Suggs and the City: Journeys Through Disappearing London (24 page)

In 1839 fried fish makes an appearance in Dickens’ novel
Oliver Twist
, which I, like many others, first came to know through the rose-tinted version of the musical
Oliver!
All rather jolly and uplifting. For those who have not seen or heard the musical (where have you been?), one of the songs provides the very title for this meander on food. But if you have seen the musical, you’ll know that there is no sequence of the Artful Dodger putting in an order for ten cod, six hake and nine haddock plus chips and scraps and a saveloy for Nancy. Actually, there is no great fish and chips sequence in the book either, but it does hold an important ‘plaice’ in the fish and chips story. You may remember that Dickens set the site of Fagin’s den in the roughest slums of London. We know it must have been a dire spot because it was very near to the site of one of the fresh-water drinking fountains that were installed to try to keep the poor out of the pubs, on Holborn Viaduct, just on the corner of Giltspur Street.

The viaduct would not have been there in Fagin’s day because it’s a mid-nineteenth-century embellishment following slum clearance of the kind of squalid tenements that Fagin and his gang inhabited. So you’ll have to forget the viaduct is there and ignore the Tesco Metro on the south side and the shiny glass and red-stone offices of one of London’s premier law firms, Lovells, which sit on the north side of the street, west of the viaduct, and rise up from Farringdon Road below. Clearly they wouldn’t have been there either.

It’s hard to get a sense of the place as it was in Dickens’ day, but if you turn down Snow Hill, walking west down the slope towards Farringdon Road, imagine a narrow alley running off it into one of the lost streets of London, a real street called Field Lane, ‘a narrow and dismal alley leading to Saffron Hill’, says Dickens. Here is Fagin’s den, fighting for space, light and air with the ‘coffee shop, beer shop and fried-fish warehouse’. Now I come to think of it, having consulted some maps of the area, in particular the Reynolds 1857 map of Sir John Snow’s London, which shows this part of London before the viaduct was in situ, I’m blowed if those lawyer’s offices aren’t on the spot of Fagin and Dodger’s fictional old home. What a glorious heritage for a law firm! ‘You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two’ springs to mind as I amble past, humming.

But I am not interested in the law; what I am in search of is evidence of the origins of fish and chips in London. And I think I’ve pinpointed Dickens’s ‘fried fish warehouse’ from this mooch around the streets of the city courtesy of Reynolds’ map. From Dickens and another Victorian writer, G. W. M. Reynolds, author of
The Mysteries of London
, we know that the fried-fish business was pretty well established in London in the 1830s.

‘What about the chips?’ I hear you roar. Surely the fried potato is a British thing, created by Boudicca’s head chef from spuds the ancient Britons grew in the fertile fields of Hertfordshire? Well, no, not quite. Walter Raleigh or some Tudor importer brought the spud back to London from the New World, and - batten down the hatches and prepare to be shocked - the chip is a French invention.
Non, impossible, sacré bleu!
One theory is that the chip came over to London with another wave of immigrants, again a group escaping religious persecution, this time the protestant French Huguenots. What we do know is that they are definitely a French thing. They are, after all, known the world over as ‘French fries’, though that is not a phrase that I use or encourage, especially not in London, though I’d give dispensations to travellers to America, to avoid the embarrassment of being given a plate of crisps.

Back to Dickens. He is a key figure in the history of fish and chips. In
A Tale of Two Cities
, chapter five, Dickens tells us that for ‘a farthing’ - so it’s even cheaper than jellied eels - the poor and starving of Paris ate ‘husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil’. So, even allowing Dickens a bit of artistic licence as an observer of life in the French capital, that, as far as I am concerned, puts the chip firmly in the bosom of the French Republic. Also, for the lovers of language among you, and arguably as important as his entire literary legacy, Dickens, writing in 1859, gives us a very early use of that beautiful word ‘chips’ to describe the cut fried potato. But do not fear, I am not going to reveal that the French also invented the fish and chip supper, because it is the genius of the British inventive spirit that teamed these two elements to create one of the world’s great dishes.

