All restaurants with history run the risk of becoming its prisoner, more beholden to the past than the present. Rules, the great English game restaurant on London's Maiden Lane, is more at risk than most, for it has more history than most. It opened in 1798, making it the capital's oldest establishment. Since then it has had just three owners: the family of its founder Thomas Rule until 1918, the Bell family until 1984 and now businessman John Mayhew, who bought it because he thought 'London deserved a spectacular English restaurant'.
There are always critics willing to argue that, with its red velvet plush, dark wood panelling and cluttered walls, Rules represents a theme park vision of Victorian England, marketed at American tourists. And yes, a lot of its business does come from overseas. But it has, and always has had, a devoted hardcore British clientele. They come year after year because they know they will find a kind of cooking - solid, unmodish, but deftly executed for all that - that they will find almost nowhere else.
The last Tory cabinet - Michael Heseltine, William Hague, and Ken Clarke in particular - were regular visitors because of the restaurant's proximity to Whitehall, until they were voted out of office, when they were replaced by the current Labour Cabinet. 'John Prescott used to be a regular,' says the general manager, Ricky McMenemy, 'but he stopped coming, probably because I called him Ken Clarke.' It has played host to three of the five James Bonds - Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan - as well as Paul Newman, Harrison Ford and Joan Collins.
But all of these names pale against those that history can supply: upstairs is a private dining room named for Charles Dickens, who ate here often. Next to it is the Edward VII room, because it was where he entertained his mistress Lillie Langtry. (A special curtain was installed so they could slip up the stairs, unseen by the commoners.) On the floor above is the Graham Greene Room - the novelist ate there whenever he was in London and featured it in his novel The End of the Affair. And next to that is the newest of the rooms, named for the poet John Betjeman. In 1971 Betjeman made a passionate speech in defence of Rules at a planning meeting discussing proposals to redevelop the Maiden Lane area of Covent Garden. 'A place which has constantly been used by actors, managers and famous people, as Rules has, acquires an invisible atmosphere just as a church frequented by praying people acquires an atmosphere,' he declared. 'We can sense it and it will not photograph.' Rules was saved. I first experienced that atmosphere a quarter of a century ago, when I was 10. My mother, a writer, was in the process of writing a sequence of 12 novels that followed two London families from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, and because Rules was in existence throughout the period a scene in each book was set there. (It has also appeared in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, John Le Carr¿ and Penelope Lively) It was a place for which my mother feels great affection and to which she took us for special treats. I remember still the rich, dense jugged hare I ate then, served from its own shining copper pot; 25 years on, jugged hare is still on the menu although today the marinade contains Chinese five spices. It is an ingredient which was unlikely to be found in the Rules kitchen of the Seventies.
That is the key to its continuing success. The menu still refers, quaintly, to feathered and furred game, mostly brought down from the restaurant's own game estate in the high Pennines. But under head chef David Chambers, who has been there for five years, their preparation has subtly altered so that the menu, despite its antiquated typeface, is not caught in metaphorical aspic. Wild duck comes both roast and confit, where once such French cooking techniques would not have been tolerated. Whole roast grouse may still come with game chips and bread sauce but there is game jus rather than over-thickened gravy. Venison is there, both roasted and as a carpaccio. Potted shrimps are lighter on the butter.
'There are two things I cannot do,' says Chambers, who is also a director of the restaurant. 'I can't move anything in the rooms and I'm not allowed, nor do I want, to move from the parameters of what Rules is. That means John Mayhew does not want to see lemon grass on the menu and neither do I. At the same time it does not mean standing still.' As Mayhew himself puts it: 'History's great but restaurants need to move on and keep re-inventing themselves or they die.' Clearly the formula works: the kitchen brigade of 30 serves 500 meals a day and, each year, gets through 18,000 game birds, more than any other restaurant in Britain.
There are complaints. There are those - including some members of staff - who hate the new laminated menus which, they say quietly, are reminiscent of a Harvester. And when, last year, Rules announced they were banning smoking from the general dining room they were flooded with letters of complaint from regulars, some of whom had been coming for half a century. It was, a number declared, a surrender to the caprices of fashion, something which had never before infiltrated the place. Perhaps it was. If so it was one of the few victories that fashion can claim at Rules, in 203 years.
Diners past and present
Charlie Chaplin
Charles Dickens
William Makepeace Thackeray
John Galsworthy
Joan Collins
Edward VII
H.G. Wells
Clark Gable
Evelyn Waugh
Harrison Ford
Laurence Olivier
Graham Greene
John Betjeman
John Le Carre
Michael Heseltine
Penelope Lively
Paul Newman
John Prescott
Lillie Langtry
William Hague
What to eat
Hare soup with port and recurrant jelly
Oysters
Classic Morecambe Bay potted shrimps
Jugged Hare, spicy winter vegetables and herb mash
Whole roast partridge with game chips, bread sauce, crispy bacon, game jus
Treacle sponge pudding with custard
Raspberry syllabub trifle with raspberry coulis and cream
What to drink
Any good, hefty claret
The bill
Around £60 a head
What to say
I like my meat bloody
What not to say
What do you have for vegetarians?
