Paul Rothe & Son Delicatessen’s Corned Beef and Pickle

Corned beef and pickle sandwich at Paul Rothe & Son

Since my joy at finding a fifty year old deli in Fitzrovia that sells some of the best Italian sandwiches in London, I thought it would be a long time before I found another experience that so beautifully encapsulated London’s continuity with its culinary past.  Then I went walking in Marylebone and found a 114 year old deli with a very long queue outside.  It seems that my fellow Londoners are more in tune with this than I.

Paul Rothe & Son was founded in 1900 and has been passed down through the same family to the current owner, who is the great-grandson of the original one.  The sign for HOT SOUP outside can be seen from much further down the street and is enough to attract the attention of hungry passers-by.  Apparently it is the soup that they are most famous for, but they also have a menu of extensive sandwich fillings, some of which are now so rarely found in London cafes I wondered if I’d stepped back in time.

It’s not just the sandwich fillings that give this feeling of history – the window display contains both bunting and stacked jars of jam, and the interior is probably unchanged, although wonderfully preserved from several decades ago.  The furniture is antique and the way of presenting the produce reminiscent of a time before minimalism or online ordering changed the appearance of shops.  By the time I arrived there was not a seat left in the place, clearly people like this trip back in time.

My choice of sandwich was influenced by a pang of nostalgia when I saw it up on the menu board.  My Nan always made us corned beef and Branston pickle sandwiches when we were children.  In fact, she had a bit of a thing for meat that came in tins and packets – corned beef, polony, spam – I think it had something to do with growing up in the war.  I have shed many of these childhood foods as I’ve grown up, but still have a bit of a weakness for corned beef.  The good stuff you can buy in delis, obviously, but also the basic tinned corned beef you buy in supermarkets.  The corned beef and pickle sandwich at Paul Rothe and Sons was exactly like the one my Nan used to make:  granary bread, real butter,  thick slices of corned beef and a good smear of Branston pickle.  And that’s it.  When I opened the paper wrapping to see that he had cut it into quarters, as she used to, I smiled.

Paul Rothe & Son, 35 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2NN.

MEATLiquor’s Dead Hippie

The Dead Hippie at MEATLiquor, Marylebone

I don’t know what I can say about this burger that hasn’t been said before.  I have already hailed it as the best burger in London and put it to the top of my Top 10 Burgers list.  And yet somehow I still find myself wanting to write more about its many charms.  It seems that I have a bit of a thing for the Dead Hippie.

My love affair with these burgers goes back quite a long way.  It began when I used to visit a small van on a Peckham industrial estate.  It then moved to the upstairs room of a closed-down pub in New Cross, the legendary #Meateasy, very convenient as I was studying just around the corner at Goldsmiths at the time.  A brief stint at The Rye in Peckham brought these burgers dangerously close to my house before they finally moved to the MEATLiquor site in Welbeck Street, Marylebone.  This journey was just the beginning as sites are opening all the time, from the second restaurant, MEATMission in Hoxton, to the most recent establishments in Leeds, Brighton and, imminently, Bristol.  MEATLiquor; part restaurant, part Berlin squat; remains my favourite.  Yes, it’s dark in there and the queues are long, but it’s fun and the drinks are strong.

And it’s around the corner from my office.

I have sampled most of what the menu has to offer, but always come back to the Dead Hippie.  When asked to describe it, I always say “imagine a really, really, REALLY good Big Mac,” but, of course, it is so much more than that.  It has two mustard-fried patties that manage to be both crisp on the outside and beautifully rare within.  The flavour on the patty, probably due to the mustard is one of the best I have ever had.  It comes with a blanket of melted American cheese and the closely guarded ‘special sauce’, iceberg lettuce and thickly cut pickles.  I seem to remember from the old days of the open kitchen, that they are a fan of ‘sealing’ everything under a metal bowl on the hot plate.  The bread is soft and soaks up all of the sauce but somehow doesn’t disintegrate.

I have nothing negative to say about this burger, for me it remains the best of the best.  I would also recommend a side of either the deep-fried pickles with blue cheese sauce, or the chilli cheese fries if you’re really hungry.  Did I mention the drinks were strong?

MEATLiquor, 74 Welbeck Street, London W1G 0BA.