F Cooke'S Eel, Pie And Mash Shop

F. Cooke's Eel, Pie and Mash Shop is a restaurant and dining room with accommodation above, built between 1902 and 1903 by James Hood, with the shop and restaurant added in 1910 and a rear dining room completed in 1936. The building is constructed of painted brick with stucco columns and dressings, standing four storeys tall and featuring three bays. The shop front has been renovated, showcasing original central part-glazed doors with an overlight, flanked by large sash windows above marble risers for displaying eels. A gold-lettered fascia is supported by elaborate brackets, with octagonal 1930s lanterns on curved projecting brackets. Each upper floor features pilasters at the corners, while the first and second floors have later windows set behind four-column screens. The third floor has a bracketed cornice, above which is a shouldered architraved segmental-headed window with a large keystone that projects into the pediment.

Inside, the shop and restaurant are lined with glazed tiles, featuring a blue and green dado and an Art Nouveau style frieze. The walls are cream, with panels on the right displaying Delft-type scenes of wherries and ketches harvesting eels, and on the left, large mirrors adorned with later brass clips shaped like entwined eels, along with a blue patterned cornice frieze. The counter is marble-topped with a corrugated metal front, accompanied by marble-topped tables and wooden benches, likely from the 1930s. The entrance floor features a mosaic inscribed with "Cooke," depicting an eel slithering through the letters, and beneath it, a shell inscribed with "established 1862," set in waves. An archway at the rear of the restaurant leads to the kitchen, which includes a stained glass panel depicting a monk with an eel in one of the double doors. To the left is the dining room, featuring beige and green tiled and mirrored walls, illuminated by four glass domes, some of which are stained and patterned glass, with enriched architraves in a panelled ceiling and architraved lunettes with stained glass. The dining room has similar tables and benches to the restaurant. This establishment is a rare surviving example of a once common type of eatery in London.