WILL'S AND SERLE'S COFFEE-HOUSES
At the corner of Serle-street and Portugal-street, most invitingly facing the passage to Lincoln's Inn New-square, was Will's, of old repute, and thus described in the Epicure's Almanack, 1815: "This is, indubitably, a house of the first class, which dresses very desirable turtle and venison, and broaches many a pipe of mature port, double voyaged Madeira, and princely claret; wherewithal to wash down the dust of making law-books, and take out the inky blots from rotten parchment bonds; or if we must quote and parodize Will's, 'hath a sweet oblivious antidote which clears the cranium of that perilous stuff that clouds the cerebellum.'" The Coffee-house has some time being given up.
Serle's Coffee-house is one of those mentioned in No. 49, of the Spectator: "I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Serle's, and all other Coffee-houses adjacent to the Law, who rise for no other purpose but to publish their laziness."
John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. II
London, 1866