LE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS (LISLE STREET)
The superior person and I were chatting in the club as to eating
generally, and he was holding forth on the impossibility of discovering
any dining place, as Kettner's was discovered by our fathers, where a
good meal could be had at a very small price.
I turned on him and rent him figuratively, giving him a list that
commenced with Torino's and ended with the Hôtel Hanover, and asked him
if he had been to any of them. He had not. His system was to go to the
Savoy or Willis's, or the Princes' Hall, and then to grumble because he
could not get his meals at those places at grill-room prices. I finally
pinned him by asking him whether he would, as a man and a discoverer,
come with me that evening and dine at the Restaurant des Gourmets. The
name seemed to tickle him, and he said something about going home to
change into dress clothes, which I assured him was unnecessary, and he
then asked where this restaurant was.
Did he know the stage door of the Empire? And the superior person
looked at me in answer to that question with a look that showed me
that he had a full-blown Nonconformist conscience. I explained that
the Restaurant des Gourmets was in Lisle Street, as was the stage door
of the Empire, that I was not trying to lure him to meet any fairy of
the ballet, but that if he came with me he would very probably find
some members of the Empire orchestra dining, and as likely as not M.
Wenzel, the conductor, himself. Six was the hour I proposed to dine,
changing afterwards into dress clothes, to go to a first night at the
Duke of York's, but the superior person sniffed, and said that that was
too early for any one to eat an evening meal. So I left him, and my
ideas having been turned towards the little Lisle Street restaurant, I
wandered down there.
Lisle Street is not exactly an aristocratic locality. There is next
door to the Restaurant des Gourmets another restaurant which has been
newly painted, and which posts its bill of fare upon its front, and
there is the office of a musical publication; but most of the rest of
the houses are dingy private residences. The outside of the restaurant
is not too inviting either. It has a double window with a yellowish
curtain hiding the inside from view, and the woodwork is painted a
leaden gray.
It is well to be early at the Restaurant des Gourmets, for by half-past
six there is rarely a seat to be had at any of the tables.
At six to the stroke I pushed back the door with its whitened glass
panel, whereon is inscribed "Entrée," and was in the humble home of
the connoisseur. A burly Frenchman with a beard, another with his hair
combed over his forehead in a fringe, and a third with a slight beard
and wearing a little grey cap, were drinking vermouth at one of the
tables; otherwise the room was empty.
I sat down at one of the tables, and a waiter in dress clothes and a
clean shirt put a bill of fare, written in cramped French handwriting
on blue paper, in front of me. The first item on the blue paper was
_hors-d'œuvre_--hareng, saucisson, sardines, radis, beurre, 2d., and I
ordered these delicacies and some _soupe, paté d'Italie,_ which also
cost 2d., and then proceeded to look round.
The Frenchmen, talking volubly, had gone out. Another waiter with a
light moustache had joined the first one, and both were regarding me
with the interest the waiter always has in a chance customer whose tip
may be lordly or the reverse. Up against the window were piled little
bowls of salad, the green and white telling well against the yellow of
the curtain, and a great stack of long French loaves of bread cut into
sections which, with their white ends and brown crust, had something
of the appearance of a pile of little logs. In front of the window
was a counter covered with green baize, on which were some long uncut
loaves, an earthenware bowl, a kettle, and a bright metal machine that
had a lamp under it, and contained either coffee or soup. A comely
Frenchwoman in black, with an apron, was behind this counter, and as
the waiters gave her an order she shouted it down a little lift, and
the dish was presently hoisted up from the depths below.
At the far end of the room is a sloping glass roof, with panes to lift
up for ventilation. The pink paper on the wall under this gives the
touch of colour to the picture. The other walls are of plain panelling
painted a greyish white with pegs all round to hang up hats and coats
upon, and an occasional mirror in a dark wood frame. Placards with
"Toutes les boissons doivent être payées à l'avance," and "La pipe est
interdite" are posted round the walls, and there were some flowers in
vases on the mantelpiece. The little tables to hold two or four were
round three sides of the room, with coarse but clean napery, glass
bowls for the pepper and salt, with little bone spoons, and thick
glasses, and decanters of water. The couches against the walls were
covered with black leather, the chairs were of Austrian bentwood. The
waiter had put _L'Eclair_, a French newspaper printed with the usual
abominable French type, in front of me.
I nibbled at the bit of herring in a little saucer, and drank my
soup, which was just as good as if it had cost two shillings instead
of twopence, and then proceeded to order the rest of my dinner,
a proceeding which was regarded with mild interest by the little
Frenchman with a slight beard wearing the grey peaked cap, who had
returned.
"C'est le patron," said one of the waiters, and I promptly introduced
myself to him, and began to cross-examine him as to the identity of
his clients, for the room was filling very quickly. M. Brice sat on a
chair by my table, which now had its full complement of diners, for the
burly, bearded Frenchman, the other with the hair combed down on to his
forehead, and a third with a carefully curled moustache, had taken the
three vacant places.
"That," said M. Brice, indicating a dark gentleman with a curled
moustache, "is Chaudoir, the _chef d'orchestre_ at Sergeant Sole."
"What?" I said, bluntly enough.
"At Sergeant Sole, where they are blacked."
A sudden inspiration that Sergeant Sole was St. James's Hall came to me.
"And that," pointing to a gentleman with a red tie, "is the gentleman
who does the socialistic writing for the _Pall Mall_."
Three clean-shaven gentlemen were vaguely described as "artists," and
after gazing at a lady in black with white hair for some time, M. Brice
said, "That is an old woman." The two gentlemen sitting opposite this
lady were the Messieurs Chose, of a firm in Old Broad Street, and the
three Frenchmen at my table were big men in the greengrocery line, who
come over two or three times a year to Covent Garden.
A clean-shaven, prosperous-looking gentleman, with a young lady in
black, entered just then, and a note of admiration came into M. Brice's
voice as he told me that this was the coachman of the Baron Alfred de
Rothschild.
The turbot and caper sauce, which was the most expensive part of my
dinner, costing as much as 8d., I did not care for very much; but, on
the other hand, the _gigot haricot_, which followed it, was excellent.
M. Brice, who kept up a running accompaniment of conversation to my
dinner, told me that all the meat cooked at his restaurant was English.
There is no such thing as a wine list at the Restaurant des Gourmets,
and I had ordered at a venture a pint of _vin ordinaire_, which the
waiter told me would cost sixpence. It is a rough, strong wine, and I
suggested to M. Brice that it probably was of Corsican or Sardinian
growth. M. Brice shrugged his shoulders and from somewhere produced a
pint of claret, with the name of the late M. Nicol of the Café Royal,
on it, and told me that he was able to sell that at a very moderate
price.
The omelette that I had ordered was as light as a French cook always
makes them, and the slice of _brie_ that closed my repast was as
_coulant_ as it should be.
Then M. Brice, still talking, made me out my bill on the back of one of
the cards of his restaurant. Hors-d'œuvre, 2d.; pain, 1d.; potage, 2d.;
poisson, 8d.; entrée, 6d.; omelette, 4d.; fromage, 2d.; half ordinaire,
6d.; total, 2s. 7d.
1_st May_.