Dining Out in London : The Best of Traditional British Fare

Market day in any English town reveals a delectable array of fruits and vegetables fresh from the farm--new potatoes from Guernsey, fresh asparagus, bright-red raspberries.

What frequently happens to these ingredients on the way to the table has given British cooking a reputation for bland, overcooked dishes. But all that has changed.

Throughout England, and especially in London, bright young chefs are creating tasty new renditions of traditional British dishes.

Brothers Colin and Malcolm Livingston own a trio of London restaurants--the English House, English Garden and Lindsay House--that serve excellent British specialties at reasonable prices.

“We do new interpretations of traditional British cuisine,” says Michael Mayhew, manager of the English Garden near Sloane Square, as we sat down to a Sunday lunch. “We’ve taken some 18th- and 19th-Century recipes and updated them to make them more palatable to modern tastes. But we’ve kept the essence of the dishes intact.”

Roast on Sunday

His point was made in a first course of cheese pudding, a traditional nursery dish in England. Here it was made with three British cheeses and topped with toasted cheese breadcrumbs. Every Sunday a traditional roast is served, and today it was rack of lamb, coated with crushed hazelnuts and served with tarragon jelly.

We also sampled a chicken stuffed with apricots and ground almonds and served with a honey sauce and toasted almonds. For dessert there was lemon flummery, a light, fluffy concoction of lemon and eggs made from an 18th-Century recipe, and a ginger fruit pudding, a traditional flour-based pudding served with brandy orange marmalade and shavings of preserved ginger.

At the English House and the Lindsay House we sampled such variations on old themes as a chicken and almond soup (sometimes called “feathered fowlie”), an updated Victorian recipe for parsleyed baby chicken, a Cornish fish pie, calf liver with Wiltshire bacon, and a horn of plenty--puff pastry filled with fresh vegetables in a light cream sauce, Welsh rarebit and a ginger trifle.

Restored Town Houses

All three restaurants are in refurbished London town houses. The English House, near Knightsbridge, opened about five years ago. Tables in the cozy front room are set around a fireplace; floral prints decorate the walls and table linens.

English Garden, opened about two years later, has the feel of a country house conservatory, with curved skylight, bouquets of dried flowers and furniture of wicker and bamboo. It’s a favorite hangout for Sloane Rangers--London yuppies who live near Sloane Square.

The newly opened Lindsay House, a refuge from harsher elements in Soho, has an elegant ambiance with fabric-covered walls, quilted taffeta table coverings and candlelight.

Prices run about 20 to 25 per person without wine ($34 to $42 U.S.). English House has a set menu on Sundays that costs about $30 U.S.

Quality Ingredients

The chefs at these and other London restaurants have rediscovered the richness and variety of British produce.

“The quality of certain ingredients is higher in England than anywhere,” says Eddie J. Fitzpatrick, executive chef at the London Hilton on Park Lane. “English apples and strawberries are wonderful; the fish is phenomenal, and Angus beef is the best in the world. A lot of the great chefs in the old days were continental, and they didn’t understand the local food. But today there’s a greater appreciation of what we have here.”

Fitzpatrick serves regional British specialties in the hotel’s British Harvest restaurant. The menu, which changes seasonally, includes such traditional dishes as steak and kidney pie, Cornish crab soup, squab pie with Somerset apples, Kent duckling with Devon heather honey, and Lancashire Hot Pot, a lamb, potato and vegetable stew from the north of England.

Unpasteurized Cheeses

“We smoke our own salmon,” says Fitzpatrick, “and we have a selection of old, unpasteurized British cheeses.”

We sampled such cheeses as a Devon garland, a Cornish yarg, a Bozeat goat cheese from Northampton, a double Berkeley from Gloucestershire and a Stilton from Nottinghamshire.

Prices at the British Harvest are about $34 to $42. A prix fixe luncheon menu featuring daily specials is about $26 for four courses, including beverages. On two visits we found the food very good but the service slow and inattentive.

The seasonal nature of British produce adds another dimension to dining in London.

“I always look forward to salmon season,” says Armando Rodriguez, chef at the Stafford Hotel restaurant in St. James’s Place. “And I love getting the first asparagus of the season. If you could get those things all year round, it wouldn’t mean as much.”

Rodriguez came to the hotel from Barcelona in 1964. His menu has a continental flair, but he always uses the freshest of British ingredients.

Sea Gull Eggs

We sat in the quietly elegant dining room and prepared for a special treat--sea gull eggs taken by youths who had scaled the cliffs of Dover to fetch them.

