by Suggs
While fish and chips is lovely, with the best will in the world, I couldn’t eat it every day. I couldn’t necessarily say the same thing about French pastries, however. Despite its Italian heritage, Soho was a focal point for the Free French in the Second World War, and the French House on Dean Street was a tiny patch of Paris in London. But there are other French landmarks with just as illustrious a history as the French House, including the Pâtisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street and a particularly fine French patisserie called Maison Bertaux, the oldest in London. It’s unmistakably French, from the mini bottles of Perrier water holding flowers that sit on the tables outside, to the piles of croissants in the window, next to the glazed apple tarts and cream cakes sitting in paper cases that always seem too small to hold them. And when you venture in, the mirrors behind the counter proclaim ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ in unmistakable French script. I’ve purchased many a fine tart from here and been beguiled by Michelle Wade, its marvellous current proprietor. Michelle has been a fixture here for years, having started out as a Saturday girl. She took over the patisserie from the previous owners, Monsieur and Madame Vignon, in 1988. They had run the place since 1923. A patisserie has been here since 1871, so it is quite a legacy. I’ve yet to ask Michelle about the origins of French fries, but she has told me about her past participations in Bastille Day celebrations, which included bare bosoms and judiciously placed cream horns. Is it any surprise that the spud question went completely out of my head?
But just as I couldn’t live on fish and chips alone, I can’t really live on cakes either, not even those made by Michelle. I love Italian food and I love Italy. One way or another, having spent a lot of time growing up in and around Soho, I’ve always been conscious of the smells of Italian delicacies from the shops like Camisa’s, the grocer’s, and the cafes like Bar Italia, and restaurants like Gennaro’s, now the site of the Groucho Club, or Little Italy. I must have absorbed those smells and held them in my memory bank as markers of flavoursome food. I’ve also come across many people involved one way or another in catering and restaurants, and learnt a bit about the business from them. In Italy being a waiter or barista is a very honourable tradition. Perhaps that’s why one of Soho’s legendary maître d’s is Italian. Her name is Elena Salvoni and she must be in her 90s now, but still going strong at her restaurant in Charlotte Street, L’Etoile, a French name disguising the warmth of Italian hospitality on offer there.
About 40 years ago, Elena was running an Italian restaurant called Bianchi’s on Frith Street in Soho. The restaurant occupied a spot just next to Bar Italia and she was a fixture of Soho life during that period. Unsurprisingly, she knows my mum too, but we astonished her recently when we had lunch together at L’Etoile, as until that day she had never connected the two of us.
Elena’s reign at Bianchi’s in the 1960s and 1970s is thought to be such an important cultural phenomenon that its menus and bookings diaries are now exhibits at the Museum of London in the Barbican. Once upon a time, the place could have hosted Christina Onassis, Maria Callas, and Beryl Reid on the one hand, and Ringo Starr, Francis Bacon and Tariq Ali on the other. The names that appear on the bookings’ diary is a comprehensive list of pretty much every person that played a significant role in the social and cultural life of the nation. Leafing through her autobiography, A Life in Soho, published in 1990, every page is full of A-list stars, and not the ragbag that you see in Heat showing off their knickers after falling out of nightclubs in Mayfair. This was an age of innocence, before people were just famous for being on the telly.
Elena recounts how one evening she sang ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’ with Ella Fitzgerald as they both descended the stairs of the restaurant, and on another night joined Labour Party officials and the leader of the TUC, Bill Sirs, in a rendition of ‘The Red Flag’. That world may have disappeared, but Elena, a hard worker, keeps going. If you visit L’Etoile, you’ll no doubt be impressed by the white linen, comfortable, deep, velvet seats and sparkling glasses, but it’s the walls lined with signed photos that catch the eye. If you want to step back in time and dwell among the stars of a gentler time, treat yourself - the photos alone are worth the price of a plate of asparagus risotto.
