Where to start? There’s one obvious place, said the food editor. Among new restaurant critics, I’m told, it’s almost a tradition. Why not Rules? You know, the game place in Covent Garden, with hare, pigeon, woodcock up the wazoo. Get your teeth into a big pheasant. Murder a steak.
Rules, on Maiden Lane, is London’s oldest restaurant. It sits somewhere between theatreland, royalty and knickers. In these streets “Maiden” is, of course, a stunning piece of false advertising. When I first arrived on The Sunday Times and edited the restaurant pages — back before viral sides, before hot honey — no one would have dreamt of coming here for a review. What, that mad Nigel Farage tourist trap, with the old-man seats and the busty portrait of Thatcher, amid the flower stalls and hooker alleys? But things have changed. Other restaurants have come and gone (RIP Terroirs and its snail toast). Rules hasn’t.
So why am I drawn to it now? There is the confidence of the place, for a start — so rare in restaurants as to be almost erotic. You won’t, for example, turn up to find it has disappeared and been replaced by a neurotic Italian-Japanese small-plates barn run out of Dubai by a man in mirrored sunglasses. It won’t fill the menu with trendy ingredients you’ve never heard of. On the menu at Oma, a bustling, fun canteen that I had lunch at earlier in the day in Borough Market, I detected traces of no fewer than nine different cuisines, from Iraqi (wild-farmed laffa) to Peruvian (assorted ceviches). Delicious, but why? Why can’t people edit? Is it because they don’t know who they are — what to edit it to?
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As for the service there: nonstop instructions. Have this on the menu, do this, this is how many dishes you need, here’s how you eat that. “You scoop it out,” the waiter explained, making a “scooping” motion. Thanks, I think most people know how to manage bone marrow.
At Rules, you don’t even feel the service happening to you. That’s the point: it’s the anaesthetic. You are fussed over, fluffed, then funnelled, as we were, seamlessly upstairs to Edward VII’s sex lair for a cocktail.
SANE SEVEN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE; VELVET SUIT BY JOSHUA KANE, SILK NECKTIE AND BLOUSE BY REALLY WILD, ALL JEWELLERY BY LILY GABRIELLA
Now. This is the room where Bertie used to be “entertained” by Lillie Langtry. It is Rules’s main selling point. I must have been to Rules a hundred times — for birthdays, weddings, drinks, the occasional lone golden syrup pudding as a late-night treat, or crashing out after a deadline — but, full disclosure, it means I can never get the fat, fingering old bastard out of my head.
In spite of being founded when George III was on the throne, the whole place looks as if it has been interior-decorated by him: swirling Edwardian carpets, little-titty mistressy lights, walls filled with antlers, cartoons, notes, sexy jokes and, of course, tureens and ferns. Is he, I wonder, behind the snigger-worthy gold sign on one of the doors outside: “Tradesmen’s entrance”?
Like him — and this is its charm — Rules also always feels a bit wayward and leery, about six months from needing a serious refit. The loos are ice cold, with fittings that look as if they’ve been dragged up from the Old Kent Road and shoved in by Albanian weed dealers. But then, when you’re over two hundred years old, why make any effort? Bothering about loos is common, isn’t it? Statement bogs are what all those places in Mayfair do. They’re torn down every three months anyway.
We finish truffling Bertie’s honeyed nuts and suck down our cocktails — they’re dinky but strong — then it’s back downstairs to the restaurant itself, which is pitched somewhere between stern and cosy. There’s a galloping fire in the grate. Perfectly Arctic drinks are being served. The waiters, in their penguin jackets, spend most of the time changing snowy linens or fluttering to the back of the restaurant, where I remember rolling around in laughter with the world’s first supermodel, Janice Dickinson, and her (then) fiancé, the psychiatrist Dr Robert, or “Rocky”. Why was she there? Anyone can turn up in Rules. The person who turns up most is Andrew Lloyd Webber. I once saw him upstairs in the cocktail lounge having a business meeting, whooping about the “orgasm” at the top of one of his arias.
The vibe is half celebration, half American tourist. There is one gentleman, dressed head to toe like F Scott Fitzgerald, in a cravat and white cashmere quarter-zip, telling an anecdote about a “dumpster” in a drawling American accent. Another woman is explaining to two elderly people I imagine are her parents about Harvey Weinstein (they seem shocked). Later, after we have gone cross-eyed over the cheeseboard — as many biscuits as you like, all arranged in a specially fabricated silver charger — I hear some man guffawing about his date: “I went fishing in Denmark three years ago and I found this one.” Bertie lives.
Decor is velvet, banquettes, wood panels, peering woodcocks, giant champagne bottles. And what have we on the menu? “Well, you can see why toffs die at 50,” my friend gasps. There’s no vegetarian main, obviously — just acres of succulent brown food, game, shrimp, puddings. The main cooking method seems to be “imperial fug”. Potted shrimps are soft and silken in their pot — there’s a fat wodge of bread, more than enough to go around — and duck rillettes are gamey, spicy, fabulous, with a big earthy dollop of armagnac chutney. A roast crown of lean mallard is served pink, with salsify, mushrooms and quince. It’s fine. And then there is Rules’s — what’s the dumb phrase? — hero dish, steamed steak and kidney pudding.
Crown of mallard with salsify and quince
This is an absolute thudding Trunchbull of a thing, served alone, with gravy. Would you get it anywhere else in London? It is, says my friend, superb. The gravy is thick and almost wobbly; I’d prefer it thinner and richer. All liquids have one purpose here, even the claret — cutting through the immense amounts of oozing meat and suet. But it doesn’t.
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Don’t ask me about the puddings. We ate them all. The golden syrup sponge, a glossy little dome, came with a moat of syrup and cream. The only unexpected moment was the presence of almond flakes in the apple crumble; I felt my hackles go up like a dowager duchess. An almond flake? Whosoever heard of almond in crumble? Are we in Monte Carlo? But that’s hardly a criticism.
I’m not saying Rules is the best restaurant in the world but it knows what it is, and who it serves, and why they are there. It offers what it has with warmth and humility. It sees the real reason people come to restaurants, and that’s to feel a bit special when everything else in the world is cold and ephemeral. It never disrespects its guests by suggesting that they’re not the main event, drowning them in ego. It’s quiet, it’s reliable, it doesn’t charge £70 for a main course. In fact, at £35.95 its rump steak is now almost a steal for central London.
The next morning I telephone my sister to tell her about the acres of nursery goodness. Wasn’t that where you took Dad for his birthday, she said. Yes. I told her nothing had changed, how much I was looking forward to reviewing it, and being a restaurant reviewer.
“Yes,” she said. “You’re home.”
★★★★☆
35 Maiden Lane, London WC2E 7LB; rules.co.uk
About £130 a head for three courses with wine
Hair and make-up Julie Read at Carol Hayes Management Food and prop stylist Polly Webb-Wilson Styling Abena Ofei. Silk blouse by Vince, Trousers by Agnès B, All jewellery by Lily Gabriella