Whenever I am wandering around the City of London, I often take a detour into Throgmorton Street to check if anything is happening at the site once occupied by J. Lyons & Co as the Throgmorton Restaurant. This restaurant opened on 15th October 1900 in the basement areas beneath Drapers Hall, and was entered either side of the livery company's main portico, resplendent with large male figures and a huge crest:
On this recent visit (late August 2024), Lyons' door to the left was boarded as seen below, top right, but the door to the right offered more, including a glimpse at the ceiling within the entrance, and there seemed to be activity beyond.
The Long Room, The Grill Room and The Millionaire's Room were accessed via a marble staircase and kitted out in oak, mosaics, etched glass, gilded mirrors and more marble – very similar, I guess, to the opulant dinings rooms at The Café Royal on Regent Street, so beloved of Oscar Wilde, etc. I think this short review from 2006 is about the space that once was The Grill Room when it was a pub/sports bar, this link shows a red interior in 2004 that I think was originally The Long Room, and I deduce is probably the same space reviewed in The Standard in 2012.
Frustratingly, books written about the Lyons company make no mention of this place. There's nothing in either The First Food Empire by Peter Bird, 2000, or Legacy by Thomas Harding, 2020, with neither indexing Throgmorton, Drapers or City of London. However, the 2000 book does include Throgmorton Restaurant in its appendices where it's in a list of 'other restaurants operated' showing that it was at that time 'still open under new owners'.
How jolly frustrating. How can there be no reference or evidence of this place? No one was taking selfies or pics of their meals pre 2000!
I did see visual evidence myself once, on TV at least 15 years ago. I was watching The Apprentice when I identified this restaurant being used as a task – if my memory serves me well, the candidates were asked to sell off fixtures and fittings from here. I was horrified, especially as they didn't seem to have a clue about the approximate date of the items, let alone the provenance/history. The programme didn't identify the actual location but I recognised it from the snippets they showed of the exterior/street. Note, this was pre the digital channels, without the catch-up and rewind facilities we take for granted today, otherwise I most definitely would have recorded it somehow. Having since tried to check iPlayer and YouTube to find that particular episode I'm finding it to be an uphill struggle – if you also recall this programme please do get in touch in the comments section below or email me via [email protected]
Fingers crossed that there's something good down there simply covered in dust waiting for a savvy and historically-minded entrepreneur to bring it back to its opulent heyday.
Back to the exterior – the metalwork is marvelous and very much of its time. I particularly like the lanterns, the swags, the intertwined flipped Ls on the panels, the cheeky cherubs and the lions used as a rebus for Lyons. Also, the truncation 'Restaunt' which could be interpreted as an invitation to relax and be rude – something Oscar Wilde used to be well known for at The Café Royal!
Also along this section is Pasha's barbershop (the exterior with its hanging sign to the right of the Drapers' doorway can be seen in one of the first pics above). This tiny shop retains some original fittings including the overhead mirrors in the entranceway:
I'll leave it there. I was going to include the some of the other buildings along this street at the eastern end, but I now realize I need to do additional research(!), so I'll save them for another day
