Happy Christmas....2009

The Dining Room at Rules Restaurant (London) for Christmas

It is strange that the word 'comfort' does not appear in any modern architectural curriculum: you can go to lectures ad infinitum on new technology, flexible living spaces, sustainable development and demographic trends, but none on comfort. I would have thought it was a fundamental element of creating a desirable house, let alone a desirable restaurant. Students could well study Rules Restaurant for a definitive explanation. Not only is it utterly comfortable in the purest sense of the word, but, in the lowering gloom of December, it is also deeply comforting. You feel safe there. Everyone looks happy- the clients and the waiters-and isn't that, after all, the point? Try one of the latest clickety-clackety restaurants, with tile floors and chrome fittings rendering mobile-phone tunes cacophonous, and test the level of contentment. Its not there and willnever be there!
'There are some restaurants that give one a sense of being at home,' wrote author Graham Greene about Rules, 'more at home than in a friend's house, welcome, at peace'...
To me, Rules is not just cozy, it has an air of voluptuous indulgence that makes the whole experience of going there feel slightly illegal. Having tramped long sunless streets on the edge of Covent Garden you come off gaunt Maiden Lane into a wave of warmth. Even though it's only lunchtime, it already feels like twilight. Everything is effortless: unobsequious waiters and waitresses hover discreetly, slide off your coat and take your shopping bags.
You sit on a half-moon shaped red plush banquette, linen falling heavily on our laps, a swirly red and gold carpet underfoot. There are swaggy red velvet curtains at the windows, marble busts in black niches, dried hop vines trailing over a huge gilt-framed looking-glass, and stained glass in the lantern above. The walls are painted in old Great Western Railway cream, with every cornice, arch and piece of woodwork picked out in black and gold; everywhere there are oil paintings, prints, caricatures, playbills, layer upon layer of Rules' mementoes and relics from the past 200 years.In the end, Rules is home to me and will always be, especially at Christmas time.
I hope someday, that  you my readers will be able to experienced it, if you have not already! It is paradise found!
Happy Christmas
~ H.E. Lewis