Chiltern Firehouse

THE FIRE BRIGADE
Stephen Fry

once there was a london with no Chiltern Firehouse and suddenly there was a London with one.

We should call to mind how absurd a proposition this establishment always was. With the deepest respect to the Portman and Howard de Walden Estates (who appear to own most of it), what exactly is Marylebone? An untidy polygon north of Oxford Street, uncomfortably sandwiched between Paddington and Fitzrovia. It is not Soho, St. James’s, Covent Garden, or Mayfair. Not Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Kensington, or Chelsea. Chiltern Street itself is a huffing and puffing walk from any of those more fashionable districts, with their starred restaurants, glossy member clubs, glamorous watering holes, and illustrious and historic hotels.

I suppose I might have walked past the Manchester Square Fire Station, as it was once known, in my walks around town, but I am embarrassed to say I have no memory of ever doing so. When I heard that André Balazs, the owner of New York’s Mercer Hotel and Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont (before whose name it is almost obligatory to place the word “legendary”) planned to convert this large derelict building, one of London’s very first purpose-built firehouses, into a restaurant with twenty-six hotel suites, I murmured a silent secular prayer for him and thought little more of it. Bless. I mean, Marylebone? And not even bustling Marylebone High Street, but some lost thoroughfare in the anonymous hinterland east of Baker Street.

In the London hospitality trade, as in the world of West End theatre, people sometimes talk about “walk-past.” That restaurant failed because it was in an area of London that diners don’t visit. This show bombed because the theatre was off the beaten track. No walk-past means no walk-in, no spreading of the word, no reputation, no buzz, no business. In both fields of endeavor these mantras may seem a credible excuse in the event of failure, but actually they never are. Before I sent up my silent secular prayer I should have called to mind the Field of Dreams principle. If you build it, they will come. Which is to say, if you build it right they will come. No matter where it is. 


OLD FASHIONED
SIMPLE METHOD

INGREDIENTS
Serves 1

1 sugar cube
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 ounces/60 ml bourbon or whiskey
1 strip unwaxed orange peel

Place the sugar cube in a rocks glass and drip the bitters onto it, then crush the cube lightly with a bar spoon. Add 1 ounce/30 ml of the bourbon or whiskey and a handful of ice cubes and stir 20 times. Twist the orange peel over the glass until its oils are released, then add it to the glass. Add more ice and the remaining bourbon. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and serve.