London Comfort food from 1742!

I am just back from my sojourn to France and London. When I recover from jet-lag in a few days I will add more to my blog about my ventures in both countries. As usual, as I have done for decades; a trip to London without eating at Wilton's would be unthinkable and so this last weekend, I once again for the umpteenth time, had a lovely meal at one of the worlds great restaurants. I could say so much, but let the late W. R. Apple say it for me I an piece he wrote shortly before he died. I agree 1000% with everything he says about this historical restaurant.
LONDON Wilton’s, 55 Jermyn Street, SW1;

Clubbish in location, in looks, and for the most part clubbish in clientele, wonderful Wilton’s in fact affords a cheerful, courteous welcome to all who show up in properly sober clothes, ready to pay the sobering prices. The best English food (as opposed to the best food in England, which is so grandly cosmopolitan these days) is still that which has been least messed about with. That is just what Wilton’s delivers. “Noted since 1742 for the finest oysters, fish and game,” it says of itself, with every justification.

You might start with a half-dozen oysters. They will set you back a pretty penny, but then they are imposing creatures, five inches across, pale beige rather than silver-gray, in shells as flat as saucers. They come from West Mersea, on an island off the Essex coast, from beds that are harvested exclusively from rowboats, lest oil or gasoline pollute the waters. They are opened by London’s best oysterman, Patrick Flaherty, a 40-year veteran when I last checked. None of the briny juices escape. No nasty bits of shell creep in. Then maybe a wild salmon from the Spey in Scotland (increasingly rare), or a snowy hunk of halibut . But whole Dover sole is the overwhelming choice of English connoisseurs: brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper, turned quickly on the grill so that the grill bars burn a dark lattice pattern into the fish, then cooked under the intense heat of the broiler for roughly 12 to 15 minutes. Perfectly simple, simply perfect and entirely sufficient. This is the porterhouse steak of fish. No sauce is needed, partly because cooking the fish whole (“on the bone”) helps to keep it moist. You may well come across an occasional apostate who insists upon tartar sauce (much too robust, in my view) or hollandaise (too rich). In game season, both partridge and grouse are exemplary.

~ Howard's Note:The Grouse as usual was out-of-this-world and the sole was the tops.

An American single dinner a few tables away ( his first time at Wilton's) remarked to Patrick that he had never had sole that tasted like this and I want to stand up and yell, 'You are right!, Its the best in England!'. but I did not, as I was engrossed with my savory of Anchovies on toast.