Restaurants: Extended Shell Life

ON OPENING in 1927, L’Escargot became Britain’s first restaurant to serve snails. ‘Amusingly enough, the word oleaginous comes to mind when describing Tony, our snail man,’ purrs the Soho stack’s co-owner and reviver, Brian Clivaz, as we appraise salted morsels roasted over coals and bathed in butter. ‘He’s a wonderful fellow with two-to-three million Herefordshire snails. They’re hermaphroditic. I read a snail can have same-sex sex for 16-hours without realising it.’ Clivaz draws breath. ‘How do scientists know that?’

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