The Gourmet's Guide to LondonNewnham-Davis, Lieut.-Col. (Nathaniel)
General
The Gourmet's Guide to London
Newnham-Davis, Lieut.-Col. (Nathaniel)
Restaurants -- England -- London -- Guidebooks
Mr George Krehl the First, founder of Verrey's as a restaurant, was
born near Stuttgart, and came over from Germany in 1850; and the recent
manager of the restaurant, Mr Stadelmaier, is also German born, for
he, like Mr Krehl, came from near Stuttgart, and he, before he went to
Egypt, to Paris, to Düsseldorf and elsewhere, to become a cosmopolitan,
served his apprenticeship in gastronomy under old Mr George Krehl at
Verrey's.
But French--French of the second empire--Verrey's is, particularly
at dinner-time. At lunch-time the restaurant is always quite full of
ladies who shop in Regent Street, and of their escorts, and the rooms
on the first floor are also given over to lunchers--and even then,
sometimes, would-be customers have to wait a little while to obtain
tables. Therefore the luncheon menu is adapted to the wants of ladies
who are probably in a hurry, for though there is a very full list at
lunch-time of delicacies that can be ordered, there are also several
entrées and several joints always ready.
It is, however, at dinner-time that Verrey's enjoys the peaceful,
unhurrying atmosphere that always should surround a classic restaurant,
and which is so thoroughly in keeping with the old bow-windows with
small panes of the café, which look out on to Regent Street. A little
corridor leads from the street to a tiny waiting-room--a comparatively
recent addition, for it used to be the old still-room, a room which
is so small that the round table of ormolu with a china plaque in its
centre, on which is a portrait of Louis XV., and smaller oval plaques
all about it, almost fills all the available space.
The restaurant, lighted from above, used in old Mr Krehl's days
to be known as the Cameo Room, for on the centre of each of its
panels was a medallion in the style of Wedgwood. I rather wish that
this old decoration had been retained, but I remember the pride
with which Mr George Krehl the Second showed me the new Oriental
decorations--decorations which still remain--the silvered roof with
mirrors reflecting it, the electric lights on the cornice with great
shells to act as reflectors, an electric clock shaped like a star,
and the panels of old gold Oriental silk. Time has mellowed the
gorgeousness of this Eastern setting, which in its first bloom I
thought a little too _voyant_, and the dark carpet and the dark wood
and upholstery of the chairs, all keep the scheme of colouring a
restful one. The napery at Verrey's is the good thick napery of the
classic restaurant. Its glass is thin; its silver is heavy--all trifles
which are important as adding to the delight of a good dinner. The
lights at the tables are wax candles, with pink shades, in old silver
candlesticks, and there is a Japanese simplicity in the two great
bunches of flowers in glass vases, one of which is on a dark wooden
stand in the centre of the room, and the other on the sideboard. There
are flowers also, in glasses, on all the tables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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