The rooms with fires

London does not really have weather; it has rooms. The visitor complains about the rain. The resident has already left it at the door — of a breakfast room on Piccadilly, a fish room in the City, a pub that lays its fire in October and lets it burn until spring. The office keeps its London by room, and autumn, whatever the month says, is when that London reopens.

The usual word on method: nothing below is a recommendation. These are six rooms the office goes back to — verified this season, seatable by us, and struck from the page the day a kitchen changes hands. The rest of London stays between us and the members.

1. I The Wolseley Breakfast under the black and gold on Piccadilly, full by 08:00 on a weekday. Waistcoats, pressed newspapers, the kedgeree unchanged. Arrive first and watch the day assemble.
2. II Sweetings The City’s fish room since 1889, open 11:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, and not a minute more. No dinner, no second thoughts — lunch as the Square Mile’s one fixed appointment.
3. III Andrew Edmunds Old Soho in one narrow room on Lexington Street, with a cellar that runs deeper than the menu. Smoked cod’s roe on their own focaccia; the club upstairs is another story, and not ours to tell.
4. IV St. JOHN The white room by Smithfield that taught the country’s cooking to speak plainly. Bone marrow, mince on dripping toast; some recipes have held for thirty years, which is the point.
5. V Rochelle Canteen Behind a wall south of Arnold Circus, at the buzzer marked “canteen”. A converted schoolyard, anchovy toast, and the pleasant suspicion of being the only ones in on it.
6. VI The Pelican The case, made properly, that the London pub deserved better. Welsh rarebit from the grill, a fire that is actually lit, and a room on All Saints Road that remembers what the institution was for.