The Times
For the FT magazine’s business lunch special, Tim Hayward headed to a City institution founded in 1889 and located just a few hundred metres from the FT headquarters – so old, he was told, that the gents’ urinals are listed and the ladies’ equivalent are something of an afterthought, reached via a prep kitchen.
He loved the atmosphere – “Rigid with tradition, yet noisy, informal and weirdly democratic” in its equal treatment of all diners. Sweetings didn’t really feel like a restaurant, “more a canteen or a mess”, and while its menu is often described as “nursery food”, Tim preferred to characterise it as the food served in “public school refectories, university halls, officers’ messes, gentlemen’s clubs and probably the Houses of Parliament”: the food of the English establishment and “irredeemably the food of men”.
Over two visits, he worked his way through a menu of crab, smoked salmon, Dover sole, halibut and the like – all “good stuff. Solid, not messed with. Decent seafood prepared with this little intervention might just be my favourite thing.” Which sounded a far cry from the stodge traditionally served up at even the most expensive schools – or gents’ clubs, for that matter.
The only bum note was Sweetings’ famous Black Velvet served in a silver tankard, which unfortunately tasted, of only “distantly”, of silver polish. The kitchen’s greatest triumph was a “transcendent” fish pie: “a Euclidean fish pie, a Jungian fish pie, a fish pie of dreams” that left Tim bathed in deep contentment.
Tim Hayward - 2024-09-22
Drinks
Extras
