Grumbles

Jeremy Friend opened Grumbles in 1964 with a lease costing twelve pounds a week and three hundred pounds of capital, most of it spent on paint and a domestic cooker. His friend Julian Hippisley built the original dining tables from spare wood, and they are still in use. Friend ran the restaurant for thirty years before selling to Charles Tidman in 1994; Alex Turnbull has been proprietor since 2011. The menu holds to British and French staples: pan-fried tiger prawns with garlic and chilli, fillet steak with chips, and Eton mess to finish. Wood panelling and mismatched furniture fill the ground floor, with two semi-private rooms in the basement once used for early Social Democratic Party meetings. Three owners in sixty years is unusual for a Pimlico restaurant of this size.