A grand old spot of French Epicureanism

Some restaurants elicit reputation beyond borders. The Wolseley in London is one of them; a famed eatery in the city rich in history that combines British heritage with European grandeur.

Renowned for its interior, classic food and seamless service, The Wolseley became an institution, a London landmark and at one point “the most important dining room in the city”, according to Esquire magazine. Its founders also ran other iconic London eateries such as The Ivy and Le Caprice, which for decades epitomised dining out in the city.

The restaurant became the foundation of a group of the same name, and there is a chance that South Africans might experience some of the restaurants or hotel brands associated with the group given a blossoming link with the country. The Wolseley Hospitality Group is now owned by Minor Hotels, which recently started operating in South Africa through NH Collection Sandton (formerly The Hilton).

A recent trip to London led to Brasserie Zédel, one of the group’s seven eateries, which was started by restaurateur legends Jeremy King and business partner Chris Corbin.

Located in the heart of Piccadilly, you enter Zédel via a small, unassuming door and walk past posters or pictures of all things fin de siecle France, soaking in the art and glamour. As the late food critic and journalist AA Gill once said, going downstairs into Zédel is a bit like walking into an old, silent-movies cinema.

You then sweep into the expansive dining room, which is replete with pink marble and extravagant finishes such as gilt-edged columns. The Parisian-style brasserie with a 1930s art deco interior featuring lots of pink, high ceilings and legions of tables. The word grand certainly springs to mind and if you take a moment you can almost savour the history and epoch.

All of this essentially takes place in a basement under Piccadilly Circus. The location has an extensive lineage, but has been home to Brasserie Zédel only since 2012. Before that it was the dining hall of the Regent Palace Hotel, which was built in 1915 and once the largest hotel in Europe, boasting more than 1,000 bedrooms.

Brasserie Zédel is known in particular for its French onion soup and steak haché, its prix fixe menu (£16.95 for two courses, £19.75 for three) and for being an upmarket restaurant with a reputation for value and a celebration of French gastronomy. I’d intended to try the onion soup but instead we decided to share carottes râpées (grated carrots marinated for about a day in a Dijon mustard drizzle) and cold pea soup, given that it’s boiling outside. Both were deliciously fresh and tasty and we were impressed that having said we would share the soup, they brought us each a beautiful bowl.

It’s the middle of the week with an older clientele and the main dining room has a kind of cruise-liner sensibility from another era because of the expanse and glamour. The menu is presented on a large sheet of pale-pink A3 paper, in French. The crockery is embedded with the Zedel name and the cutlery is large, old-school silver. We shared sumptuous salmon and duck (as recommended by the lovely waitress) followed by baked Alaska (colourful and mouth-wateringly good).

A standout was the service: engaging — but not intrusive — and thoughtful, from waiters and waitresses in traditional waistcoats. And there is a carefully curated wine list along with Champagnes and beers, and it offers a range of classic and house cocktails.

You can walk from the restaurant straight to the cocktail spot, Bar Americain, or to the live music cabaret venue, Crazy Coqs, which are part of the ecosystem.

As British food writer and critic Jay Rayner says in The Guardian: “Let’s not pretend. This is a volume operation. They can seat 220, and need to turn the tables four times a day to make money. But that means they serve you quickly and efficiently.”

It’s the kind of restaurant that has engendered an outpouring of sentiment. AA Gill again, in The Times: “What I truly love about Zédel, though, is the desire to make a grand and elegant dining room that serves the classic canon of European Epicureanism to working people in a setting that doesn’t just make them feel important for an hour, but shows them they are important always.

“Half the tables are kept for people walking in from the street, so I’ve eaten with groups of local shopworkers, some astonished tourists, film folk and publishing people, and at the next table to Melvyn Bragg.”

That it’s on the doorstep of theatre and London’s West End, plus one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations, only adds to the allure. 

The writer was a guest of the restaurant.