Don Saltero's

Don Saltero's was a coffee house based in Chelsea, London, founded in 1695 by James Salter.

[1] Don Saltero's was distinct from other seventeenth and eighteenth century London coffee houses in that it contained many cabinets of curiosities.

Don Saltero's was originally a barbers shop until Sir Hans Sloane began to donate unwanted objects from his own collections into the hands of James Salter, his former travelling servant.

An advertisement placed in Mist's Weekly Journal in 1728 ran: Monsters of all sorts here are seen, Strange things in Nature, as they grew so, Some relics of the Sheba Queen, And fragments of the famed Bob Crusoe.

YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT SHOWS HIMSELF.Richard Steele recorded a chance visit to Don Saltero's in The Tatler.