Wiltons Restaurant

When George William Wilton opened his shellfish-mongers close to Haymarket in 1742, he could have had no idea that his business would still be thriving nearly 275 years later. George’s oysters were a great success with the local traders and, after devoting 28 years of his life to serving, he passed the business on to his son Francis Charles Wilton. The shop stall continued to thrive and grow under Francis’s ownership and in 1805 he left Wiltons to his nephew, Rooms and had secured a licence in 1840 to sell wine and beer on the premises, making it a fully-fledged restaurant. Wiltons was now hugely respected and by 1868 it had received its first Royal Warrant as Purveyor of Oysters to Queen Victoria and also to the Prince of Wales who was a loyal customer. The Second World War, however, took its toll not only on London but also on the owner at the time a Mrs Bessie Leal. One evening in 1942 Bessie was talking to one of her regular customers, Mr Olaf Hambro, who was dining alone at the bar. Without warning a bomb, which landed near St James’s Church Piccadilly, shook not only the walls of Wiltons but Bessie’s nerves. As history has it, Mrs Leal folded her tea towel, unpinned her apron and then proclaimed that she no longer wished to live in London during the War and wished to sell Wiltons. She asked Mr Hambro if he knew of anybody who would be in a position to purchase the restaurant, to which he calmly replied that ‘he did not know of anybody other than himself’! A somewhat surprised and relieved Mrs Leal inquired at the end of his meal how he wished to proceed to which he replied “put the restaurant at the end of the bill!” and she did just that! The following day she packed her bags and left for Cornwall, never to return to her beloved restaurant. Wiltons today has the same timeless elegance, passion and dedication to excellence it has always had, throughout the centuries!