The waiter ceremoniously brought out the eggs, which had been hard-boiled in the shell. They were smaller than chickens’ eggs and pale blue. We cracked them open and dipped the eggs in a dollop of celery salt. They had the fresh taste of salt spray being blown ashore at Dover.

Next came wild oysters from Scotland, then smooth and lovely cold poached salmon, served with new potatoes. Prices are about $40 per person, with prix fixe menus at $29 for the luncheon and $34 for dinner. The gull’s eggs, when in season, cost 1 each (about $1.60).

Not to be overlooked when searching out British specialties are fish and chips. The Sea-Shell in Lisson Grove serves what may be the best in town in a wood-paneled restaurant two blocks from Marylebone Station. We climbed the spiral staircase to a large, bustling room with lace curtains.

Choice of 14 Fish

The menu listed 14 kinds of fish, all deep-fried, including halibut, sole, salmon, rainbow trout, haddock and plaice. All of the fish is fresh, and the batter is light. The chips are crisp and tasty.

Depending on the kind of fish you choose, fish and chips will cost from 5.50 (about $9) for haddock to 8 (about $13) for prime halibut. For 5.50 you can get soup, fish of the day and chips, plus ice cream. This is one of the dining finds in London.

A perfect place for a light supper before the theater is the new Upstairs at the Savoy. It is fun and informal, with a bar, a few tables and an atmosphere that contrasts nicely with the formality elsewhere at the Savoy.

We had their last gull’s eggs--by then we were hooked on them--a broccoli and pine kernel quiche and a hot roast sirloin of beef with potato salad. At about $17 per person, it was a bargain. No after-theater action, however. It closes at 8 p.m.

Traditional Cuisine

The best in traditional British cuisine is at the Grill Room in the Dorchester Hotel. Executive chef Anton Mosimann, widely credited with initiating the renaissance in English cooking several years ago, selects produce from the markets each day and the specials reflect what is fresh.

“Whatever is served in this room has to be produced in Great Britain,” he says. “And it must be seasonal--you have to wait until Aug. 12, when the season officially begins, to eat grouse, and you have to wait until the first of June to have smoked Irish salmon.”

The atmosphere in the Grill Room is grand and formal, like a great baronial hall in the countryside. A variety of roasts are featured, including splendid roast beef carved from a silver cart and served with a giant cloud of simmering Yorkshire pudding.

Starters include Salcombe Bay crab soup and Wiltshire white onion soup; the variety of breads, such as a whole-wheat walnut bread with raisins, are a trademark.

The crowning glory is Mosimann’s bread and butter pudding, an elegant version of a dish with humble origins. The rich, creamy pudding is heaped onto dinner plates and doused with heavy English double cream. Don’t even think about cholesterol. Dinner for two will cost about $100.

Dickens of a Meal

Simpson’s in the Strand has been a bastion of traditional British food, and we had looked forward to trying it. After all, Charles Dickens was an early patron. Alas, we had a bad experience. It is hard to remember which was worse, the pretentious and surly greeting at the door, the perfunctory service or the food.

The silver cart was dented and dirty; the food was piled on the plate, potatoes and cabbage on top of the roast beef. We were told the restaurant would be full at 8 p.m. and we would have to leave by then. But when we left, there was almost no one in the place. Small wonder.

The full English breakfast has always been popular, and our best experience was not in a restaurant at all but in a pub near the Smithfield Market on the outskirts of the City of London. The Fox & Anchor opens very early--we were there about 6:30 a.m.--and is always crowded. Bankers, butchers, office workers and truck drivers all crowd into the narrow bar and back dining room for huge breakfasts and perhaps a bitter or two.

Don’t despair of the crowd. Everyone is friendly, and a waiter will find you and lead you to a table. A full breakfast will cost about $10 to $12, including fresh orange juice, blood sausage, bacon, grilled toast and beans, two fried eggs, a banger sausage, grilled mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and coffee. Lighter fare is available.

Recommended: British Harvest restaurant, London Hilton on Park Lane, 493-8000. Coffee House restaurant, Hotel Inter-Continental, 1 Hamilton Place, 409-3131. English Garden, 10 Lincoln St., 584-7272. English House, 3 Milner St., 584-3002. Fox & Anchor, 116 Charterhouse St., 253-4838. Grill Room, Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, 629-8888. Lindsay House, 21 Romilly St., 439-0450. Menage a Trois, 15 Beauchamp Place, 589-4252. Sea-Shell of Lisson Grove, 49-51 Lisson Grove, 723-8703. Stafford Hotel restaurant, St. James’s Place, 493-0111. Upstairs at the Savoy, Strand, 836-4343.