From the Diogenes club to Country Inns: Dining with Holmes and Watson

by Steve Connelly

Holmes and Watson occasionally dined out in more luxurious environments. A favourite locale is Simpson’s in the strand as we see in the dying detective, when after Culverton Smith is arrested, Holmes suggests that he and Watson go for a meal, saying “ you, Watson, you must help me on with my coat. When we have finished at the police-station I think that something nutritious at Simpson's would not be out of place.
A famous London chop house, Simpson’s first opened in 1828 and specialized in roast meats catering to clubmen, barristers, and authors. It was the sort of place where men of intellect and appetite could dine without ceremony; thick tablecloths, steaming joints of meat, and service brisk and the silver-domed trolleys came to you, ready to be carved at your table. In my own pastiche, ‘The adventure of the Stradivarius’,Holmes and Watson dine there after the trial of Patrick Cairns, with Dr Watson describing the scene as ‘….courses of julienne soup, filet de soles, spring chicken and a dessert of Charlotte Russe’. Holmes and certainly Watson would have been familiar with high class restaurants such as the criterion which offered French-influenced cuisine such as Soufflés, terrines, ragouts, and elaborate patisserie. French cooking in the 19th century was admired by sophisticated gentlemen and much enjoyed.

 Victorian railway refreshment rooms served pies, sandwiches, ham, and hot drinks. The quality varied, but the ritual remained: a brief pause, a cup of tea, a bite of something savoury, and the train whistle calling you back. In the Adventure of the Naval treaty we read of a ‘hasty luncheon at the terminus buffet. These meals reflect the pace of their practical and fragmented lives of Holmes and Watson. There is always somewhere else to be in the stories.
Country house dinners, too, play a role. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson and Sir Henry dine in the shadow of danger. The dining room at Baskerville Hall is described as long, cold, hung with ancestral portraits. Typical country house fare would have for Breakfast: ham,eggs, baked goods. Luncheon: game pies, stews, fresh breads. Dinner: full service with multiple courses and to drink, certainly a vintage wine from the cellar.

In country inns the food is also generally cold fare, with Watson recording a cold supper at an inn in the Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter and one suspects the similar fare at the Fighting Cock in The adventure of the Priory School.
In the adventure of Silver Blaze Holmes and Watson are served Curried mutton. The term “curry” itself is a British simplification of the Tamil word kari, meaning sauce or relish for rice. British colonizers began to use ‘curry’ as a blanket term for any spiced dish with gravy. During Queen Victoria’s reign two curries were prepared each day at Buckingham Palace; although rarely eaten formally, they were there in the case of any visitors who requested them. 
London tea rooms appear less often, but their spirit hovers in many domestic scenes. Afternoon tea in a respectable household was a symbol of refinement. Tea, scones, small sandwiches, and sponge cake were standard. One suspects it is this kind of establishment Holmes and Watson stop off at to grab a sandwich and coffee before seeing Sarasate play at St James Hall. 
In A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes visits Irene Adler’s home, where the maid answers the door in the midst of domestic bustle. While food is not described, the setting suggests gentility. 

Gentlemen’s clubs offered another kind of dining—quiet, male, and hierarchical. In The Adventure of the Greek interpreter Holmes refers to the Diogenes Club, Mycroft’s refuge. It is a place where silence is prized, and meals are taken in solitary dignity. The Diogenes, though fictional, echoes clubs like the Athenaeum or Reform, where the food would be excellent and consistent. They would serve seasonal Game meats such as venison and hare, shellfish such as oysters and Lobster and rich desserts like trifles,syllabub, all topped off with good vintage wines and brandy. In The Bruce-Partington Plans, we read that Mycroft dines there daily, taking his accustomed seat, receiving his accustomed dishes, engaging with no one. For Mycroft, food is routine; almost part of the same clockwork as his government duties.

In The Blue Carbuncle, a goose moves through a chain of butchers, poulterers, and dealers before landing in the possession of a humble clerk. The bird itself becomes symbolic; its quality, its fatness, its provenance. Food becomes evidence, character, and commodity all at once.
The working-class diet in Victorian London was simple and repetitive. Bread, cheese, onions, pickles, tea. Meat was a luxury. In contrast, Holmes and Watson inhabit a world of cold meats, preserved game, and claret—never ostentatious, but always above the level of want. Holmes’s meals are often solitary, cold, and sparse, but they are never poor. He lives simply, but not cheaply.