The Wolseley: A european cafe affair in mayfair, london
Author & Photographer: Ed Schmeltzer
So far, my writing career at Bite Magazine could not particularly be called eclectic, or ultimately even particularly varied. Eclectic was always a word I wanted to use to describe my work. It sounds great. Eck-lek-tick. It’s staccato, brusque, very slightly pretentious, and old-fashioned. (Very similar to myself, if you’ve ever met me in person, dear reader—a markedly underwhelming experience.) It is a word that connotes vast ranges of fields, a variety that is all-encompassing—something that I deeply want from life. Instead, my career of a solid year has been composed of many a recipe, mainly of the English persuasion (There was some cured salmon as well). I can’t, of course, say this is a bad thing. I have deeply enjoyed the opportunity to write about topics I love and care about, and to be honest my English Food series was motivated in large part by myself. However, as the summer seasons bled together like so many drinks during a long and--let us say--‘active’ night out, I considered what my next blog post would be; what could I do with this stretch of unstructured time yawning ahead of me like the gaping maw of a blue whale?
After a month spent in a deep meditative trance hidden away in a Himalayan mountain monastery staffed by an order of kung-fu monks, I emerged in my robes to a new world. Through the suffocating snows, the icy mountainside winds that bite down to your bones, and the grueling daily training in the art of kung-fu, I had reached a new purpose. I felt as if the great whiteness of the Himalayas had given me new clarity. I would change my life. I would write something new, something different. Something no-one had ever done in the history of Bite Magazine.
Write a restaurant review.
In England.
When I returned on my flight to the land of my people, I knew I had reached a place I could finally be at peace. No one said hi to me on the street. Shop attendants were polite, yet very obviously had no intention of talking to me. Uber drivers asked if I was Ed and then silently spirited me into the night, not caring if I plugged in my headphones and awkwardly ignored them until the end of the trip. I felt as if I had reached Nirvana. I needed to write a review of somewhere that matched my new state of peace. And, in London, there is really only one place that encompasses the professionalism, the courtesy, the mild pretentiousness and the quiet understanding of Britain: The Wolseley.
Beloved by noted arsehole and my favorite food critic, A.A. Gill, as well as hordes of Londoners, the Wolseley is a Piccadilly institution that serves high-quality British and European cuisine in a beautiful dining room with high, barrel-vault ceilings and a magnificently patterned black-and-white floor. The space at once strikes the diner as both buzzy and private, with the chat of other diners creating a velvet curtain of white noise that is drawn around the table once seated by the maître d’. The entire experience is seamless and creates an air of professionalism and class—a lost world (or perhaps one that never existed) of trans-Atlantic zeppelin crossings, tea at the Ritz and a commitment to quiet, professional excellence that is never really encountered anymore. This is seen throughout the restaurant—from the chess sets that lie on the dividers behind tables that are accessible to those more strategically-minded guests, to the fact that on the table there is both a pepper mill and a pepper shaker to accommodate guests who apparently have particular tastes in levels of pepper grind.
Image from: http://www.sorted-pa.com/bbb/the-wolseley
The waiter was with us promptly, dressed in a waistcoat, tie, and apron. Water was served to our table, and our order was taken which consisted of:
Whelks served with mayonnaise,
Chopped liver and whole wheat toast.
Holstein schnitzel (Veal Schnitzel served with fried egg, capers, and anchovy),
Calf’s liver served with bacon, caramelized onions and sauce Robert,
Mashed potatoes.
This is where I must actually interject with some content between bouts of borderline self-indulgent description. I know that this order is slightly out of the ordinary to many Americans (and, if we are entirely honest, most British people). However, if and when you visit this restaurant, the dishes served are all foodstuffs that are classics of British and European cuisine. If I am going to foist one piece of advice upon you, it is this: step out of your comfort zone and try something new, from Kaiserschmarren to Kedgeree, or Calf’s liver with bacon, caramelized onions and sauce Robert. It will be worth it; I promise you this much. Forgive me as I descend into unashamed quote-mongering, but as Anthony Bourdain said: “The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody.” This is food that has defined dining in Europe for hundreds of years—food eaten by Bismarck, by Queen Elizabeth II, by George Orwell, and by René Magritte. Food eaten by people from the highest nobility to the lowest laborer. Go ahead. Be a part of that lineage.
In any event, let us return to the table. The first dish to arrive was not anything that we had ordered. Instead, it was a pair of complimentary breadsticks, served with warm, freshly salted butter. Now be advised—these are not your common or olive-garden variety breadsticks. These are akin to small, hand-shaped baguettes, served freshly baked to your table. They are pillowy and soft, releasing a cloud of steam as you split them open, filling the area around your table with the smells of a baker’s shop. The butter that accompanies them is bracingly salty—a wonderful balance between the creaminess of the butter and oceanic salt (a foodstuff that I am still convinced has the flavor profile of a cold knife across your tongue.) It is quite a way to begin a meal, it must be said.
