In the late 1930s, the Finchley Road/Swiss Cottage area of North London became popular with refugees, partly because it had many bedsits and small flats in the large homes (now worth millions) vacated by wealthy families and their servants.

 

By 1940, there were about 14,000 mostly Jewish, German and Austrian refugees living in and around this area of the London at a time when the capital was nothing like the cosmopolitan city it is today.

 

Wartime bus conductors would call out “Finchleystrasse — passports please!” as they drew up to the Finchley Road tube station stop.

 

The Association of Jewish Refugees has published a fascinating map of ‘Finchleystrasse’ showing the refugee restaurants, shops and other businesses that flourished on Finchley Road.

 

Refugees had to learn English quickly; speaking German in public was not on - we were at war with the Germans. We know that Grandpa could speak English, and Dad would have picked it up quickly, but Grandpa and Grandma would never lose their strong Viennese accents. “Jokes based on misunderstood idiom and literal translation were passed round in Swiss Cottage every day”, writes Victor Ross in the AJR Journal in October 2019, “like the one about the wife sitting downstairs in a double-decker, telling the conductor ‘The lord above will pay’. You could call it Dorice-speak”.

 

So what was The Dorice?

 

Many refugees only had access to a bedroom, and makeshift, shared, cooking facilities in the hall, and turned to local cafe/restaurants like the Dorice and the Cosmo, both on Finchley Road ‘to recreate continental café society ..a vanished world of Wiener schnitzel, strudel and sanctuary’ in the words of Etan Smallman, grandson of Sigmund Balsam the Cosmo’s manager in the 1940s, and a Jewish refugee himself.

 

Cosmo customers had no money so would spend a day in the cafe nursing one coffee. One refugee psychoanalyst always carried baskets containing her former client’s records. Sigmund Freud was a frequent visitor in the early days and lived nearby.

 

We were taken to the Dorice as children but had absolutely no idea at the time of its significance for Grandma and Grandpa. I now understand why they loved – and needed - the place so much. They travelled there regularly from their flat in Finsbury Park after the war to eat and meet their friends, fellow refugees.

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Not everyone survived being torn from their roots under such traumatic circumstances. ‘Many refugees struggled to adapt and the local paper regularly reported suicides.’  AJR Journal March 2020 article p.16

 

I’m sure that the Dorice was a vital sanctuary for Grandma and Grandpa, allowing them to embrace their new life in a new land whilst immersing themselves in the smells, tastes and sounds of their old life.

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On 18 June 2020 the Insiders/Outsiders festival screened the Ballad of the Cosmo Cafe a theatrical production based on the researched memories of cafe goers. This was followed by a delightful online Q and A session and discussion, where people shared their direct memories of the Cosmo and the Dorice.

 

Some participants said there was a rivalry between the Cosmo and the Dorice, between Germans and Austrians, between The Cosmo’s breaded mushrooms speciality vs the Dorice favourite, a Viennese chocolate coffee eclair called "mohrenkopf". Others said that there was no rivalry- you just went to one or another. Others said that each had their plus points but both served lovely ‘cafe and kuchen’- recreating traditional cafe culture.

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My sisters and I have cherished memories growing up of our times at the Dorice, among them the lemon tea served in tall glasses with a long spoon and sugar cube in the saucer, the delicious Wiener Schnitzel and chips, the continental atmosphere and accents.

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HS 2020