Simpson’s in the Strand is a dream palace, and its fortunes are as tidal as the river. It is on the site of John of Gaunt’s Savoy Palace, destroyed in the Peasants’ Revolt. It began as a cigar divan and chess club, was subsumed into the Savoy Hotel, built with the profits from The Mikado, and was beloved by Churchill and Wodehouse, who described it as an Elysium where you were ‘at liberty to eat till you were helpless, if you felt so disposed’. It then decayed.
I’ve come here for 30 years and, grand as it was, Simpson’s smelt of beef and the 1922 committee by the end. No restaurant can live on that indefinitely, and it closed in 2020. I did not enjoy my last meal here, but I took part of its myth: when it sold off its crockery in 2023 I bought what I think is a milk jug. I am from the suburbs and grand dining rooms are bewitching to me.
Simpson’s Grand Divan is now the most beautiful dining room in London
Simpson’s is now run by Jeremy King, co-founder of the Wolseley and steward of some of London’s most gilded restaurants. He lost the Wolseley and the Delaunay during Covid – my belief is he treated his staff too well, and the accountants would not have it – and returned with the Park on Bayswater, which is essentially an Art Deco American diner, and Arlington on the site of his old Caprice, which chomped its way out of a Jackie Collins novel.
This is like entering Quaglino’s, where you processed down the staircase like Talullah in Bugsy Malone. It makes the heart contract. Nothing beats a grand restaurant if it’s done well and King does it better than anyone.
If the Ritz is too much for you – and it is for me – Simpson’s Grand Divan is now the most beautiful dining room in London. It has panelling as glossy as treacle; a gaudy plaster ceiling; pale chandeliers; dark leather booths at the edges; square tables in white at the centre. It is open from dawn to past midnight. My advice is: come for breakfast from seven, or very late. I will trail the breakfast menu, because you will like it: the ten deadly sins [breakfast]; porridge [with everything]. Last orders are at 11.30 p.m.
The menu is a trip through British pomp and comfort: prawn cocktail and oysters; the cold table (duck, salmon, beef); pie and pudding of the day (beef and ale, fish, mutton); a whole rabbit. We order a Barnsley chop (£39.75) with buttery mash (£6.50) and cauliflower cheese (£7.50) and roast rib of Devonshire beef (£39.50) from the hot trolley.
Some things are over-spun, and others are rightly famous. Like all superb restaurants, Simpson’s evokes the magic of a happy childhood, whether you actually had one or just read about it in a novel and wished you had. The food speaks to that: this is nursery fare with nothing to alarm. The chop is perfectly cooked, which for me is just off char; the cauliflower cheese – baked in its own dish – remains the only interesting thing that ever happened to the cauliflower. Beef from the hot trolley is Simpson’s shimmy to full nudity and it delivers every-thing you could wish: the only noteis the Yorkshire pudding, which could be slightly less crusty. No matter.
We end with croquembouche for two (£25): essentially profiteroles without chocolate in a sugar cage. We leave with a sense of both safety and wonder in balance: that however awful things are, there are constant goods in this world. Here is one.
Simpson’s in the Strand, 100 Strand, London WC2; tel: 020 7836 9112.
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