Three Weeks in England

After sleeping in the next morning and booking a restaurant for dinner that night, we went to a bakery around the corner for some tea and pastry breakfast.

For our last full day in London, we chose to go to the Leighton House in Kensington. The 1st Baron Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) had his home built with a studio so he could live and work in one place. It includes gorgeous dark turquoise Turkish tiles and Near East inlaid woodwork in his Arab Hall, a picture gallery called the Silk Room with green silk walls, and his winter studio filled with many of his works. He had a Qa’a room built, which is a special cruciform reception room found in the Islamic world. In the center was a small bouncing fountain, and above a chandelier hangs from a golden dome. Golden panels with white doves and grapes, and another with astrological figures adorn one wall. The home is also full of Orientalist and aesthetic interiors with carved lattice screens, artistic panels from Damascus, and the most beautiful floral Iznik tiles in turquoise and royal blue. We had been there before, but the house is so dramatic with beautiful architecture and his artwork on the tall walls, that it is always an impressive visit. Many pieces of his art are on the walls and are displayed in his studio, such as In my studio, of a woman smelling flowers; Biondina, the lovely portrait of a young woman; and a portrait of Richard Burton. Since the last time we were there, a formal entrance, coffee shop, and gift shop had been added. We also went to a gallery next door with 1890 to 1910 women’s dress styles.

Afterward, we walked a block up the street to a café and had a quick lunch. Then we took a taxi back to the National Gallery with our entry ticket at 2:15 to see the Fragile Beauty photographic exhibit from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish. It was extensive through many rooms, full of some iconic photographs of famous people, some racial topics in black and white, and otherwise photographs that were explicitly sexual, drug-related, and on death. Pictures were not allowed.

Then it was back to our hotel, where we packed for our departure the next day.

That night we had booked dinner at the Great British Restaurant. We arrived in time for our 6:30 reservation and were seated in a well-situated corner booth so we could see the entire room with its bar, which is the bar where 007 sat and ordered his first martini, “shaken not stirred.” His picture is on the wall to prove it. So the room held somewhat of a fascination, although it seemed fairly subdued with dark smoky squares of mirrors along the walls and on the ceiling, along with the dark upholstery seating and a highly polished dark wooden bar in the opposite corner.

We were already somewhat familiar with the menu as we had looked at it online. It was a little unusual, as the menu items could be ordered as a starter or enlarged for a main. Wanting to taste several things, we decided to share the soufflé described as twice baked English pecorino with white mushroom soup around it, topped with curried mushroom pâté, and wild mushroom oil. Then I would have the starter size gin-cured Loch Duart salmon, with salted cucumber, smoked trout pâté and soda bread. Vere wanted the main size grass-fed fillet steak with béarnaise sauce and hand-cut chips.

A young man came to our table to ask what we would like to drink. I requested the dessert menu as I was pretty sure there was a wine on it that we wanted to order as an aperitif, but it had not appeared on the separate wine list. But he didn’t understand my request and did not bring the menu. We finally just said two glasses of Moscato d’Asti to start with some still water. We were served our wine and a fancy red bottle of still water from Wales called Ty Nant, which we guessed would be expensive, but we didn’t care. It was our last night in London and we had purposely chosen a nicer restaurant at the Dukes Hotel, where rooms start at £540 and go to £875.

The same young man came back a few minutes later to take our order, and we were very careful to say what we were sharing and what portions we wanted. We were served a small black wire basket of bread and butter that were at room temperature. The butter came in little sealed foil cups, one of salted and one of unsalted butter. Then the same waiter came back and asked me to repeat what our order had been. We very carefully gave him the same order and pointed to the menu items, guessing perhaps that English was his second language.

We were enjoying our wine with a few toasts to the last night of our three week stay in England and eating our bread, when a different waiter came and put before us two bowls of the Hodmedod grain dishes from the starter menu, and the plate of salmon that I had ordered for my entree. “Wait,” we said, “this is not what we ordered,” and I reiterated that the salmon was to be my main course after our starters, but in the starter size. We had to repeat our order for the third time. “Oh,” they said. They were terribly sorry, but since they had already served us, they said the grain dish was on the house, so to please try it, and they would soon bring our soufflé. Before us, the risotto was with charred leeks and a chestnut mushroom broth. We only tasted it, as we did not want to fill up on something that we had not ordered, so we set them aside.

The first young waiter returned, saw the plates set aside, and I told him to please take them away. A puzzled look came over his face. I repeated myself and told that what we had been served was not what we had ordered. Still confused, he put the bowls on his tray and walked away. It seemed as though the restaurant was operating in two different dimensions.

Then a lovely woman named Francesca came to our table and asked if she could get us more wine. We declined. Finally, our soufflé arrived, but instead of one to share, we each received a portion. Again, it was not what we asked for, but by now we were hungry so we accepted one each. They were good. By now, we have sat in the restaurant for one hour. We hoped all misunderstanding was behind us.

After fifteen more minutes, the next course arrived. Vere got his steak but his request for medium rare was on the far side of medium, he received mushroom sauce instead of béarnaise, it was barely warm and had begun to congeal, and he got fries instead of his requested hand-cut potatoes. Vere did not want to make a fuss, afraid it would take even longer to get what he wanted, so he didn’t say anything and ate most of his dinner. My salmon looked good, after all it was Duart salmon, but some of it was too raw for my liking. I know some prefer their salmon that way, but I do not. I ate what I could.

Francesca, instead of returning to our table shortly after being served to make sure everything was to our liking, waited until we had finished and pushed our plates away. When she did arrive, I told her that we did not want to make a fuss, but I explained all the things that were wrong, and she apologized. We asked for the dessert menu, hoping they would get something right. A completely different person delivered fresh silverware. Vere ordered the dark chocolate fondant with hazelnut sorbet, cocoa clusters, and salted caramel; and I ordered the Yorkshire rhubarb with ginger spiced pavlova rhubarb compote and rhubarb sorbet. Vere’s turned out to be a small chocolate molten cake. He did not like the cocoa clusters, which is odd for a man who loves anything chocolate. They tasted burnt. My pavlova was good, but I did not taste anything ginger about it. The amount of rhubarb compote amounted to less than a teaspoon, and I could not distinguish any rhubarb flavor in the sorbet. Both were attractive to look at, but flavorwise only passable and still disappointing.

As we were eating our dessert, we overheard the waiter speaking to two men next to us who had finished before us. The waiter explained that the restaurant’s printer was not working, so their bill could not be presented, but the waiter had added up their bill and told them what it was. That seemed odd, as surely the waiter could have replaced the battery on the small machine, or at least hand printed out a bill, but apparently not. So when we had finished our meal and the waiter approached, we knew what he was going to say. He explained the same thing but added that because there had been so many problems with our food order, our dinners were on the house. and they would only charge us for the dessert. We were surprised, fully intending to pay for what we had eaten, but they insisted, so we accepted. What made it all so bizarre, is that every time they came to the table, they were so genteel, so hushed and apologetic; and yet, pretty much everything that could go wrong had occurred. Such was our last meal in London. Consequently, we did not feel like taking pictures of the food.