Taking a walk on the Villiers Street from the Embankment
tube station towards Charring Cross station in the banking district of
London, there is a very old building with a brick finish on your right.
A small signage displayed outside announces that you are passing by the
Gordon's Wine Bar.
If it is your first time, chances are you will miss it,
unless you get curious about dozens of people milling around with glasses
of wines in their hands, outside the building, in the side lane, they
call the terrace which would be full of people in summertime.
Going down the basement on the steep wooden staircase,
you may cross a few people too- the toilettes are located between the
ground and basement. But the real surprise awaits you when you reach down.
Chances are you will run into couple of hundred people chatting away with
no music -only clinking of glasses.
You have entered the oldest and most written about wine
bar in London. You find a rickety dungeon-like hall with arches with walls
splashed with century-old newspapers and old wine bottles. Lit candles
on the tables in the dark corners are as decorative as functional. For
117 years, the bar has done as much for wine drinking culture in London
as wine drinking has done to its bottom line.
The bar was originally set up by one Arthur Gordon (not
related to the current owners) in 1890. At that time no license was required
to set up a wine bar. The Bombay-born Nobel Laureate British author Rudyard
Kipling was a tenant in this building and lived in the parlour above the
bar in 1890s. Legend has it that he used to come down every day for a
glass of two of wine in the bar. In his memory, the building is known
as Kipling House.
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Shailen Patel (C) with Abhay (L) & friend say Cheers to Grover
Photo: Subhash Arora
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You may not find a table immediately-on some busy nights
you may not find any for a long time. But the friendly people won't mind
if you request them to share their table or butt in for a friendly conversation.
You could also find place outside on 'the terrace'- the lane outside for
which the bartender assured me the owners pay rent to the government for
land use.
Reckoned to be the oldest bar in London, this rather
cramped and smoky former wine cellar located in the basement of the building
which was home to the well known English politician and diarist Samuel
Pepys since 1680s has a coterie of fans, who love its slightly scruffy
but genuine feel and its honest- to- goodness yet inexpensive, mainly
British fare. You can come any morning for breakfast, for example, which
is available for only £5.50
A limited range of delicious home cooked food is available
including mature cheeses. But the house specialty is their salads, which
could include smoked or poached salmon, roast beef, and also pasties,
onion tart, oven baked garlic mushroom, and egg plant with mozzarella
and tomatoes.
'The best part of this bar is that it is very friendly
and informal,' says Shailen Patel, owner of Cranbrook Wines. He is an
experienced Patel of wine distribution in London and is the UK distributor
of Grover's Vineyards. He is immensely proud that he introduced Grover's
wines in this bar. 'La Reserve, Sauvignon and Rose, are all the three
labels we introduced here,' he says. These 'informal' customers include
a lot of merchant bankers and banker-types, seen frequenting the underground
bar in the evenings, due to its location.
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| The two bar-tenders behind the bar |
Says Abhay Kewadkar with whom we had gone for a glass
of wine and ended up with three times as much (that is three-fourths of
a bottle here),' I was with Grover Vineyard when Shailen introduced their
wines here. Even though I don't work for them anymore, I love to come
here every time I visit London. It is like a pilgrimage for me.'
Grover wines enjoy a respectable position at Gordon's
according to the two bartenders busy pouring glassfuls of wine- four glassed
to a bottle here, and chatting up with the customers. The bar menu lists
Grover's La Reserve at £17.20 (£4.75 per glass). In comparison,
the house wine is a Vin du Pays French Syrah- Merlot at £12.95.
It also compares respectably with Bourgogne Pinot Noir (the basic village
appellation of Burgundy) at £17.15, the Italian Merlot Grave from
Pasqua at £14.30, Palo Alto Reserva from Chile at 18.50 and Eccheveria
Merlot Reserva at 19 quid.
Grover's Sauvignon Blanc at 13.95 is about the cheapest
wine in the bar-the House wine is 12.95. Rose was listed on the board
at a special of 13.95 when we visited the bar probably because 'they have
some excess stocks and the vintage they have perhaps passed its peak.
They also keep some wines on specials and display on the blackboard which
changes its list regularly,' informed Shailen. He sells 400 cases of Grover
wines to the bar.
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| Salad Menu displayed on the blackboard |
Most wines at Gordon's sell for £13-25 a bottle
inclusive of VAT, though Champagne is as expensive as £45 for the
Laurent Perrier. A variety of Sherry, Port-especially Gordon's Tawny Port,
and Madera are available by the bottle or served from the small barrels.
Luiz Gordon, father of Simon who now runs the bar with his mother Sophie,
had bought the bar in 1975. He was a wine merchant, specialising in Sherry
import and hence the special attention to fortified wines here.
Wine pricing policy at Gordon's is extremely competitive.
Mark ups of 70-80% are the standard fare making the price list carrying
several awards winning wines, one of the most attractive in the city.
Gordon's wine bar is an institution in London that any
wine-lover would love to visit and should be a must on your next trip
to this happening city.
And when you are there, try a glass of Grover's La Reserve..
or Rosé.. or Sauvignon Blanc.
Subhash Arora
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