Delightful Don Restaurant History, and Pictures

The Don main White Room restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The Don restaurant is in a quiet old courtyard off an alley near busy Fleet Street so named because was once alongside the Fleet which once tumbled downhill to the Thames a couple of blocks away downhill. You need your map or Satnav to guide you. It's only a short walk past interesting old and new buildings to the alley and you'll see a sign just before the courtyard.

The Travelodge And Bottle Openers

If the Don is beyond your budget, the Travelodge opposite has bargain bedrooms at under £100  (see Tripadvisor) and a wall of old bottle openers you can see from outside just before its entrance which faces the Don's enhance in the small courtyard. 

Old Bottle openers in Travelodge hotel window. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Sandeman House. Notice the e in the middle of the name. Sign for The Don restaurant which is at the right.

Doorway to The Don

You'll also see the name Sandeman on the building facing you between the Travelodge on your left and the The Don on your right.

History of The Don

The Don reflects the history of the location. The Don, pictured in black cape and wide brimmed flat top hat is the symbol still used and was the symbol of man who started the business in London way back in the 1700s importing port wine and spirits from Portugal, a Scotsman called Sandeman.  

If you turn right into the main restaurant and use the handy wide doored handicap accessible toilet on the ground floor you'll miss the other ground floor restaurant on the left and the historic device at the top of the stairs.

The stairs lead down to the cellars containing more restaurant rooms, handy for private functions. If you don't go down, admire the staircase, arched with old bricks.

Originally the cellars housed barrels which were raised and lowered. 

You can see the lifting device at the top of the stairs. If you go to Portugal you can visit a museum and learn more. 

Overhead is the device for lowering barrels to the cellars and raising them. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Downstairs, if you go down to the toilets, you will see arched bric roof rooms of the old cellars and one of the cellar restaurants rooms has a picture of the old days. 

At every turn are amusing wine bottle holders or other items to entertain then eye and mind of those who like old items and history. 

Inside there's a choice of restaurants. The main restaurant which seems to be the favourite is the one in the picture above, edged with wine bottles and colourful pictures. Yet we found it so quiet that you cannot hear anybody else and they cannot hear you. The tables are quite widely spaced. We went there on a summer Monday when there was a new chef. But on a Saturday night in season you might have trouble getting this restaurant.

Behind me in this first picture of the main restaurant, The White Room, is a wall of bottles. 

Separating diners in this half of The White Room from the diners other near the doorway is another semi-see-through wall of bottles you can just see on the left of the big picture.  

The Don is between three stations, Bank, Monument and Cannon Street.

The Don restaurant and The Sign of The Don

St Swithin's Lane, 

City of London

EC4N 8AD

Tel: 020 7626 2606

reservations@thedonrestaurant.com

www.thedonrestaurant.com

St Within's Wine Shippers is the other side of St Swithins Lane from The Don restaurant.

The also have wine delivery, tasting, shopping and shipping at:

One hour delivery anywhere in the City of London.

St Swithins Wine Shippers

11-12 St Swithins Lane

City of London EC4N 8AL

tel:020 7621 9972

email: info@stswithinswineshippers.com

www.stswithinsshippers.com

Wine shop and tasting trace.

TOURIST INFO

USEFUL WEBSITES
https://tfl.gov.uk (Transport for London)
https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/permanent-commission-by-daniel-buren/
www.visitlondon.com
www.londonpass.com
www.visitbritain.org

You can hire The Don and The Sign of The Don for birthdays, engagement parties, wedding receptions, for lunch, dinner and weekends for parties of up to 120 people.

More about food and drink at the Don in the next post. Also see previous posts on The Don. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

The Don Restaurant near stations and the river

Problem
How to eat at a pricey top restaurant without breaking the bank?

Answer
Prices
We were sent an email about the new chef at The Don restaurant offering half price on food from the a la carte menu (not the set menu and not drinks). We don't know how they found us. We'd never eaten there before. We can one presume it's because we'd previously made some bookings of half price offers from booking.com and were now on a list of people who respond to offers.

Bread and Butter
The bread was interesting, brown or white with olives. Good salty, tasty butter. The bread should have been hot. But we were very happy.

Starters
My starter was salmon. Presentation was perfect. Another diner's starter dish of duck did not look as interesting as mine but proved to be really tasty.

The dishes looked delightful. I ordered the chicken main course which has a tasty outside. We did plate sharing. Another person thought my chicken was too salty but I was happy.

Unfortunately I am allergic to shellfish. But I tried a little of another dish, a melange, and the part I tried was even better than my main course.

Deserts were equally amazing to look at and tasty. I had the chocolate and cherry dessert. Perfect. But another dessert was even better. We ordered the matching wines at £7 each.

Pictures in the next posts.

USEFUL WEBSITES
https://tfl.gov.uk
https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/permanent-commission-by-daniel-buren/
www.visitlondon.com
www.londonpass.com
www.visitbritain.org

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
I have a previous post on The Don menu and translations.