Mr Bianchi has passed away and there is no longer a Bianchi’s on Frith Street. It’s rather sad that the name just survives as a memory and as artefacts in the Museum of London. At least the site is still home to an Italian restaurant. You remember that I said that Bianchi’s was next to my old favourite, Bar Italia? Well, the restaurant on that site now is run by my friend Anthony Polledri and is called Little Italy. Anthony is following in his grandfather’s footsteps and has worked for the family since a teenager. As I am in the habit of taking my coffee at Bar Italia and using it as a surrogate office, I have got to know Anthony pretty well. Actually, Anthony has a sixth sense when it comes to my demeanour, proffering a kick-start, or a toe-tapper as he calls it, often served in a tea cup with a stick of celery, just at the right moment, when he can see me flagging during a meeting. Little Italy, in contrast to Bar Italia, is a contemporary venture, a mix of plush dining rooms and swanky bar, but rather than relax in its charming surroundings, I ask Anthony if he can help my culinary education by letting me into his kitchen. Having seen the starched linen and gauzy drapes in the upstairs dining room, I don’t let on that my only professional chefing experience is working a pastry machine in a pie and mash shop. Though there’s no denying I was a dab hand at shovelling parsley into a steaming pot of liquor, I don’t think that information would strike quite the right tone.
I hope Anthony might start me off on insalata tricolore - avocado, tomato and mozzarella salad in the colours of the Italian flag - as critically it involves no culinary skill and no heat, and therefore a limited chance of a spark igniting Frith Street. But, reckless of the consequences, Anthony chucks me an apron and in a flash there is a naked flame and I am cooking.
In contrast to the front of house, the kitchen is all very utilitarian - polished steel and hard metal with chefs in whites and hats. It’s a narrow galley kitchen and is run with military precision. I set to work on risotto. Thank goodness I can make risotto. Anthony gets the butter going in the pan, a few handfuls of Arborio rice follow, and then I start getting instructions. ‘Give it a stir,’ says Anthony - it’s not merry banter any more. It’s one thing cooking in your own kitchen, but it’s all very different when you are among a load of Italian chefs. I’ve been learning Italian for years but in that environment, all of a sudden every word I knew went straight out the window.
Risotto is simple, but like so many great Italian dishes, it requires a lot of attention. You have to keep at it, adding stock and giving it a stir. You need to concentrate. There I am, ladling on the stock as the rice soaks up the liquid, conscious of half a dozen pairs of eyes on my every move. Then Anthony offers me butter to loosen the gloopy mixture that is building in the pan. I am in the zone now, and the risotto is nearly there; a touch more butter and it goes all glossy, then a spoonful of Parmesan to add that creamy richness. Anthony tells me to take it off the heat, and obediently the pan scuttles across the stove. ‘Add a bit more Parmesan,’ says Anthony, and given it’s his kitchen, I won’t argue. It has a lovely sheen now. I’ve gone all Nigella Lawson. I stir - no, I wrap - the melting Parmesan in among the nuggets of glossy golden rice. It’s a pan oozing with promise. I am so excited I start talking enthusiastic but ungrammatical Italian, extolling the virtues of food, glorious food. After all that effort, the general view in the kitchen is that my risotto is not too bad at all. Talk about being damned with faint praise.
Using all that Parmesan turned my mind to Samuel Pepys, who I have already tried to credit with the invention of the doner kebab. Much of the London he knew went up in smoke in 1666. Like me, he did like a good meal, and what I like about him in particular is the fact that when preparing to leave his house as the fire drew nearer to his home on Seething Lane, near the river not far from the Tower of London, one of his l
ast acts was to bury his Parmesan cheese in his garden. There was no more room on the cart and he obviously couldn’t bring himself to give it away or leave it to the flames. So what else can you do with such treasure but bury it? You’ve got to admire a man who risks his life for his cheese. Pepys escaped the bubonic plague of 1665 and he and his house escaped the Great Fire of 1666, though it did burn down in another fire in 1673, so there’s nothing to visit now. You can, however, pop your head inside a beautiful old church, St Olave’s, just at the top of Seething Lane on Hart Street, where the old fellow found his final resting place, though I am sorry to say that he never did find his cheese.
