Café Royal

The Café Royal was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management, and later that of his wife the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world.

By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. Its patrons have included Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Noël Coward, Brigitte Bardot, Max Beerbohm, George Bernard Shaw and Jacob Epstein.

The café was the scene of a famous meeting on 24 March 1895, when Frank Harris advised Oscar Wilde to drop his charge of criminal libel against the Marquess of Queensberry, father of Alfred Douglas. Queensberry was acquitted, and Wilde was subsequently tried, convicted and imprisoned.

Café Royal

Café Royal