“Admirable”, “magnificent”, “A1” and “excellent” are among the adjectives Crowley lavishes on this classic French restaurant in Soho where he often went with Yorke and others in the late thirties. The picturesque figure of a man riding a snail outside (now coloured; it was plain white in Crowley's day) shows the original owner Monsieur Gaudin, who farmed his own snails in the basement.
Food was very important to Crowley, especially as he grew older. Back in 1906 he'd assured Gerald Kelly “They live on old brandy, caviar and truffles in Hell” 1 and by the Thirties he was something of a gourmand: “Nothing to eat all these two days but oysters, caviar, foie gras” he writes one day in 1932, and on another occasion he wonders “Could one not stuff a chicken with oysters?”. When the I Ching says “IX – Hsiao Khu. Small restraint”, he interprets this as lunch from 1.30 until 5.00: “Caviar, lobster, foie gras, white Burgundy, brandy &c. All out!”
It was a matter of faith to live like a king, even in poverty. Money was a constant issue with Germer (“Once get me on my feet and I will repay royally”, Crowley wrote to him, “But kings in exile are always beggars”). Germer complained that the money he was sending was all going on cigars and fine dining.
Crowley dined regularly at Chez Victor, another French restaurant at the south end of Wardour Street, on one occasion starting his lunch with four absinthes. Run by Victor, former head waiter at L’Escargot, it was associated with a gay clientele in the Thirties and survived into recent times.2 He also remained a loyal regular at the Café Royal, on the Piccadilly/Regent Street hub, together with Oddenino's, along with occasional visits to other establishments including the White Tower, Simpson's, the Savoy, the Ritz, Claridges, the Berkeley Grill, Czarda's, Hatchett's on Piccadilly, the German restaurant Kempinski (underground below Veeraswamy's at the start of Swallow Street; he had known the more famous Berlin original), Verrey's on Regent Street, and the Ivy.
Temperamentally more suited to restaurants than cafes, he nevertheless spent plenty of time in Colombo's at 51 Greek Street (the Soho branch of Joseph Colombo's longer-established café in Fitzrovia, at 35 Great Portland Street, which he also knew), and he sometimes went to Santini's at 17 Frith Street, run by Mario Santini (now Ceviche). At Christmas 1936 – he didn't, of course, celebrate Christmas, although he did send “Anti-Christmas cards” to a few close friends – he noted Soho was dead and almost empty but for “that robber Santi Romani” (a virtual anagram; he loved word games and would have made a good crossword compiler). There is something memorable in the image of Crowley prowling around Soho on his own on Christmas Day.
He knew Soho well, for prostitutes as well as restaurants, and even lived there briefly. He stayed at the Astoria Hotel at 11-13 Greek Street, which became an Italian convent shortly afterwards, where he met shipping heiress Nancy Cunard. She became a friend, although she had no time for what she called “hoolie-goolie” stuff, and he never bothered her with it. Her first impression was a sound like bats squeaking, coming from his room, which turned out to be his rubber soles on the floor. He also seems to have lived briefly at 14 Edward Street (now the stretch of Broadwick Street between Wardour Street and Berwick Street, and no longer separately named); he wrote to Germer using that address in November 1936, and the addition of a phone number, GERrard 1223, suggests it was more than a poste restante service.
Foreign cuisine other than high French was still a cosmopolitan novelty in Britain, and Crowley – nothing if not cosmopolitan – ate regularly at a Greek restaurant called Demos, which was at 166 Shaftesbury Avenue, and a smart Spanish restaurant Majorca (“Soho with a Mayfair accent,” says a guide, “chic and the waiters wear the sort of well-cut coats you associate with first-class expensive restaurants in the West End”); that was at 66 Brewer Street. Italian restaurants were more common, and Crowley went occasionally to Frascati's at the Bloomsbury end of Oxford Street, Pagani's on Great Portland Street (both magnificent buildings and now gone), Monico's on Piccadilly Circus, and Leoni's Quo Vadis, still there on Dean Street but no longer Italian.
Along with L’Escargot and Chez Victor he was particularly fond of Bentley's (still there in Swallow Street), where he might have lobster and where his favourite waitress told him one day in January 1942 that he was looking like hell.
Another favourite haunt was the long-gone Casa Prada, a Spanish restaurant on the Euston Road: one evening he met his friend Louis Fox at El Vino's, then they went on to “White's Oysters Euston Road. Casa Prada ditto for best steak in London.” Casa Prada was at number 292, and was associated with musicians; Crowley would occasionally bump into the composer Constant Lambert there, and it was also frequented by other friends such as Charles Cammell and Tom Driberg.
Most of this dining was dependent on the generosity of friends. When Crowley notes that he met Bruce Blunt (friend of the composer Philip Heseltine, or ‘Peter Warlock’) one lunchtime and it was “A perfect steak and excellent brandy after a struggle. The Clos Vougeot A.1.”, it is not clear if the struggle was with the kitchen or Blunt.
When Crowley entertained it was more likely to be at home, and he was an accomplished cook of steaks. He did sometimes dream up Western-style dishes,3 like his “Canape Talisman” or his “Biftek Crapaudine” – for which you had to pound together “olives, anchovies, capers, onions, garlic: smear minute steak, bake in batter” and preferably serve with asparagus – but his signature dishes were good plain steak and more especially curry.