It’s a lot easier to get the exotic ingredients needed for your risotto now. We probably take it for granted that we can buy Parmesan cheese in the high-street supermarket. But this is quite a recent phenomenon. It was really not that long ago that you had to make a special journey to a special shop in Soho. Imagine explaining that to your wife or girlfriend! Elizabeth David, one of the great cookery writers in the years BD (before Delia), gave readers of her book Italian Food specific directions as to where ingredients could be sourced. She was pretty worried about the availability of good Parmesan in 1954. ‘It is exceedingly rare to find good Parmesan in this country,’ she said, and the only places to go were ‘the Italian shops of Soho’. Goodness only knows what you were meant to do if you were reading Elizabeth David’s book and lived in Redruth or Runcorn. Anyone wishing to cook Elizabeth David-style food in 50s Britain who couldn’t get to Soho would’ve struggled to find even the very basic ingredients we take for granted today, such as olive oil, which was only available from Boots, where it was sold to alleviate earache! To be fair, it’s still pretty handy for earache, but we’ve also got some culinary uses for it now.
One of those stores saving Elizabeth David’s prosciutto in 1954 was the Italian grocer’s Camisa’s on Old Compton Street that I remember from my youth. This shop is a survivor, despite the changing face and feel of Soho over the last 40 years. It is packed with all the food smells of Italy, and is extraordinary in a very straightforward, ordinary sort of way. In the window are great sparkling chunks of Parmesan, like rocks quarried from the Parmesan mines of Reggiano. Inside is a counter brimming with dishes of olives and homemade ravioli, and on the shelves opposite is enough dried pasta to weather a year-long siege of Soho. Lina Stores on Brewer Street is another treasure trove of Italian delicacies whose layout hasn’t changed since the 1940s. We owe a debt of gratitude to these two Soho stalwarts for their ground-breaking contribution to helping Britons discover that spaghetti doesn’t really grow on trees, and for continuing the good work despite an onslaught from the supermarkets. Fortunately for Camisa’s and Lina Stores, ordinary, authentic Italian grocers are pretty rare in London, and so both have loyal and regular customers. They come from far and wide to purchase their fresh pasta here.
There is a similar loyal fanbase for another grocer’s up in Muswell Hill, Martyn’s, which has been there since 1897. It’s not Italian, but it has its own peculiar heritage and, like both Lina Stores and Camisa’s, it has kept on keeping on. It sits among a parade of shops on Muswell Hill Broadway. There is a pleasing late-Victorian uniformity to the street, even down to the repeated fan-and-shell mouldings above doorways and windows. That’s because the buildings along the Broadway are all part of a planned scheme.
Here, among the usual chain stores, failing banks and mobile-phone stores, which I swear seem to breed along the high streets of Britain, is this independent food shop which seems to be bucking the trend. If you don’t care to buy your food by walking up and down aisles, and you want to have a good look at your prunes before making your regular purchase, Martyn’s is the grocer’s for you. I, for one, welcome the thought of asking for half a pound of brazils and a man behind the counter handing me a packet with the comment, ‘Your nuts, sir.’
Martyn’s was one of the very first tenants on Muswell Hill Broadway and has been in the same family from the date of that late-Victorian building boom. Just as well, as the mosaic tiles in the doorway spell out the family name in little brown-and-cream squares.
Once you do step over the threshold, you’ll find comforting jars of lemon curd along with cardamom seeds, preserves and pastes, grains, nuts and dried fruit. The old mahogany counter runs the length of the shop and behind it the shelves reach up to the ceiling. There’s even a set of old brass scales. There is nothing lurid or brash or branded here, except Martyn’s own brands of packeted tea, herbs and spices and the old tins of ‘Golden Brandy Snaps’ and Peek Frean’s ‘Princess’ biscuits which are now used to store coffee beans.
The colours are all muted creams, browns and greens, like a Farrow & Ball paint chart. But this is not a heritage shop: the goods are real enough and the customers are loyal. I met one of them on my last visit, a young lady called Hettie Bowers, who at the age of 100 still comes in for her coffee.
