Bleeding Heart Restaurant

Bleeding Heart Yard, off Greville Street London EC1N 8SJ

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• Nearest station: Farringdon Street (circle/hammersmith lines)

Described by Square Meal as arguably "the finest French restaurant in the City” the Bleeding Heart has won many plaudits over the years. The Bleeding Heart was created by Robert and Robyn Wilson, who converted a derelict, dirt-floored cellar beneath historic Bleeding Heart Yard into a wine bar and bistro 25 years ago in 1983.

During its first six months, the tiny Wine Bar/Bistro was voted one of London’s Top Ten Wine Bars by Time Out Magazine and has continued to win plaudits from national and international press ever since, including ”Londons most romantic restaurant “ from The Times. From a 40 seat Bar and Bistro, the Bleeding Heart has expanded beneath, above and around the ancient cobblestoned courtyard.

The restaurant takes its name from the yard where it is located which, according to the history books, was named after a 17th century beauty, Lady Elizabeth Hatton, who was found murdered there. Lady Elizabeth Hatton was the toast of 17th Century London society. The widowed daughter-in-law of the famous merchant Sir Christopher Hatton (one-time consort of Queen Elizabeth 1), Lady Elizabeth was young, beautiful and very wealthy. Her suitors were many and varied, and included a leading London Bishop and a prominent European Ambassador. Invitations to her soirees in Hatton Garden were much sought after.

Her Annual Winter Ball, on January 26, 1662, was one of the highlights of the London social season. Halfway through the evening's festivities, the doors to Lady Hatton's grand ballroom were flung open. In strode a swarthy gentleman, slightly hunched of shoulder, with a clawed right hand. He took her by the hand, danced her once around the room and out through the double doors into the garden. A buzz of gossip arose. Would Lady Elizabeth and the European Ambassador (for it was he) kiss and make up, or would she return alone? Neither was to be. The next morning her body was found in the cobblestone courtyard – torn limb from limb, with her heart still pumping blood onto the cobblestones. And from thenceforth the yard was to be known as The Bleeding Heart Yard.

Charles Dickens knew Bleeding Heart well. In ‘Little Dorrit’ he wrote of folks in the yard, saying “The more practical of the Yard’s inmates abided by the tradition of the murder”. But he went on to document another Bleeding Heart story: “The gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the whole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady imprisoned in her own chamber by a cruel father for remaining true to her own true lover – but it was objected to by the murderous party that this was the invention of a spinster and romantic, still lodging in the Yard”.