A lane between the playhouses
St Martin's Court is a short pedestrian lane joining St Martin's Lane to Charing Cross Road, with Wyndham's Theatre and the Noël Coward Theatre backing onto it and the Coliseum a minute to the south. The house story says that Josef Sheekey, a stallholder, was allowed to sell seafood here in the 1890s on condition that he also supplied meals for Lord Salisbury's after theatre dinners, and the restaurant has occupied the lane ever since.
It still feels like a theatre restaurant. The dining rooms are panelled and hung with photographs of actors, the service is quick and practised, and the whole place fills and empties to the rhythm of the curtains around it.
One lane further south, Cecil Court runs parallel between the same two streets, lined with antiquarian booksellers and print dealers behind small Victorian shopfronts. The shops close in the early evening, but the lit windows make a pleasant two minute detour on the way to the counter, and anybody who likes old maps or first editions will ask to come back in daylight.
The dining room or the counter
J Sheekey is really two places. The restaurant, spread across a series of small panelled rooms, is a full dinner with a full menu, famous for its fish pie and very good for a considered supper. Next door, the bar gives you a long counter with stools, a lighter menu and oysters opened in front of you, and it is the part of the house that suits a late, low key stop.
For a second stop, choose the counter every time. There is no ceremony, no three course expectation, and the two of you sit shoulder to shoulder instead of squared off across a white tablecloth. It is the easiest seat in London for a conversation that has already begun somewhere else and has no wish to stop.
The counter also suits an arrival at different times. If a companion is coming from elsewhere, take two stools, order a glass and let the shuckers keep you company for the few minutes before she walks in. At a bar like this, a solitary drinker simply seems to be anticipating the next plate.
Natives, rocks and how to eat them
British oysters come in two kinds. Natives, the flat, round oyster of these waters, follow the old rule of being eaten only in months with an R in them, which means their season opens in September and runs until April. Rocks, the deeper, more frilled oyster now farmed all round the coast, are available through the year. Natives are rarer and more mineral; rocks are creamier and more forgiving for a first attempt.
The etiquette is kinder than people fear. Loosen the oyster with the little fork, add a squeeze of lemon or a spoonful of shallot vinegar, and tip it from the wide end. Chew once or not at all, as you prefer. Half a dozen to share is plenty for a second stop, with a glass of something dry and cold, and anybody who does not care for oysters can have prawns, crab or something hot from the kitchen instead.
The opening weeks of the native season each September are the best moment of the year to try. The natives have just come back, the shuckers are glad to see them, and a plate of each kind side by side makes an easy tasting that gives two people something to disagree about.
Why the second stop is a counter
Late evenings in the West End have a natural shape. There is the main event, a show, a film or a dinner, and then there is the question of what happens next. A counter answers it neatly: forty five minutes, a small plate, a glass and a change of scene that keeps the evening going without turning it into a second dinner.
Danielle, who spends her evenings at the Prince Charles Cinema round the corner and refuses to discuss a film until she is well clear of the screen, finds the walk from Leicester Square to the court exactly long enough. Molly treats it as the first door of the late shift, before the hours when only a few rooms in WC2 are still serving. Violetta, the tallest of the statuesque set and a woman who can lose an hour in the bookshops of Charing Cross Road, simply crosses the street.
Where it fits in a WC2 evening
The court sits at the hinge of the theatre district. The Coliseum, Wyndham's, the Noël Coward and the Garrick are all within a couple of minutes, Leicester Square station is round the corner, and Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross lie a short walk south. That makes it an easy stop whichever way the evening is heading: back to a hotel on the Strand, on towards Soho or down to the river.
Coming up from the river side, the walk from Charing Cross passes St Martin-in-the-Fields and the National Portrait Gallery before turning into the lane, with the lit globe on the Coliseum's tower just visible along St Martin's Lane. Sonya, whose evenings follow the early curtain there, likes to finish at the counter when the opera has been a long one.
The streets around it are covered on the Leicester Square and Charing Cross pages, with the stations and walking times for each.
Arranging a late counter date
Most guests book this as part of a longer evening. A ninety minute booking at £400 is enough for the oysters and the stroll back to a hotel close by; two hours at £500 allows a nightcap afterwards. When the counter is the second or third stop of a night out, the after the final bow format is the one to read, and the desk will quote the whole evening before confirming it.
Tell the desk where you will be and when, and she will meet you in the court or at the counter itself. Every length is listed on the rates page.
Quick answers
Arrangements change, so check when you plan the evening. Counter seats have traditionally been easier to find than a restaurant table, especially late, but a weekend night after the theatres empty can still be busy.
Traditionally from September to April, the months with an R in them. Rock oysters are available all year round.
Something dry, cold and uncomplicated: a glass of Champagne, a crisp white such as Muscadet or Chablis, or a stout if the evening leans that way. The staff behind the counter are glad to suggest a pairing.
Yes. The bar menu includes plenty of other seafood and hot dishes, so nobody has to eat anything they would rather not.