The London Restaurant, 1840-1914, by Brenda Assael

Abstract

Reviewed by: The London Restaurant, 1840–1914 by Brenda Assael Rebecca Earle (bio) The London Restaurant, 1840–1914, by Brenda Assael; pp. viii + 239. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018, $85.00. "Strip the United Kingdom of its foreigners, and our kitchens and bakers' shops would be next to empty," stated the British Journal of Catering (qtd. in Assael 158). This was not a warning prompted by the impending threat of Brexit, though many restauranteurs predict that it will have a disastrous effect on recruiting waiters, cooks, and other staff. The quote instead dates from 1889, when the large number of Italian and German restaurant staff working in London provoked complaints that these Europeans were depriving native-born Britons of employment. Victorian and Edwardian Londoners worried about restaurant dining rooms and kitchens that lacked adequate ventilation and so imperiled the health of workers and diners forced to breathe germ-laden and noxious air. At the same time, they relished other aspects of London's cosmopolitan food scene, which for instance allowed them to arrange for "a complete Indian dinner" to be delivered to their house from a restaurant in Hammersmith (166). It is impossible to read Brenda Assael's excellent study of the London restaurant in the Victorian and Edwardian eras without drawing comparisons to today's battles between mobile labor forces and xenophobic backlashes, anxieties about airborne viruses in enclosed restaurant spaces, and Uber Eats. At the same time, to read this study [End Page 121] solely as an exercise in historical continuity would do it a disservice. Instead, Assael inserts the London restaurant into our histories of labor and commerce in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. As she notes, studies of the British restaurant have tended to focus on the cultural and symbolic dimensions of dining out, to the neglect of these establishments as sites of labor or as economic ventures. Assael reminds us that restaurants were not simply loci for the display of social anxieties about unaccompanied women, or opportunities for conspicuous consumption. They were also the workplaces of tens of thousands of workers, created, as the proprietor of one vegetarian restaurant indignantly reminded patrons, "with a view to gain" (qtd. in Assael 149). Assael's focus on the commercial innovations of proprietors and the working conditions of waiters makes The London Restaurant, 1840–1914 not only fascinating but also pathbreaking. The study opens with a review of the restaurant scene, including the extraordinary success of restaurant chains such as John Pearce's British Tea Table refreshment rooms, which reportedly served fifteen thousand meals a day in 1896. The London Restaurant also features a remarkable glimpse into the small local eateries that constituted the majority of London restaurants and which provided sustenance for the growing number of city clerks and white-collar workers who staffed the offices of metropolitan London. One chapter focuses on the financial realities of running a restaurant, with attention to the challenges of managing supplies, the importance of technological innovations such as refrigerators or telephones (the latter facilitating advance reservations), the rise of employment agencies to assist with recruiting staff, and advertising. There follows an account of the varied experiences of waitstaff, with a particular focus on wages. As remains the case today, remuneration for waiters was precarious. Some waiters depended entirely on tips and might be asked to cover the costs of breakages or nonpayment by customers. In response, waiters formed mutual aid societies and, eventually, unions. In 1894 the Waiters and Waitresses and Licensed Victuallers' Employment Union stood several candidates for the London County Council in an unsuccessful attempt to ensure a minimum wage for waiters. Waiters also went on strike. In 1895, waitresses at the Lyons tea shops in Piccadilly and the Strand walked out in a (successful) attempt to reverse decreases in pay. Other chapters consider municipal regulation, which, Assael argues, demonstrates that scholarship on liberal governance in the Victorian era should pay more attention to "the power of commercial forces" (123) and the "gastro-cosmopolitanism" that prevailed in London restaurants (155). The latter phenomenon manifested not simply in the menus served but also in the clientele, restaurant staff, and ingredients. Contrary to the claims of some...