Wouldn’t it be grand if Temple Bar is where lawyers go for a slurp but they frequent El Vino instead. May I digress?
Decades ago, during a Tube strike, I dropped in for refreshment to break the long march home. An Irish friend was holding forth at the bar, after a day practising at the Bar, and seeing me insisted I join his friends. Lest they might think me the wrong type (viz. a broker in the City) he explained “Christopher has had his collar felt by the police a few times”! They assumed I was one of Robert’s clients saved by his advocacy from incarceration.
Temple Bar is the only gateway to the City that survives. It has achieved this distinction because it was re-designed by Christopher Wren after the big blaze. Like the other old entrances to the City it was too narrow and was dismantled after two hundred years and put into store near the Farringdon Road. Fortunately Lady Meux “a banjo playing barmaid who had married into a very wealthy family of London brewers” took a fancy to it and had it reconstructed as an eye-catcher at her Hertfordshire estate, Theobalds Park. After another century it was brought back to the City and rebuilt in the shadow of St Paul’s on Paternoster Square.
Yesterday it was the view I had from our table at The Paternoster Chop House. The menu was a little dull – I had to resort to a burger – but as a long-standing reader you know the wine list is of more interest to me. Stags’ Leap is a real blast from the past from living in New York and taking clients out on expenses. It is not a subtle wine but I love it – pure alcoholic Ribena from the Napa Valley; it’s Robert Parker not Jancis Robinson. The 2015 “Hand of Time” is a cab sav/merlot blend well priced at £65. I will be back for more.