Sweetings
39 Queen Victoria Street, London

Restaurants like Sweetings should no longer exist. Tight communual seating, odiferous quantities of smoked fish, outlandish prices, charges for pre-buttered bread? These are all things I thought went out of style in the 1940's. But that is rather the point of Sweetings, I think. It's a restaurant for people who wish that decade had never ended.

That's not to say I found everything at Sweetings unpleasant. Not at all. I would return to the restaurant just for their delightful Pimm's - the traditional British summertime drink of flavored alcohol, lemonade (that is to say, a lemon-lime fizzy drink, like 7-up) cucumbers, orange, and mint, all served in a clever little tankard. And the bread and butter pudding was not altogether appalling - despite somehow burned bread (I didn't even know you could burn a bread and butter pudding), the custard was thick and delicious (custard, in the British sense, means a mixture of cream or milk and eggs, like the base of ice cream). But my "wild" salmon main course, for some $40, was both lame and overpriced - at that price, don't you think they could have managed something a little more sophisticated than a salmon steak (in other words, the cheapest possible cut of the fish) desultorily grilled? And while my smoked trout starter was quite good, I hardly think that saves the meal. I can get good smoked trout at a thousand different fishmongers in London. The unfortunate truth about Sweetings is that they serve nothing a completely unskilled home chef couldn't both buy easily and make in half an hour. That, I think, is a scandal.

UPDATE: I've been to Sweetings a second time now. The pre-buttered bread was still there. However, if you do find yourself there, order the following - gravlax or smoked salmon, followed by the grilled (not fried or poached) dover sole, and then the steamed syrup pudding, all washed down with a pint of Pim's. - I'm convinced, after eating pretty much everything they have, or at least tasting it, that these are by far the best things on the menu. The Dover Sole is still ridiculously overpriced at some 22 pounds ($40), given that it is just a piece of fish and nothing else, but it is at least tasty.