30 bruton place mayfair london w1j 6nl

The Guinea Grill is located in a quiet mews in Mayfair, just off Berkeley Square. It is a traditional English pub, serving a range of wines, spirits and lagers. At the rear of the pub is the Restaurant which specializes in grills and steak & kidney pies, three times National Champions, Restaurant Magazine 2005 Best Dishes Award - Best Pie.

Our steaks are of the highest quality; we use specially selected Scotch Beef. Our Private Dining Room, The Boardroom, is located on the first floor and is an atmospheric pine paneled room which seats up to 22 around our oval table or 28 if divided among three separate tables. In the Guinea Grill Boardroom, we specialize in dinner parties serving hih quality food and wine. The menus depend upon the size of the party, but include full A La Carte, a Limited Choice Menu and set Banqueting Menus.

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One of my top 20 pubs

30 Bruton Place, W1J 6NL

Nearest tube: Bond Street 0.4 miles

Nearest attraction: The Wallace Collection 0.8 miles

Historical interest: 6/10

Cosiness quotient: 8/10

The Guinea Grill, Mayfair

The Hook

You can almost see the tumbleweed blowing down Bruton Place as you approach this quiet backwater from the hubbub of nearby Bond Street. The Guinea Grill is a cosy-looking pub and if you’re a history buff, the Est 1675 sign outside will doubtless tempt you in.

The History

EST: 1675. Monarch: Charles II

Despite the aforesaid Est 1675 sign, the current building dates back to the 1720s but a pub has stood on this site since 1423. Confused? Me too.

The original clientele was probably made up of stable lads, servants and farm labourers from the big Mayfair houses that sprang up after the Great Fire of London. No doubt the pub played host to many a tryst, plot and barney, but literacy wasn’t exactly a “must have” in those days, so it’s likely that none of them have been catalogued.

We do have some concrete evidence of the pub’s 20th century clientele, however. The Guinea Grill was apparently the one-time haunt of legends such as Frank Sinatra, Greta Garbo, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby – some of whom left their autographs on the walls of the gents. Not Greta, I’m guessing. Why such illustrious Hollywood icons chose to spend their time propping up the bar at a backstreet Mayfair pub is unclear. But everyone has to be somewhere – so why not make that somewhere a cosy London pub? That’s my logic, anyway.

Now let’s turn to the immediate environs of the Guinea Grill. Trawling through the internet I initially drew a bit of a blank about Bruton Place. I then discovered that 18th century playwright Richard Sheridan lived in neighbouring Bruton Street (See: The Coach and Horses).

Sheridan was a bit of a cad by all accounts – a gambler and a womaniser who famously refused to pay his creditors “because it would only encourage them”. And he liked to keep up appearances, even when he was virtually penniless.

At one stage he invited a bevy of illustrious politicians to dine at his Bruton Street residence despite the fact that he was so broke that he’d had to pawn all his belongings – including his plates and cutlery. Not to be deterred, he arranged for the pawnbroker to return his tableware for the evening in question. He then asked a local bookseller to fill his empty shelves for the occasion. The tradesman agreed, even offering to lend Sheridan some of his most expensive tomes – on condition that two bookshop employees remained on hand all evening to guard them. Sheridan must have been pretty good at striking a deal because these two bookselling minders even agreed to don servants’ livery and wait on Sheridan’s guests at the table. And the meal went relatively well, despite a hiccup when the pawnbroker’s failed to deliver the cutlery in time.

So, did anything else of historical importance happen in or near the Guinea Grill? I’ve good news for you, readers: someone pretty famous was born at 17, Bruton Street. And when I say famous, I mean only the most famous flipping person in the country.
That’s right, folks – on April 21 1926 Her Majesty the Queen was born a mere three-minute walk from the Guinea Grill.

It hardly seems credible that our longest-serving queen should have been born not in a palace, but in some obscure private house in a quiet corner of London. But let’s not forget she was never meant to be queen: her father was the stammering second son of George V who lived in the shadow of his handsome, more glamorous brother. It was only when Edward VIII threw his toys out of the pram and abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson that his young brother was forced to step up. Elizabeth then became heir to the throne and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, now we know where Queenie was born, let’s head out to see the house for ourselves, shall we? Sadly, it can’t be done. The house was demolished in the 1930s and the site was taken over by property developers. It is now occupied by bland offices without even a blue plaque to commemorate Her Majesty’s birth because the original house is no longer standing.

By an extraordinary coincidence, the house next door to the Queen’s birthplace – 18 Bruton Street – also has a 1930s royal connection. it was home to one Guy Marcus Trundle, an obscure car salesman who was conducting a secret affair with Wallis Simpson at the same time as she was consorting with the future king.

The ambiance

A charming pub with wooden screens and panelling, the Guinea Grill is decorated in warm colours and there are many old paintings and prints on display. In the summer the customers spill out onto Bruton Place and create a convivial atmosphere.

The other stuff

Brewery: Young’s

Open: Every day

Food: Every lunchtime except Saturday, every evening except Sunday.

The Guinea Grill has been a Young’s pub since 1888 and serves three regular Young’s ales plus an ever-changing guest ale. The bar specialises in award-winning steak and kidney pies – just like the Windmill around the corner – and the restaurant prides itself on its excellent steaks and British staples such as Devonshire crab, rock oysters and Beef Wellington.

http://www.theguinea.co.uk

For a complete list of pubs, go to the home page. And to see a list of pubs by their nearest tube station, go to Where’s my pub?

And go to: King Who? for more info about the monarchs mentioned in this blog.