Honestly, imagine having a type of toast named after you. Not just any toast, but a toast used around the world, adored and inherent; one that pairs so elegantly with potted shrimp and various pâtés. The great chef Auguste Escoffier boasted a catalogue of culinary triumphs. His 1897 conjuring of melba toast out of yesterday’s bread — sustainability and all that, nothing new — is one of the more famous. In one kitchen years ago I was required to construct little toast bowls, each one a patchwork of triangle-cut sliced white, to be filled with crab mayonnaise. Tedious work, but good work.
I didn’t know then that melba toast was named after the Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, real name Helen. She’s been honoured again, this time by Jeremy King with Nellie’s Tavern below Simpson’s in the Strand. Find it in the basement, under the Grand Divan and two floors beneath Romano’s, which incidentally is the latest London establishment to put the Hemingway daiquiri on the menu. Have it before the Pink ‘Un, or crayfish and tomato soup. Works well.
Nellie’s is the only room in which designer Shayne Brady was given carte blanche by King. And so comes a brooding world of deep reds, ornate drapery, safari patternage and rich textures of velvet. If it sounds like I’m describing a yoghurt from Marks & Spencer, I can only apologise. It suits the short drinks and cocktails. Most are £16. The signature peach melba sling blends Peruvian pisco with peach schnaps, raspberry and lime juice and is topped with cream soda. It’s a devotional nod to Escoffier’s vintage dessert, built of Nellie’s toast. Otherwise, the classics, from martini to Manhattan, are expert.
More impressive than anything is the service, smooth and operatic as it is: bartenders somehow know who you’re meeting even if they haven’t been told; waiters remember your order from weeks before; drinks are efficient and paced well. It’s a theatrical place, drama without narcissism; somewhere the lighting was nailed long before any ice was shaken and where the music filters through the room like bergamot and thyme. Nobody who visits here will have had a toast named after them, but they’ll be made to feel like it.
100 Strand, WC2R 0EZ, simpsonsinthestrand.co.uk
Bar snacks
Rosella
107 Muswell Hill Road, N10, @eatrossella
Thai chain Giggling Squid reported a record turnover of £77m in the last financial year. Family-run Italian Rossella has taken over one of its sites all the same, just off Broadway in Muswell Hill. The original Rosella has been going since the 1970s, serving wine from their vineyard in Campania alongside traditional pastas and pizza. The new location is bigger and will operate as a restaurant, deli and bar. There’ll also be a tiramisu trolley. Opens in May.
The Prince Edward
73 Prince’s Square, W2, @juliesw11
The team behind Julie’s in Holland Park has taken on a pub in Notting Hill. The Prince Edward has been shut since February and so incoming is chef-patron Owen Kenworthy with a menu of pub classics such as fish and chips, pies and roasts. There’ll also be rotisserie chicken. Drinks will centre on draught beer, classic cocktails, and wine. The place is undergoing refurbishment and is expected to open later in 2026. We suspect it’ll be a hit given how well Julie’s is doing.
