I went out for a belated birthday lunch with a Goddaughter (we share a birthday) and her hangers-on on Sunday in a local gastro pub. The food was excellent, the service friendly but not 100% professional.
It reminded me of Foxtrot Oscar in Royal Hospital Road? Potted shrimps and double eggs Benedict? Sure you do, it was the epicentre of cool where the distinction between staff and customers was as blurred as at Mullaghfin (Cobby Knight’s joint) where I cut my teeth as a waiter, leading to my giving up hospitality to become a commodity broker. I served Blue Nun instead of an expensive white Burgundy. I used to pop the champagne corks up the chimney lest somebody might be hurt. I forgot to give one large party a bill. I told the cook, an Irish Baronet, there were Texans dining; he climbed out of the kitchen window and vanished – he heard taxmen.
The Evening Standard of many years ago partially captures the louche charm of FO:
My memories of Foxtrot Oscar are indelibly linked to one spring morning in 1999. A friend rang me at the Evening Standard to tell me that 16-year-old Prince William had been dining there the night before with a mystery blonde. If the identity of the Prince’s companion could be established it would be a scoop. Was it his girlfriend? That morning Emma Parker Bowles, my assistant on The Londoner’s Diary, came to work an hour late. ‘Did you have a good time last night at Foxtrot Oscar?’ I joked. ‘How did you know?’ she countered. I kept my counsel but the tabloids soon had a field day. ‘Prince Will’s first love,’ screamed the headlines.
Foxtrot Oscar was once at the epicentre of the Sloane Ranger world and attracted dissolute marquesses and raffish hacks like moths to a flame. I broke bread there once with Nigel Dempster: I remember his stories in vivid detail but can’t recall what we ate. But food was never Foxtrot Oscar’s raison d’être. You went to hang out and gossip, or fall off a barstool like Elizabeth Taylor once did.
That’s my bar bill for a quick drink after lunch on Sunday. Well, I never. And I cannot tell you why a 25% discount was applied – not because I am a regular. But try and picture a table ordering such stuff! While I’m about it, here is the label of the rather good Italian white we had.
Really? That must be a wine for ladies who lunch.
Definitely an excellent period piece and bar bill.
I am loving your life. The last few weeks have been astonishingly varied as to mood and companions and purpose. Almost any day I might have commented admiringly. My days are quite busy, but in a quite different way. One enormous difference is the quantum of your average bill for sustenance or travel. Keep it all coming. I am not by the way envious: what I love is that your activities are proximate to some of mine, now or in the past, but in a parallel universe too.