The bastion of Britishness revisited – an elegant world of seafood, game and soufflé
Wiltons' interiors: white tablecloths and gold-framed paintings
This is not an article about a new restaurant in London. This is about an old restaurant – and by old, I mean it first opened when George II was still on the throne and before bicycles were invented (1742, if you were wondering).
I am talking, of course, about Wiltons – the famed game and seafood restaurant on Jermyn Street that’s been drawing a crowd for over 250 years. With such heritage, I am not here to tell you whether Wiltons is any good. That much is obvious. I am here to revisit Wiltons in 2025 (when Charles III is on the throne and e-bikes are the norm) to find out what’s kept people coming back for more than a quarter of a millennia.
The background
There’s a full history textbook of background for Wiltons, but I’ll try and be brief. The first Wiltons wasn’t on Jermyn Street – it wasn’t even a restaurant. It was an oyster barrow parked near Haymarket that became the place to get oysters in London. The business moved down the Wilton family line and around various permanent premises in St James’s (including two stints at King Street), before being bought by Olaf Hambro, who reportedly said ‘put the restaurant at the end of the bill!’ after a fateful meal in 1942.
Hambro onboarded the help of Jimmy Marks (then of the Bucks Club), who helped transform Wiltons into a London institution – shorthand for a clubby, masculine space that’s still frequented by English aristocrats and foreign diplomats.
Dover sole meunière
The space
Dig out your best blazer (or pick one up on Jermyn Street): this place is smart. It has the monied, nostalgic air of a wealthy grandparent’s home – complete with plush carpet, old-fashioned wall sconces and gold-framed paintings (we sit under a Herbert Sidney). Every detail is polished like the king’s best silver; the lighting is at the sweet spot of flatteringly dim but bright enough to be able to read the menu, the tablecloths are perfectly ironed, the music is exactly the right volume for conversation.
Everyone looks as though they’ve come from one of the members’ clubs up the road or the Chelsea Flower Show – apart from the female waiters, who are dressed in old-fashioned black-and-white dresses that wouldn’t be out of place in a tea house. It’s the kind of place to wear a tie to – and you can even buy a Wiltons tie if you’ve forgotten yours.
The food
You come to Wilton’s for two things: seafood and game. And the signature Stilton soufflé – I hear many other diners ordering this without opening the menu, so follow suit and am not disappointed. In fact, everything I eat feels like the quintessential example of that dish; the soufflé has a textbook rise and a well-balanced tang; the prawn cocktail is served with a scientific sluice of marie rose sauce (and is served in a nostalgic glass bowl); the venison has the precise texture that only comes with years of practice.
I want to describe it as a menu of British classics, but there’s a lot of French technique (and, undoubtedly, butter) underpinning each dish’s brilliance – the Dover sole meunière is particularly good, as is the final bite of a banana Paris-Brest (no rice pud here).
The bill
£300 for two, including a bottle of wine.
The verdict
Wiltons is not a place to come for boundary-pushing reinventions of British cuisine. It is a place for British seafood and game cooked excellently; where you don’t even need to look at the menu, you can just order intuitively. It feels like a restaurant recommendation passed down from generation to generation; a gathering place across the centuries for a well-to-do crowd that knows what it likes. Long may it remain.
55 Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6LX; wiltons.co.uk