I suspect Hettie would agree with me that over the last 100 years, food on offer in the capital has certainly become more diverse and, in the absence of chalk and lead, much improved. Individual restaurants and cafes come and go with changing tastes and styles, and each new generation often wants something a bit different. The fact that some dodgy diners that overcooked your carrots have perished to make way for the array of new arrivals is probably not to be mourned. But the disappearance of places like the New Piccadilly cafe is why I now cherish places like Cooke’s, the Lorelei and Bar Italia, and shops like Martyn’s, Camisa’s and Lina Stores all the more. These once ordinary, everyday places, which are not part of a chain or big brand and are sometimes just a bit off the beaten track, are becoming extraordinary and exceptional because fewer and fewer of them exist. Perhaps if we know more about the history of these places and how they’ve come to be where they are, we will make more effort to patronise them and, who knows, make a difference to their chances of survival. In an attempt to do my bit, I hope the various stories in this chapter will encourage us all to cherish some of the long-standing gems that are out there. But somehow I feel frustrated and even forlorn about the whole thing. Perhaps it is low blood sugar that has made me a bit maudlin, and I need some food inside me. It’s too early for a kebab. I feel I ought to have something traditional, so perhaps I’ll see if I can find a place selling that Huguenot/Jewish fusion food that seems to have become all the rage.
CHAPTER EIGHT
This Sporting Life
I like watching all sports. I would happily sit down with Beau Brummell and chums and watch competitive raindrop racing. It has also been observed in my house that if the TV screen is mainly green and there is a ball rolling around, I am instantly transfixed. Although for my own sanity, my family draw the line at crown green bowls. While I am very happy to cheer on the lads of many colours from the comfort of my sofa, you can never beat the live experience, and I learnt from an early age that it sometimes takes a bit of grit and determination just to get to a game, let alone the perseverance needed to stick it out through thick and thin. And I’m not just talking about extricating myself from the pub.
There are two spectator sports that play an important part in my personal sporting landscape, and they’ve experienced contrasting fortunes over the last 50 years. They are both sports that we went to watch in our droves every week from the 1930s through to the 1960s: football and greyhound racing. Before the Second World War, greyhound racing came close second to football in that often-run race, the popularity stakes - not quite a photo finish, but it gave football a good run for its money.
Sometimes the two sports shared some of London’s most glamorous grounds, like Wembley and my home turf Stamford Bridge. There were 220 tracks across the country, with weekly attendances topping five million. Despite the BBC’s refusal to broadcast commentaries on the big meetings, like the Greyhound Derby, it had a huge following. The BBC didn’t consider greyhound racing to be a desirable or useful sport, and its working-class roots didn’t appeal to the bigwigs who saw the Oxford and
Cambridge Boat Race and Wimbledon as jewels in the crown of the broadcasting calendar and the epitome of British sporting endeavour. The BBC only started covering greyhound racing because its popularity made it impossible not to. In 1953 the BBC showed three races, but dared not broadcast the results of any other races for fear it would encourage gambling among the masses. Isn’t it nice to be treated like adults?
But while football is now London’s dominant sport, greyhound racing is in terminal decline, very much on the last of its four skinny legs. Given the close association of these two sports, which often shared both stadiums and supporters, and their contrasting fates, I thought I would take a closer look at their history in the capital, which means boldly going where I have not ventured before and revisiting a few old haunts too. I’ll start with greyhound racing, as I think football will be able to survive without my immediate attention, while the whole greyhound racing business looks extremely fragile, Walthamstow dog track having turned off the power to the electric hare in the summer of 2008 after 76 years in business.
Racing and hunting with hounds have ancient roots. Tombs of the pharaohs are adorned with images of hounds, and historians think that Cleopatra indulged in a bit of dog racing, presumably when she wasn’t chasing Mark Antony. Maybe she combined the two. I can imagine it now, with Sid James as Mark Antony dressed as the rabbit in Carry On up the Dog Track. Yes, I like it.
Elizabeth I loved her hounds and she is credited with establishing the rules for competitive game hunting with hounds, where two dogs were pitched against each other to hunt down their prey. At the start of the 1600s, competition using hounds to hunt hares - known as hare coursing - was all the rage. After a morning’s hare coursing you’d head off to the Globe Theatre for an afternoon play. Perhaps you’d fail to find a laugh in A Midsummer Night’s Dream while indulging in the new fad of smoking tobacco. Presumably, it would then be a few pints of sack and on to a thrash-lute club to dance a few quadrilles, before heading off for an eel pie and then home to bed. The perfect end to the perfect day.