So, now I think we are ready to head for the site of London’s first fish and chip shop. I know you are salivating and your tongue is pricking at the thought of salt and vinegar, but the bad news is that the original fish and chip shop is no more. We can at least go and pay our respects, however. So it’s back to Bethnal Green tube station. Here are some directions. Walk south away from the tube down Cambridge Heath Road towards Mile End Road. Because the original shop has gone, we need to collect some fish and chips en route to do this properly, so walk on past Cephas Street and you’ll find a lovely old-fashioned-looking fish and chip shop, with a 1960s sign adorned with orange swimming fish welcoming you to The Fish Plaice at 86 Cambridge Heath Road. Once you’ve got your food, you need to retrace your steps to Cephas Street and then do a right into Cleveland Way. On Victorian maps of London, like the Reynolds Shilling Map of 1895, this is marked as Cleveland Street. But I am assuming you have a dog-eared
A-Z
like me. The street name has changed and clearly a lot of the Victorian buildings have been bombed and rebuilt, though part of it looks old enough. Walking down Cleveland Way, mouth-watering purchase in hand, you are now paying tribute to the first fish and chip shop in the world. It was opened by a Jewish cook and entrepreneur called Joseph Malin in 1860. I am guessing that his grub must have been good because fish and chip shops began to multiply.

Now, there are competing claims that a certain Mr Lees in Mossley, near Oldham, opened the first establishment. He would have been selling your northern chip, which is, of course, merely a peeled potato cut in half and chucked in the fryer, not the superior London chip. But until the social history of fish and chips in Britain produces new evidence, I am sticking to my guns on this. I say it’s a wonderful London multicultural triumph - a Huguenot, Cockney, Jewish thing.

While fish and chips is lovely, with the best will in the world, I couldn’t eat it every day. I couldn’t necessarily say the same thing about French pastries, however. Despite its Italian heritage, Soho was a focal point for the Free French in the Second World War, and the French House on Dean Street was a tiny patch of Paris in London. But there are other French landmarks with just as illustrious a history as the French House, including the Pâtisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street and a particularly fine French patisserie called Maison Bertaux, the oldest in London. It’s unmistakably French, from the mini bottles of Perrier water holding flowers that sit on the tables outside, to the piles of croissants in the window, next to the glazed apple tarts and cream cakes sitting in paper cases that always seem too small to hold them. And when you venture in, the mirrors behind the counter proclaim ‘
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
’ in unmistakable French script. I’ve purchased many a fine tart from here and been beguiled by Michelle Wade, its marvellous current proprietor. Michelle has been a fixture here for years, having started out as a Saturday girl. She took over the patisserie from the previous owners, Monsieur and Madame Vignon, in 1988. They had run the place since 1923. A patisserie has been here since 1871, so it is quite a legacy. I’ve yet to ask Michelle about the origins of French fries, but she has told me about her past participations in Bastille Day celebrations, which included bare bosoms and judiciously placed cream horns. Is it any surprise that the spud question went completely out of my head?

But just as I couldn’t live on fish and chips alone, I can’t really live on cakes either, not even those made by Michelle. I love Italian food and I love Italy. One way or another, having spent a lot of time growing up in and around Soho, I’ve always been conscious of the smells of Italian delicacies from the shops like Camisa’s, the grocer’s, and the cafes like Bar Italia, and restaurants like Gennaro’s, now the site of the Groucho Club, or Little Italy. I must have absorbed those smells and held them in my memory bank as markers of flavoursome food. I’ve also come across many people involved one way or another in catering and restaurants, and learnt a bit about the business from them. In Italy being a waiter or barista is a very honourable tradition. Perhaps that’s why one of Soho’s legendary maître d’s is Italian. Her name is Elena Salvoni and she must be in her 90s now, but still going strong at her restaurant in Charlotte Street, L’Etoile, a French name disguising the warmth of Italian hospitality on offer there.

About 40 years ago, Elena was running an Italian restaurant called Bianchi’s on Frith Street in Soho. The restaurant occupied a spot just next to Bar Italia and she was a fixture of Soho life during that period. Unsurprisingly, she knows my mum too, but we astonished her recently when we had lunch together at L’Etoile, as until that day she had never connected the two of us.

