Kettner’s

Auguste Kettner opened this restaurant in 1867, having previously cooked for Napoleon III. It became the most fashionable French restaurant in London and, in time, a place with a particular kind of discreet reputation. Oscar Wilde dined here often, frequently with Lord Alfred Douglas. On 24 March 1895 – two weeks before his arrest – Wilde sat in the champagne bar with Frank Harris and George Bernard Shaw. Both men urged him to drop his libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry and flee to France. Harris told him plainly: “They are going to prove sodomy against you.” Wilde refused. He walked out of Kettner’s and into the catastrophe that followed. The building is now a Soho House hotel. The champagne bar is still there.