My perfect day
Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson describes his perfect Marylebone day
Interview: Clare Finney
Though we have not been out much in the last six months, we have been in Marylebone a lot since things have opened back up. There are doctors and dentists—there are reasons to be in Marylebone, and there are people about! Soho, where we live, is very quiet these days, at least during the daytime.
The famous Ginger Pig sausage roll
Fresh air
I like parks, and I like park benches. I like reading what’s written on them. My last collection of independent essays was called The Dog’s Last Walk, and the essay of that name was simply a description of me sitting in Paddington Street Gardens, watching a lady walking a very old dog. My wife and I decided, from observing them, that it must be his last day on earth—so I wrote about that. It was very moving. One of the things I have taken to doing lately, when my wife has an appointment, is going to the gardens via The Ginger Pig, where I buy a sausage roll. I wander down Moxon Street, find a bench in the garden—in the sun, if I can get it—and sit down to eat my sausage roll. I read dedications on the benches; check around to see if the old dog wasn’t, in fact, dying, then leave via the toilets—which rather takes away from the romance of it all. Now, in my head, The Ginger Pig sausage rolls are inextricably bound up with Paddington Street Gardens. I’ve eaten many other things in that park, but never with the zest with which I eat one of those sausage rolls.
Coffee
Finding somewhere to drink coffee outside is quite difficult, so sometimes it is as modest as Pret. We have recently discovered XR on Thayer Street, which is nice for a glass of wine or a coffee.
Shopping
After my sausage roll, I like to go to The Conran Shop. I have a son and a granddaughter in Manchester, and I can always find something in there for them. We also use The White Company for our bed linen, so a lot of what we eat, drink and lie in comes from Marylebone.
New outfit
I’m not very good at spending money on clothes. I wasn’t brought up to. My wife, however, does like several clothes shops in Marylebone, including Matches and that little shop for woollen cardigans and jumpers: Brora.
Anything else
When I was in The Princess Grace Hospital 10 or 12 years ago, I could see the golden angels of the St Marylebone Parish Church from my window. Whenever my wife visited, she would look up at the angels on that church as she left, because she worried about me, and in a way they were looking over me. Now whenever we see those angels it reminds us of that time; that anxious but affectionate, caring time. They hold a certain importance.
Al fresco dining on Marylebone Lane
Culture
It is The Wallace Collection for me. When I was writing The Act of Love, in which one of the characters volunteers as an art guide there, I haunted it. I had to edit out tens and tens of pages describing the gallery because it was just too detailed. My favourite painting is Thomas Lawrence’s Margaret, Countess of Blessington, in front of which I set a major scene involving two of the main characters.
Pre-dinner drinks
Marylebone Lane is a particularly wonderful place to sit outside and have a drink. We usually go to 28-50: the people are nice, and there is a good wine list. We’ve actually had a glass of wine at the Golden Hind before: there was no space at 108 Brasserie, and the view of the lane and the high street is particularly good from that corner. It was just fish and chip shop plonk, but it was decent enough and the staff are very friendly.
Eating in
We go to La Fromagerie for cheese, of course: for birthday cheese and Christmas cheese. That cheese room has felt like a really safe place; you close the door and it’s cool, distanced and you are in a wonderful world of cheese with assistants who know everything there is to know. We have bought meat from The Ginger Pig to cook at home, and we use that Waitrose too from time to time. It depends how much energy we have for lugging bags home.
Eating out
The idea for An Act of Love began at 4pm on Blandford Street, when I was walking down watching the restaurants reopening after their lunch break. I saw waiters finishing their cigarettes and going back inside to lay white tablecloths and shining glasses, and there was something very arousing about it. The whole scene was full of sexual promise; of the day giving way, and the fact it was so close to The Wallace Collection, which is full of such saucy paintings—well, the whole novel came from that. I like the restaurant world of Blandford Street a lot, and when we do eat out it is there—at Fairuz, or Trishna—or on Marylebone Lane at the fish and chip place or Delamina, which is very good. That said, the very last place we ate in was La Brasseria on the high street. The manager found us a table outside, about 12 miles away from everyone else, which I liked, and we had a very good meal. I liked the atmosphere, and the view down Paddington Street from that corner. So, if my wife were to turn to me tonight and say let’s go out to eat, I’d probably say there.