[London] Cafe @ St Paul's Cathedral

[Harters]

There's a selection of cold items - pies, quiche and the like, with assorted salads.

Mrs H went for the giant sausage roll. Peppery sausagemeat, good flaky pastry topped with fennel seeds.

I went with a thick slice of a very decent gala pie (something you don't often see these days) which also came with a chunk of Montgomery Cheddar.

Potato salad, leaf salad with celery & tomato and a third of green & broad beas and peas (the latter tasty but looking a bit like the leftovers from someone's Sunday roast dinner). Help yourself to dressings and mustards. A very reasonable £6 a plate and a thoroughly enjoyable lunch.

The adjacent restaurant also looked good. Three courses of "modern Brit" dishes for around twenty quid.

Both can be accessed direct from the street or through the cathedral if, like us, you were touristing.
They are in the crypt so you get to have lunch in the company of some of ourt greatest heroes.

[steve h.]

Is this the same cafeteria, mere feet from the tomb of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, that is infested with school children during the week? Nelson is one of my heroes: school children, not so much. It's a crap shoot trying to determine best times to go there.

Historic places can attract scholars, tourists and children. Timing is important.

[Harters]

Indeed, it is.

No sign of younger people when we were there. That said, I take the view that I would rather encourage than discourage folk to take an interest in history. Subject regularly crops up on a military history forum where I spend much time - school battlefield trips are one of a number of subjects which divide we anoraks.

[zuriga1]

OK - what is a gala pie??

[Harters]

Z

Basically a pork pie. Same pastry,basic filling and jelly. But always made as an oblong for slicing. But the big difference is that it has hard boiled eggs running through the centre.

A well made gala pie simply rocks! It's the child of the marriage between pork pie and Scotch egg.

http://www.wilsonsbutchers.co.uk/shop...

[zuriga1]

Thanks, John. The pie sounds well worth a try if I ever see it on a menu. My mother used to put a hard boiled egg in the middle of her meatloaves. I think it was meant to make her kids eat all of the dinner rather than enhance the flavour. :-) She was not a good cook.

[howler]

thanks harters, its a good excuse to go back and re-visit st. pauls. fwiw, wren is one of my biggest heroes. if i knew you were coming, i could have pointed out a few not to miss things in the area - a secret garden, heroes wall etc.

i used to work around the corner and i always found paternoster square a soothing relief from daily stresses. birleys sandwiches in that square were about the best i've had in london for that kind of lunch; the italian martinet who ran it told me it belonged to one of james goldsmiths sons.

a short walk from st. pauls brings you to the cluster of restaurants around smithfields - ie st. john, le cafe du marche etc.