/eat-at-terrys-cafe.html
DeleteAmazing value - considering afternoon teas in London can start at £40. You weren't tempted by The Ten Deadly Sins then?
ReplyDeleteI just had the bacon & eggs, but I was certainly tempted!
DeleteI don't eat breakfast because the morning was always so chaotic when the children still lived at home. But Simpson was a chess club and coffee house, so the site has an scholarly background. Therefore your meal was quality research on behalf of historically minded blog readers everywhere :)
ReplyDeleteSometimes we HAVE to do stuff on behalf of our readers.