Next up were the whelks and the chopped liver. The whelks, served on a bed of ice with mayonnaise, are always interesting creatures. Prepared by boiling, they have multiple different textures within them, from squid-like to resembling hard cheese. This textural variation is reflected in the flavors of the different body parts of the whelk, which range from a mild oyster or mussel to--incredibly oddly--a nutty parmesan. Whelks are really not a technically complex food to prepare and much of if the diner likes them is down to personal preference, so to me they are not exactly a great reflection of the quality of the restaurant. The Wolseley, however, really shone when our chopped liver came. Mild, yet retaining a distinctively meaty and almost metallic flavor, the chopped liver was creamy and spreadable on the warm sourdough toast that it was served with, offering both a textural and flavor contrast to the soft, mildly sweet and meaty liver. Incorporated into the liver spread were a number of flavor enhancers—cheese, dill, and some rice—that offered support without overwhelming the primary flavors.
Once the clean plates from our starter courses were cleared away, our mains were promptly brought to the table—Schnitzel Holstein and Liver with Bacon. The Schnitzel is a long strip of Veal, coated in breadcrumbs and fried to golden, crispy perfection. Served on a small lake of a wine-based pan sauce, it was topped with a beautifully fried egg, anchovy fillets and capers. The five flavors played off each other wonderfully, with the creaminess of the egg sparring with the fishy, salty anchovies, all surrounded by the veal’s meaty backdrop—a backdrop livened further by a semi-sour, umami wine sauce. The liver was up next. (Word to the wise: order your liver relatively well-done. Ours was definitely rare when it arrived, and liver is--in my opinion--better when it is well-done. If you are unsure, do not hesitate to ask the staff.) When our liver returned from the kitchen after a swift bout of extra cooking, it went above and beyond expectations. The meat melted in your mouth, a combination of creamy, meaty, and smoky. Paired with the bacon and sweet caramelized onions, it made me truly question why the hell liver is not more widespread. When prepared to this standard, it rivalled any cut of steak to me. Finally, let us not forget the mash. What can I say? Creamy, whipped, buttery mashed potatoes are one of life’s great pleasures—and the Wolseley outdoes any competition with their rendition of the classic side dish. A wonderful way to end an outstanding meal.
Alright. You’ve read three and a bit pages of my rambling nonsense. Time to at least try to begin to wrap this up. In this industry, it is easy to get wrapped up in your own bullshit. It is easy to commit the fatal sin of getting too serious about food—to become a stuck-up arse who has no conception of how people actually eat or think about food. The Wolseley, on the surface, seems like the type of place that would only reinforce this mindset. It is expensive, and seemingly stuffy. However, there is an unexplainable vivacity to the restaurant—a heartbeat that runs throughout the floor, and the tables, and the reliefs on the wall. The staff are polite yet passionate and exhibit a deep expertise of the menu that can only come from dedication and study. The food is the food of Europe’s, and moreover Britain’s history, reinvigorated and reintroduced to a populace that otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to encounter much of it. It is a restaurant that has both been defined by, and has itself defined the modern, multicultural and effervescent city that London has become. It brings the best of the past to the present, reintroducing it and sculpting it into something new and unique.
It is a restaurant that means a lot to me.
I hope it comes to mean a lot to you too.
E Schmeltzer
¹ I wish I could make a witty joke here about how the magazine is $X, but the pseudo-philosophical life reflection is free. However, the magazine is indeed also free, and here I toil, unpaid.
² Or really to write about anything other than bloody philosophy, thanks SOSC.
³ See what I did there?
⁴ This paragraph is entirely factually correct. There is no need to check into the veracity of it. At all.
⁵ Thank you, Master Oogway. You taught me well.
⁶ May he rest in the Big Wolseley in the Sky.
⁷ Piccadilly is a major road in Central London. Some cheeky geography knowledge for you there.
⁸ Not that I am going as far as to dare to insult the infinite breadsticks of Olive Garden, but what needed to be said was said.
⁹ “What the actual hell is a whelk?” I hear you question in the most forceful way yet. Well, a whelk is a small marine animal that is common in tide pools in England—a mollusk that looks like a pale underwater snail. They are popular in cold, yet temperate coastal areas like Maine (or the entirety of England), and are not only healthy but sustainable.
¹⁰ Believe me, this is coming from someone who is borderline obsessive about crafting good steak.