An evening I’ll remember for ever
Many of you will have read this week that J-P Mayhew, who has owned the building that houses Rules for the past forty years, has given it to the National Trust. Rules has been serving Londoners since 1798, which I think makes it London’s oldest restaurant.
Reading this really made me stop and think. Why would someone give away a building worth north of £10m?
Dual carriageways in Covent Garden
I’ve since discovered that in the early 70s, the powers that be wanted to turn the Strand into a dual carriageway. That meant flattening Maiden Lane and vast tracts of Covent Garden in the process, and Rules would have gone with it. Wow, how times have changed!
At the time, Sir John Betjeman was aghast and spoke up for Rules and its “invisible atmosphere”. Mr Mayhew used the same two words this week to explain his gift.
A Dusting of Pixie Dust
A few weeks ago I wrote about how some restaurants have come to value influencers’ opinions above all else. I’d like to think the tide is turning, and that people will increasingly spend their hard-won incomes on places that offer more than click-bait plates and expensively designed interiors.
The restaurants you keep going back to have a dusting of pixie dust that’s hard to define. It feels familiar and reassuring, like the comforting cosiness of your favourite moth-eaten jumper.
What makes a hotel or restaurant great?
The few truly great hoteliers and restaurateurs I know have one thing in common. It goes beyond the accountant’s spreadsheet (although if you’re doing this one thing well, the numbers tend to fall into line). What they share is an instinctive desire to make people happy: their guests, and the team who look after them.
Arlington, there was only one choice
Earlier this week Sigrid and I were overjoyed to hear that our daughter had been proposed to. Her partner had given me a bit of a heads-up, and I suggested I book a table for us all to celebrate. To be honest, there was only one choice: Arlington, behind the Ritz. Some of you will remember it as Le Caprice.
It was a Wednesday, and they were packed to the rafters, and there was that happy hum all good restaurants have as we walked through the door.
Let the performance begin
Sitting near the back, I had the best seat in the house to watch the ‘evening’s performance’. Like a theatre company at the top of its game, the team kept the evening effortlessly purring along – everything flowed. It wouldn’t have surprised me if one of them had burst into song.
Jeremy King
As ever, Jeremy King (he owns Arlington, Simpsons in the Strand and The Park) appeared, moving quietly between the tables and saying hello to old friends and new. I’m quite sure his growing empire could survive without him a few nights of the week. But I suspect his desire to make people happy is so strong that he simply has to be there when his restaurants are in full swing, it’s deep-seated and instinctive, literally part of his DNA.
The ultimate act of hospitality
Just maybe J-P Mayhew is wired the same way. Perhaps it’s so integral to who he is that giving away the building, so Rules can keep making people happy long after he’s gone, was something he felt compelled to do. If so, it’s perhaps the ultimate act of hospitality, and a beacon of kindness in world where that feels it very short supply.
As busy today as it was 40 years ago
I first walked through the doors of Le Caprice maybe forty years ago, and it’s as busy today as it was then.
Knowing what I now know about this game, that’s an extraordinary achievement. It hasn’t come from chasing trends or having the most opulent interiors. It has come from that deep-rooted desire to make people happy and a liberal dusting of that invisible atmosphere pixie dust. Betjeman’s description was spot on.
Why it matters more than ever
If restaurants are really all about creating happiness, they matter more now than ever. The world feels more precarious and uncertain than I can remember.
You can’t design an invisible atmosphere or train a happiness culture from a rule book. It is created, then nurtured every single night, and it’s what we try to do at the Gallivant.
My daughter’s text the following morning says it all: “I couldn’t have dreamt a better way to celebrate our engagement. An evening I’ll remember forever.”
Harry
