2025 - A Fresh Start

London, here I come...

You haven’t heard from me in a while, and for that I apologize. Much of 2024 was spent volunteering for multiple non-profits, including Meals on Wheels, emergency preparedness training, and as an ombudsman for the oldest co-op gallery west of the Mississippi. I have scaled back many of these efforts to take a serious deep dive into the Culinary Crowley project. Thanks to Darling Husband, I’ve been gifted a solo jaunt to London purely for research purposes.

Arriving Saturday, January 11th, I will spend the week at the British Library, Bishopsgate Institute, and — of course — The Warburg Institute at the University of London which houses the unpublished books and papers belonging to Crowley, gifted to the library by one of Crowley's closest associates, Gerald Yorke (1903-1981).

While I am anticipating most mornings and afternoons will be spent sequestered in reading rooms (but really won’t know until I start), I will also be seeking out and dining in the many restaurants and pubs still standing that Crowley frequented. To keep expenses down, I may try for lunch at the higher-priced establishments. If you are in London and would care to join me, I would love to have dining companions for many of the eateries I have researched and hope to be visiting:

• L’Escargot — Open since 1896, this is the oldest French restaurant in London and their Sunday prix fixe lunch is a screaming deal with three courses being offered for only £45 (but will there be room for a Sunday roast dinner, pray tell?)

• Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill — Shucking oysters since 1916, this will be my pilgrimage to find natives, if they are to be had. You can read about the rarity of the Ostrea edulis oyster which is so prized in my oyster book. This restaurant’s menu also boasts the Lobster Thermidor, which is a classic dish reputed to date back to 1894.

• Veeraswamy’s — I’m a little on the fence about this one. Crowley was known for his curries and love of “exotic” cuisines and in Phil Baker’s City of the Beast book, despite the fame and notoriety of this almost-hundred-year-old dining establishment, Crowley stated in 1941, that he had “tried it again after a seven-year absence and found it coarse and bad as ever.”

• Wilton’s — I have some fact-checking to do, for Rules has claimed to be the oldest restaurant in London, as it was established by Thomas Rule in 1798. Wilton’s, however, claims to have been open since 1742. And while I have not yet confirmed that Crowley dined here, I am working under the assumption that a restaurant with the superlative reputation for its table side carving trolley and Aleister’s gourmandise, this must have been on his radar.

• Claridge’s or Langham’s for tea? — One tea is probably sufficient for this trip, but which one? Or another I don’t know of yet?

• Speaking of Langham’s, they also have The Wigmore, high-end pub food, and The Artesian, a truly stunning looking cocktail bar.

• Swan — A 150-year-old pub might be the beginning of a pub crawl, as Hop Poles is a short walk away and both public houses have been mentioned by Crowley.

• I’m going to be staying near the British Museum and University of London, so the pubs Crowley is known to have frequented in the Bloomsbury district that are still open include The French House, Dog and Duck, and Fitzroy Tavern.

• In the Blackfriars district sits the well known 17th century public house, Old Cheshire Cheese, which, besides Crowley, hosted other notables including William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, and Pablo Picasso. They are also reputed to have one of the best steak and kidney suet puddings around.

Research

This is the tip of the iceberg in my research, and if any of you know of restaurants or public houses which I should seek out, please drop me a line. To reiterate, if you are in London the week of January 11 (arrive in the morning) to January 19th (departure day), and would like to join me on any of these dining adventures, I’d love to hear from you. It would be especially nice if you were the type of person who likes to share bites, so we can all taste a wider selection!