Tag Archives: dining room

Setting the table at a grand house in Berkshire

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BASILDON PARK IS an 18th century country house in Berkshire. Managed by the National Trust, it is open to the public. The dinner table in its grand dining room was set as it would have been in Victorian times, so a guide explained to us.

The centre of each place setting is a soup bowl resting on a plate. To the left of it, there are four forks, and to its right there are three knives and a spoon. Above the plates, there is a dessert spoon and fork. Working from left to right, the forks are for seafood (often oysters), fish fork, starter fork, and then closest to the plates, main course fork. To right of the plates, working from right to left, there is a soup spoon, a fish knife, a starter knife, and the closest to the plates, a main course knife. Each place setting had four drinking glasses: sherry, white wine or champagne, red wine, and port. We were told that there was no cutlery for cheese because in the 19th century, cheese was not served at formal dinners. What I have described was typical of a Victorian table setting in a grand country house such as Basildon Park.

In the early 1990s, we were invited for lunch at a friend’s house. Each of the table settings was almost as elaborate as that which I have described above. I looked at the table, and expected that we were about to be served a multi-course feast. The first course was pasta. I was seated so that I was able to see the kitchen. I noticed that there was a light on inside the glass-fronted oven, but it was empty. When our host offered second helpings of the pasta, everyone, doubtless expecting that much more food would be arriving, declined the offer. I was the exception, and said I would love some more. That is because, having seen the empty oven, I was more realistic about the future course of the meal. I was served my second helping, and then a bowl of salad was passed around. After that, the meal was over. However, we had only used a small proportion of the cutlery laid out at each place setting. To this day, I have been puzzling over the elaborate place settings when only one course was served. Seeing the table at Basildon Park reminded me of this occasion.

Burgers on the Strand

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THE BYRON RESTAURANT chain, which specialises in serving burgers, has a branch next to the Adelphi Theatre on London’s Strand. I have not eaten there but I did peer through its street door. What I saw is quite amazing. The ground floor dining room’s walls have giant mirrors separated by marble pilasters. The ceiling beams look like marble , although it is unlikely that they are made of that material. The grand dining room has a decadent fin-de-siècle appearance, providing your eyes are averted from the banquettes upholstered with red leather, or perhaps plastic, which are quite appropriate for a burger joint.

The large façade of the restaurant has pink granite pillars on both sides. On one of these, there is a commemorative plaque that reads:

“Site of the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant owned by the Swiss-Italian Gatti family, restaurateurs, music hall, theatre and electricity supply entrepreneurs. Sir John Gatti served as Lord Mayor of Westminster, 1911-12.”

The Adelphi Theatre is still in business, but its neighbour, the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant, is now the Byron outlet.  Carlo Agostino Gatti (1841-1897) and his brother Stefano Gatti (1844-1906), father of Sir John, ran the Adelphi Theatre, the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant and the Vaudeville Theatre all in the Strand (www.londonremembers.com/subjects/gatti-family). Carlo and Stefano came from Ticino Canton in Switzerland. Another Gatti, Gaspare Antonio Pietro Gatti, known as ‘Luigi’, came to London from Montalto Pavese in Italy, where he was born in 1875. He is supposed to have managed the restaurant at The Ritz Hotel, as well its concessions on two ships, one of which was the ill-fated Titanic. Whether Luigi was related to the brothers is uncertain.

What is also uncertain in my mind is whether the dining room that now serves as home to Byron and its burgers is the original that existed when the Gatti family owned the restaurant or whether it is from a later era. The upper storeys of the building were recently converted into luxury flats, whose interiors can be viewed on websites such as https://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-london-gatti-house-millionaire-flats-on-the-strand-with-pizza-lift-2015-10?r=US&IR=T .

So, next time you are wandering along the Strand, take a peek into Byron’s and, maybe, if you are feeling peckish …

Such is life

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Quite a long time ago when I was in my twenties, I was invited by an Italian friend to stay at the hotel, which his parents ran in the Val ‘d’Aosta in a mountanous part of north west Italy. The hotel, which was quite luxurious, catered mainly for elderly clients. 

We used to eat meals in the hotel’s elegant dining room. All of the tables had starched table cloths and napkins (serviettes), beautifully polished glassware, and shiny silver cutlery. What struck me as surprising was that by almost every table setting, there were small bottles filled with tablets and capsules of varying shapes and colours. These were laid out ready for those of the diners who were required to take medicines with their meals.  The image of the medicine bottles as table settings has stuck in my my mind more than the rest of my stay at the hotel.

Now, many years later, although I rarely eat at such elegantly laid tables as in the hotel in the Val d’Aosta, I too need to have my collection of assorted tablets every breakfast and evening meal. I never imagined that I would be doing this when I was staying at my friend’s parents’ hotel. Well as the annoying saying goes “such is life“.