The National Trust gets plenty of things wrong. Too often, the charity allows modish social values to distract from its primary purpose: to preserve and protect historic places. It has had an awful lot of deserved criticism for these many failures and misdemeanours. So it is a blessed relief to be able to celebrate the Trust once again, and all because of their far-sighted and clear-minded decision to preserve London’s oldest and most old-school restaurant, Rules.
Rules is a haven of pies and puddings, oysters and Guinness served in pewter tankards, and has been ever since it opened in 1798
If you have ever had the good fortune to visit Rules, in Covent Garden, you will know exactly what you are getting, in the form of throwback nursery food served to the highest standards. This is a haven of pies and puddings, oysters and Guinness served in pewter tankards. It has been this way ever since it opened in 1798.
Granted, any London restaurant that has been open for longer than a few years will boast proudly about its illustrious heritage, but there is something especially remarkable about Rules, an establishment that not only has private dining rooms named after John Betjeman and Graham Greene – both long-standing regulars who are as much part of the restaurant’s history as the red leather banquettes that diners slide into – but has played host to everyone from David Bowie to Madonna over the decades, potentially setting up some especially interesting dining companions.
The restaurant’s remarkable longevity is a source of pleasure to anyone who takes delight in traditional places of this kind, but there is always the lingering concern that an unsympathetic or uncaring landlord would take a different view. As we are currently seeing in the court battle that London’s oldest Indian restaurant Veeraswamy is waging against the Crown Estate to ensure its continued survival on its premises in Piccadilly, there is often general disinterest when it comes to history and the according maintenance of historic establishments.
Which is why the news that the National Trust has become the owner of Rules’ premises on Maiden Lane is so welcome. They are now in charge of the building and its collection of memorabilia – which includes everything from historic pictures and photographs to old menus from the restaurant – and the restaurant will henceforth pay rent to the National Trust, which in turn will go towards the maintenance and upkeep of the historic building.
This is the generous decision of the building’s owner J-P Mayhew, who told the BBC that: “There are few restaurants in the world that have endured the test of time like Rules. The trust will protect this place in a way that no-one else could, safeguarding its bricks and mortar, its famous interior and its invisible atmosphere, too. I am grateful to them for believing in this idea and for protecting this building and two centuries’ worth of stories for people to enjoy forever.”
The National Trust is similarly grateful, with their director-general Hilary McGrady saying: “This place is an outstanding piece of living history, with its corners where kings dined and writers and politicians plotted, and the traditions it kept alive through wars and upheaval. It has defied the odds to be standing here today, doors still open and treacle sponge still on the menu.”
So often, statements like this are simply windy platitudes, but in the case of Rules, the knowledge that the restaurant will continue to prosper and endure is something to be celebrated.
Yes, the prices at Rules are far from cheap, placing the restaurant in the category of special treat rather than everyday haunt. But you are not just paying for the food. The irreplaceable sense of dining there and being a part of London’s literary and social history has now been safeguarded for decades, hopefully centuries, yet to come. The National Trust and Mayhew should be toasted – perhaps with one of Rules’s ever-excellent Black Velvets. I can only hope that, somewhere, the ghosts of Greene, Bowie and Betjeman think just as highly of the news as the rather more corporeal diners will do, too.
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