The story of how Simpsons Tavern became Cloth Cornhill
City AM meets the men who transformed the much-loved Simpsons Tavern into the new Cloth Cornhill
How much can you fiddle with the recipe of… a sausage?
“We’re now on the ninth iteration,” sighs Ben Butterworth, founder of Cloth Cornhill. “We’ve been fine tuning the details. It’s still a very peppery, well-seasoned sausage, only more refined, less grainy.”
The recipe was discovered in a 1940s cookbook Butterworth found during the fitout for his new restaurant.
The name above the door, though, is not Cloth Cornhill but Simpsons Tavern. Butterworth’s new restaurant (launched in partnership with wine importer Joe Haynes and chef Tom Hurst) occupies the building that formerly housed the capital’s oldest chophouse, and one of the Square Mile’s most iconic restaurants, which first started serving dishes like this sausage back in 1757.
Simpsons Tavern becomes Cloth Cornhill
After hundreds of years of service, Simpsons Tavern lay empty for three years from 2022, when the former tenants were removed over rental arrears. City AM ran a campaign to save the venue, which was backed by Nigel Farage, who drank in the pub during his Square Mile days.
The restaurant is tucked up a narrow alleyway you’d never otherwise notice, close to The Royal Exchange; once inside, the labyrinthine space unravels to become five times larger than its narrow Georgian doorway suggests. It’s arrestingly simple: rows of polished wood seating by candlelight.
Nothing has changed in hundreds of years, but don’t think that was the easy route: the refurbishment cost Butterworth and his 19 investors around a million quid, with around £400,000 of that spent on refurbishing the famous benches, which are crafted from Brazilian mahogany with an unusually tight grain that dates back as far as 1,000 years. In a way, Hurst’s food acts as the backdrop; these precious, unusual benches are central to the ambience, which is the primary attraction.
A dark brown varnish, re-applied over decades, had given these precious pieces a gloopy, dirty appearance, so Butterworth had them chemically cleaned and applied a beeswax finish. He says the French polish technique they went with requires “an insane level of skill.” Lino flooring has been replaced with nearly 300 metres of reclaimed wood from an old assembly hall and six months was spent buffing up 22 identical antique lamps to bring a uniform Dickensian intimacy to every table.
‘We’ve gone very counterculture’
Other historical items have not been so lucky. Charcoal beams in the roof were uncovered during the refit, but not everything can become a feature. After all, Butterworth is keen to assert that this is a contemporary restaurant occupying a historic venue rather than a museum. “Someone will have fun discovering that in however many however many years, when it gets opened back up again,” says Butterworth, who also runs Cloth Fair restaurant in Farringdon with Haynes and Hurst. “We want to preserve what feels right for the space, but we don’t think the beams are relevant for what we’re trying to achieve.”
So what are they trying to achieve? “A modern interpretation of a very traditional British chophouse,” says Joe Haynes.
Refreshingly, the Cloth Cornhill menu is made up almost entirely of “big, big hunks of British beef”, says Haynes, bucking just about every trend for lighter, healthy dining. “We’ve gone very counterculture,” laughs Haynes. “There’s some token veg and a beetroot salad, which has got that kind of carnivore-esque smokiness, but apart from that…
Our competitor? The Sainsbury’s meal deal
“I do think it’s coming back,” Haynes says of comfort food. “You always see that in times of economic decline, people want more homely foods, and so it makes sense to just give people what they want. Lots of butter. Lots of old school traditional cooking, and you know, satisfy their needs. Why not? We’re not skimping out on the portions either, and we’re keeping the prices sensible.”
The former Simpsons Tavern was famous for its stewed cheese and a Welsh rarebit. There is rarebit on the new menu, although owners say it isn’t inspired from the Simpsons Tavern menu, but was instead adapted from the old recipe book by head chef Tom Hurst, another of the investors.
Rather than local restaurants The Ned and 1 Lombard Street, the founders insist their strongest competition is “the Sainsburys meal deal.” “There’s a fight at the bottom,” says Butterworth. “All of the restaurants are competing against the sandwich industry, the culture of eating at your desk.”
‘We feel very privileged’
The money spent on the renovation meant clearing out decades worth of accumulated items that had been stashed in the venue. Old staff clothes, Christmas decorations, paperwork, old books and even rotting food. “We get asked a lot, what wonderful things have you found?” says Butterworth. “There was nothing. The building was full of crap.”
“They had piles and piles of books that were just rotting. They smelt damp and were disgusting.”
Decluttering happened on the restaurant floor, too. The dumbwaiter that was beside the handsome bay window at the front of the building has been removed to give the feature more emphasis, one part of a broader plan to make this poky old pub less of a headache to move around in, while still retaining its character. “I want to be able to get in, get my drinks as quickly as possible, and then get back outside with my mates,” says Butterworth.
The founders admit they had “no idea” how significant the former Simpsons Tavern was to the people of the Square Mile. “That has become increasingly apparent,” says Butterworth. “You feel very lucky and very privileged to be the custodians.”
A bitter legal dispute led to the former tenant accusing Butterworth’s team of “lying and telling everyone they are reopening Simpsons”, something he documented in a long LinkedIn post, claiming the new owners “have no claim to the name, spirit or history of Simpsons.”
Dispute over Simpsons Tavern history
How did that land? “We’re trying to stay out of what is someone else’s argument,” says Butterworth of the dispute. “We’re not really interested in entertaining a discussion around ego,” adds Haynes. “The old owner’s driving a conversation that is very one way… It’s just a conversation we’ve got no interest in. We’ve got all the signage, but it’s listed. You can’t take it down. There’s no benefit to us having an argument online with this guy.”
More pressing is welcoming the elderly regulars, bankers and financiers of the Square Mile, who have been returning to relive the glory days. “It’s great to see a lot of the old guys who are back for the first time, lots of them have been here since the 70s and 80s,” says Butterworth. “And, you know, so far I haven’t had any complaints.”
For more information on Cloth Cornhill go to clothrestaurants.com