Another Memory of L’Orient in St. Giles – Maclaren-Ross and Tambimuttu Go for Horsemeat Curry in 1943

Talking about Julian Maclaren-Ross’s Memoirs of the Forties yesterday (in relation to Dylan Thomas and the Free Japan movement) I also noted that Maclaren-Ross makes mention of dining at L’Orient in St. Giles. I happened to blog about the old L’Orient Restaurant on London’s St. Giles High Street last year (here). It was of interest to me as once being a stalwart of the capital’s interwar and post-war Chinese restaurant scene (I have a long article on the city’s 1930s and wartime Chinese restaurant scene coming in the September edition of The Cleaver Quarterly magazine, by the way). The establishment is sadly long gone, as is the majority of St. Giles High Street, under what is now the Centre Point tower block. Here’s the only picture I have of the place…and it’s just a street scene with the sign…

Anyway, Maclaren-Ross remembers dining there during the war, around 1943, with the Sri Lankan poet (famous at the time) Tambimuttu. He recalls that it stayed open late – they dined there after a pub crawl of Fitzrovia. I believe that due to the wartime restrictions and shortages of meat this was the time, Maclaren-Ross also refers to, when they dined on L’Orient’s horsemeat curry!

Maclaren-Ross

Tambimuttu