The Watier Club
It is better to burn out than to fade away. So sang Neil Young and on the whole I tend to agree with him. In the firmament of Georgian London’s club land, none shone brighter nor had as brief an existence as the Watier Club or, as it was affectionately known, the Dandy Club. It lasted only 12 years, from 1807 to 1819, but in its brief existence was one of the most fashionable and notorious of clubs.
Anyone who has dined in many of London’s gentlemen’s clubs will realise that you don’t go there for gastronomic excellent. Much of the fare is reminiscent of school dinners, stodgy and unexciting. And it seems as though it was ever thus. In 1807 the then Prince Regent conducted what we would call a bit of market research by asking his chums, members of White’s and Brooks’s, about the fare dished up at these establishments. The response was that quality was awful and selection monotonous – “the eternal joints, or beef-steaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple tart – this is what we have, sir, at our clubs and very monotonous fare it is”.
The Prince’s solution was to establish a new club which would eschew any political allegiances but would rather concentrate on the French art of gastronomy. Beau Brummel, the Prince’s best mate, was appointed President in perpetuo and the Regent’s personal chef, Jean Baptiste Watier, was brought in to advise on culinary matters. Although the club was to bear his name Watier declined (or wasn’t allowed) to cook there, the chef-in-residence being another member of the royal staff, Monsieur Labourie.
The club’s premises were on the corner of Bolton Street at 81, Piccadilly and through its royal patronage attracted the cream of English society. Although Watier’s was billed as a musical society and singing club, it made its name as the finest dining establishment in London with food of the quality that surpassed the best that Paris could offer. So good was the fare that it was to ruin many a man’s figure.
What caused greater damage, though, was the club’s emergence as the place to go to for a game of Macao, a form of pontoon or vingt-et-un. A couple of stories will serve to illustrate the sums gambled, won and lost on the premises. Tom Sheridan popped in and decided to wager £10 at macao. Beau Brummell, whose skill at the game was well known, offered to take his place and would split any winnings 50/50, adding £200 to Sheridan’s modest stake. Within ten minutes Brummell had won £1,500.
But Brummell didn’t always win. One evening he had lost spectacularly and striking a tragic pose asked the waiter for a flat candle and a loaded pistol. Bligh, a member who was known to be five cans short of a six-pack, produced two loaded pistols, saying that he would save the waiter the trouble. Brummell didn’t go through with his threat but the members were a little perturbed to learn that a known madman was visiting the club with two loaded guns in his possession!
Macao was the cause of Brummell’s and the club’s ruin. Brummell sustained heavy gambling losses and in 1816 fell out with the Prince Regent and without royal protection, fled to France to avoid his creditors. Without its President the club was taken over by unsavoury sorts who fleeced many a a member at the gambling tables. In 1819 it closed down, although 10 years later the baton for gastronomic excellence was taken up by Crockford’s.
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