How does it feel to be one of the most celebrated divas in history? We can’t ask the late Dame Nellie Melba – the Australian lyric soprano – who holds a top spot in the canon of iconic opera singers, but we can certainly revel in her greatness. She is one of only two singers memorialised with a marble bust on the grand staircase of the Royal Opera House; she was appointed a Dame in 1918 and 1927; her face fronts the Australian 100 dollar bill, and, when she died in 1931, the flags in Melbourne flew half-mast. So, it is fitting that a lavish new watering hole, just a stone’s throw from where she gave some of her most famous performances, is named in her honour.
Enter: Nellie’s Tavern, the sumptuous, flirty, semi-secret bar in the cellar of the freshly reopened Simpson’s in the Strand, designed for theatregoers, the late-night fashion crowd and, really, anyone looking for a stiff drink after dark. Tucked beneath the historic dining rooms above, the space is low-lit and theatrical, with glossy surfaces and art-adorned walls. In fact, British Vogue and GQ have already kicked off festivities at Nellie’s Tavern, cutting the ribbon recently for our annual Fashion & Film party. We welcomed a shiny guest list – from Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley to One Battle After Another’s Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti – along with Michael B. Jordan, Odessa A’Zion, Ethan Hawke, Riz Ahmed, and heads of editorial content Chioma Nnadi and Adam Baidawi.
“It is the opportunity to give London’s theatre-goers and practitioners a home that welcomes them late into the night,” says restaurateur Jeremy King, who’s had his eye on the space for a good 25 years or so (the bar last closed during the pandemic, under different owners). For King, who’s long existed within the rhythms of London dining and nightlife, the reopening marks both a continuation and a reinvention. “It is a fresh experience for me,” says the veteran. “I love new challenges.” The aim, he explains, is not merely to add another bar to the city’s crowded landscape, but to create a place that feels rooted in the neighbourhood’s cultural life, somewhere performers and audiences might drift after curtain call. “If I have done it properly then I hope that [Simpson’s in the Strand] will act as a beacon of positivity for hospitality and an enduring legacy in an ever-changing, forgetting and discarding world,” he says.
So what can patrons expect? “Mystery, sexiness, classicism of operation,” says King. “But with very reasonable prices.” The cocktail menu is the star of the show: whilst perched on leopard-print barrel chairs, guests can sip on “two-size” martinis, the tavern highballs, or the “Duke of Orleans”, named after Dame Nellie’s scandalised lover. (Nellie was divorced by her husband, Charles Armstrong, after she was spotted with Prince Philippe, the pretend “Duke of Orleans” on various occasions.) Meanwhile, a refined snack menu is available at Nellie’s but, in truth, guests looking to dine should fill their bellies upstairs in the Grand Divan room, where a roast rib of Devonshire beef is carved table-side with all the trimmings. The upstairs dining room retains the ceremony for which Simpson’s has long been known, making the descent to Nellie’s Tavern afterwards feel the natural next step.
That is the point. In honouring Dame Nellie Melba, the tavern nods to a performer whose voice once commanded the world’s grandest stages. Serendipitously, this month, the connection feels especially apt: Rigoletto – Giuseppe Verdi’s famous opera that Melba herself once performed at the Royal Opera House – is returning to the stage there once again, with limited tickets left (eat your heart out, Timothée). Just around the corner from the theatre where she once sang, her name now lives on in a candlelit cellar off the Strand.