Elena’s reign at Bianchi’s in the 1960s and 1970s is thought to be such an important cultural phenomenon that its menus and bookings diaries are now exhibits at the Museum of London in the Barbican. Once upon a time, the place could have hosted Christina Onassis, Maria Callas, and Beryl Reid on the one hand, and Ringo Starr, Francis Bacon and Tariq Ali on the other. The names that appear on the bookings’ diary is a comprehensive list of pretty much every person that played a significant role in the social and cultural life of the nation. Leafing through her autobiography,
A Life in Soho
, published in 1990, every page is full of A-list stars, and not the ragbag that you see in
Heat
showing off their knickers after falling out of nightclubs in Mayfair. This was an age of innocence, before people were just famous for being on the telly.

Elena recounts how one evening she sang ‘A-Tisket, A-Tasket’ with Ella Fitzgerald as they both descended the stairs of the restaurant, and on another night joined Labour Party officials and the leader of the TUC, Bill Sirs, in a rendition of ‘The Red Flag’. That world may have disappeared, but Elena, a hard worker, keeps going. If you visit L’Etoile, you’ll no doubt be impressed by the white linen, comfortable, deep, velvet seats and sparkling glasses, but it’s the walls lined with signed photos that catch the eye. If you want to step back in time and dwell among the stars of a gentler time, treat yourself - the photos alone are worth the price of a plate of asparagus risotto.

Mr Bianchi has passed away and there is no longer a Bianchi’s on Frith Street. It’s rather sad that the name just survives as a memory and as artefacts in the Museum of London. At least the site is still home to an Italian restaurant. You remember that I said that Bianchi’s was next to my old favourite, Bar Italia? Well, the restaurant on that site now is run by my friend Anthony Polledri and is called Little Italy. Anthony is following in his grandfather’s footsteps and has worked for the family since a teenager. As I am in the habit of taking my coffee at Bar Italia and using it as a surrogate office, I have got to know Anthony pretty well. Actually, Anthony has a sixth sense when it comes to my demeanour, proffering a kick-start, or a toe-tapper as he calls it, often served in a tea cup with a stick of celery, just at the right moment, when he can see me flagging during a meeting. Little Italy, in contrast to Bar Italia, is a contemporary venture, a mix of plush dining rooms and swanky bar, but rather than relax in its charming surroundings, I ask Anthony if he can help my culinary education by letting me into his kitchen. Having seen the starched linen and gauzy drapes in the upstairs dining room, I don’t let on that my only professional chefing experience is working a pastry machine in a pie and mash shop. Though there’s no denying I was a dab hand at shovelling parsley into a steaming pot of liquor, I don’t think that information would strike quite the right tone.

I hope Anthony might start me off on
insalata tricolore
- avocado, tomato and mozzarella salad in the colours of the Italian flag - as critically it involves no culinary skill and no heat, and therefore a limited chance of a spark igniting Frith Street. But, reckless of the consequences, Anthony chucks me an apron and in a flash there is a naked flame and I am cooking.

In contrast to the front of house, the kitchen is all very utilitarian - polished steel and hard metal with chefs in whites and hats. It’s a narrow galley kitchen and is run with military precision. I set to work on risotto. Thank goodness I can make risotto. Anthony gets the butter going in the pan, a few handfuls of Arborio rice follow, and then I start getting instructions. ‘Give it a stir,’ says Anthony - it’s not merry banter any more. It’s one thing cooking in your own kitchen, but it’s all very different when you are among a load of Italian chefs. I’ve been learning Italian for years but in that environment, all of a sudden every word I knew went straight out the window.

Risotto is simple, but like so many great Italian dishes, it requires a lot of attention. You have to keep at it, adding stock and giving it a stir. You need to concentrate. There I am, ladling on the stock as the rice soaks up the liquid, conscious of half a dozen pairs of eyes on my every move. Then Anthony offers me butter to loosen the gloopy mixture that is building in the pan. I am in the zone now, and the risotto is nearly there; a touch more butter and it goes all glossy, then a spoonful of Parmesan to add that creamy richness. Anthony tells me to take it off the heat, and obediently the pan scuttles across the stove. ‘Add a bit more Parmesan,’ says Anthony, and given it’s his kitchen, I won’t argue. It has a lovely sheen now. I’ve gone all Nigella Lawson. I stir - no, I wrap - the melting Parmesan in among the nuggets of glossy golden rice. It’s a pan oozing with promise. I am so excited I start talking enthusiastic but ungrammatical Italian, extolling the virtues of food, glorious food. After all that effort, the general view in the kitchen is that my risotto is not too bad at all. Talk about being damned with faint praise.