A Gentleman's Day Out in London Town

William Birdthistle June 5, 2007

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In Pictures: A Gentleman’s Day Out in London Town.

Having purchased a tin of Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe or the house’s own Royal Blend, you will naturally find yourself in the mood for a soothing cuppa of your own. Take a pot in the finest fashion with afternoon tea at the Ritz, just a few doors down in Piccadilly. Tea at the Ritz is served in the Palm Court, the hotel’s central atrium, which is the interior-decorating equivalent of Rome’s Trevi Fountain: soaring ceilings, mirrored walls, and gilded, rococo excess in every direction. Upon showing you to a banquette, your waistcoated attendant will offer a fresh urn from a menu of brews almost as extensive as Fortnum’s.

Within moments, a triple-tiered tray of elegant victuals materializes in front of you. The lowest level offers savory sandwiches of egg salad and cress, cucumber and cream cheese, and cheddar and pickle; one rung up sit the scones, with and without currants, to be slathered with Devon clotted cream and strawberry jam; finally, in the penthouse, reside opera cakes, raspberry tarts and other delicate desserts. Though he may be only one of a handful of fellows in the strikingly female room, an English gentleman will nibble and sip with aplomb.

Of course, he will also enjoy slightly stronger refreshment as the cocktail hour approaches. From the Ritz, take an afternoon constitutional along the Strand to Holborn, the center of London’s legal community and home to the Royal Courts of Justice and the four Inns of Court. There, off Chancery Lane in Carey Street, lies the Seven Stars, a public house that was one of the very rare buildings to survive London’s Great Fire of 1666.

Opened in 1604—just one year after the death of Elizabeth I and three years before the founding of Jamestown—this pub is more a ship cabin than a tavern, with its bare timbers and creaking low roof. At the bar, landlady Roxy Beaujolais will pull you a pint of authentic English bitters, but be kind to the cat of the house, the one in the clerical collar. Not only is he fiercely protected by Madame Beaujolais, but he bears the name of one of America’s most celebrated revolutionaries: Tom Paine.

In Pictures: A Gentleman’s Day Out in London Town.

Having swigged your sturdy aperitif, navigate the lanes and byways of Covent Garden to Rules Restaurant, London’s oldest, for a sterling English dinner. Opened while Napoleon was gallivanting about Egypt, Rules dates from 1797 and appears not to have changed a whit in the intervening centuries. For the complete experience, book a private room on one of the top two floors, where Edward VII sought privacy behind mullioned windows and closed doors for his dalliances with Lillie Langtry.

The menu is stocked primarily with game hunted and caught on the restaurant’s estate in the north of England: grouse, venison, partridge, but, mercifully, not four and twenty blackbirds. When your meal concludes with the cheese course, behold the imperial splendor that is capable of producing a custom-made silver barrel for crackers.

Finally, you must find yourself a nightcap before retiring. A number of private American clubs have reciprocal arrangements with the famous gentlemen’s (now mostly coed) clubs of Pall Mall. Arrange access if you can to the Reform Club, a magnificent recreation of the Palazzo Farnese executed in 1841 by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. Although the exterior of the club is demure by comparison, the interior is spectacular, with a soaring central courtyard capped by a ceiling of intricate detail, only slightly muted by 170 years of cigar smoke.

Surrounding the central space on the two main floors are a series of magnificent rooms, specially designated for reading, writing, gaming and dining. The smoking room on the piano nobile runs the length of the building and features floor-to-twenty-foot-ceiling bookshelves; in it, find yourself an original club chair, with buttery green leather and a sensible antimacassar. From a hidden doorway, an attendant will take your order for a snifter of brandy. Quaff deeply the imperial tradition and win an empathetic nod from the local gentry by toasting “Confusion to Bonaparte!”

In Pictures: A Gentleman’s Day Out in London Town.

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