It had been, as is too often the case with the very best places, “too long”. And then I went spontaneously, as is also so often the way. Dinner ends and deliberations begin and then someone pipes up with an absolute banger: Le Beaujolais. The oldest French wine bar in London. A place so charming if you were to put baggy trousers on it you would mistake it for Daniel Craig.
About 9pm on a Thursday. The close of summer, a clear sky but a chill in the air; the hope of an alfresco table. There is one on the edge, a little away from the hubbub, next to the entrance to the members’ club in the basement.
Since 1972, Le Beaujolais has propped up a street between Soho and Covent Garden. To that end it isn’t raucous, though not refined: just a wine bar, a small French picnic wrapped up and unrolled in Britain.
The atmosphere is a fashionable but unfashionable part of Paris, a little Bordeaux, maybe even the delicate press of small-town countryside where women are oddly beautiful and you wonder whether there is some sort of cult hidden away in the old chateau on the hill.
Staff at Le Beaujolais: French. Food: baguettes, paté, smoked salmon, cheese; a solid beef bourguignon for those hungry. I remember from years ago an understated fish pie that exceeded expectations.
The atmosphere is sometimes wistful, mostly merry; male students with books by Camus in their pockets sit diligently and listen, as best they can, to the female members in their party. Someone will be talking about Rodriguez.
Inside there are first dates and second, and old timers, not to mention barely functioning individuals who worked and did well back when Britain’s economy was rampant and are now reaping the rewards. They might be wearing slippers, who knows.
The wines? You can read the list for yourself. We got a carafe of house white, much the same as I have in the Loire, or Brittany, or wherever, and bedded in.
Then we ordered another and a group of three women came over to tell us about a new puffer jacket they had acquired at a charity shop in Lyon. It was white with an abstract design of a rose in blocks of blue and red – the sort of thing wealthy Russians wear skiing in Courchevel. It was easier to decipher that these three had been at Le Beaujolais for most of Thursday, whiling away time in the best possible way before going home and dreaming.
There’s all the memorabilia on the walls, trinkets and old French signs. Ties worn by possibly grand gentlemen hang from beams on the ceiling, which is low, and it is dark and furnished in stained wood. Blackboards display wines by the glass or bottle, dishes in colour too, and it is cluttered softly, full of drawings and faded photographs. There is nothing pretentious about anything.
Service is warm and swift. You can talk about wine there if you like, tell the owner you know your stuff, but try not to, please, if that’s you. The vibe is négociant, harbouring distinct whateverness. Though it is nourishing to learn more about Beaujolais if the offer to do so arises: there are 10 crus, some bolder, the proportion classically light: Brouilly, Fleurie, none much past £50 a bottle.
You know, this is the sort of wine bar trodden by Keith Waterhouse and those guys. Long lunchers. But by just about everyone else too. It is one of the best places to drink in town.
After two carafes and excellent chat, oh and the cursive wondering of whether to have cheese – not tonight, given the famous shepherd’s pie before – it is a place to revere and become nostalgic over. Some corner in a foreign city that is forever France.
