FRASCATI'S (OXFORD STREET)
I am beginning to flatter myself that I am a success in clerical
circles. One week I took out to dinner my sister-in-law--who, I omitted
to state, is the daughter of a dean; and the next week I successfully
entertained a dear, simple-minded, white-haired old clergyman who had
come from his parish in the North to London on business.
Two little boys home from Harrow are sitting at a table by an open
window, looking through the frame of rose sprays and streamers of
virginia-creeper to the turn of the road in the foreground, where
the black wood of the sun-dial, put up to commemorate the battle of
Waterloo, stands out against the rose red of the old brick wall behind
it, where one of the posts of the village stocks still exists as a
warning to evildoers, with beyond, in the middle distance, the great
horse-chestnuts and the village cricketing ground, which serves as a
promenade for the postmaster's geese. The whole landscape is closed in
by a great forest of firs, on the outskirts of which red roofs and the
tarnished gold of thatch chequer the dark green. Behind the two little
boys stands a curate fresh from Oxford, who is trying to hammer into
their thick little heads the translation of
----cur apricum
oderit campum----
his own thoughts all the time, like theirs, being on the
cricket-ground, and not with Quintus Horatius Flaccus. That is the
picture that always comes to me when I think of my old clerical friend.
He was a keen cricketer, and bowled underhand with a cunning break from
the off which was too much for the yokels of the teams that our village
eleven annually held battle with; and those daily two tiresome hours
over, our holiday task done, he would bowl, at the net put up in the
neighbouring field, as long as we chose to bat. His one dissipation
now is a visit to London annually to see the Oxford and Cambridge
cricket-match, and he always stays when he comes to London at my
mother's house. Unexpected business had brought him south last week,
and one evening he would have been alone had I not offered to take him
out somewhere.
Where to take him was a puzzle. I did not think that he would
appreciate the delicacy of Savoy, or Cecil, or Prince's, or Verrey's
cookery; the refinements of the Berkeley and the Avondale, and the
light touch of M. Charles's hand would be as naught to him. Luckily I
remembered that last July he had been taken to dine at Frascati's, by
a friend and old parishioner of his, and that the place and the dinner
had made so great an impression on him that his conversation for the
next day consisted chiefly of praise of the gorgeous palace in which
he had been entertained. If Frascati's had proved such a success once,
I saw no reason why it should not be so again, and suggested that we
should dine there, a suggestion which met with decided approval; so I
telegraphed to ask that a table might be reserved for me upstairs.
My previous experiences of Frascati's had been chiefly confined to the
grill-room, a gorgeous hall of white marble, veined with black, with
a golden frieze and a golden ceiling, where I often eat a humble chop
or take a cut from the joint before going to listen to Dan Leno or
some other mirth-provoker at the Oxford next door; but looking at the
great restaurant after we had settled down into our seats I could quite
understand that the building would appear as gorgeous as a pantomime
transformation-scene to the eyes of any one not _blasé_ by our modern
_nil admirari_ London. There are gold and silver everywhere. The
pillars which support the balcony, and from that spring up again to the
roof, are gilt, and have silver angels at their capitals. There are
gilt rails to the balcony, which runs, as in a circus, round the great
octagonal building; the alcoves that stretch back seem to be all gold
and mirrors and electric light. What is not gold or shining glass is
either light buff or delicate grey, and electric globes in profusion,
palms, bronze statuettes, and a great dome of green glass and gilding
all go to make a gorgeous setting. The waiters in black, with a silver
number in their button-holes, hover round the tables; somewhere below
a string band, which does not impede conversation, plays. My old tutor
rubbed his hands gently and smiled genially round at the gorgeousness,
while I told the light-bearded manager that what I required was the
ordinary _table-d'hôte_ dinner, and picked out a Château Margaux from
the long lists of clarets.
This was the menu of the _table-d'hôte_ dinner:
Hors-d'œuvre variés.
Consommé Brunoise.
Crème Fontange.
Escalope de barbue Chauchat.
Blanchaille.
Filet mignon Victoria.
Pommes sautées.
Riz de veau Toulouse.
Faisan rôti au cresson.
Salade.
Pouding Singapore.
Glacé vanille.
Fromage. Fruits.
A platter divided into radiating sections held a great variety of
_hors-d'œuvre_, the rosy shade of the lamp threw its light upon a
magnificent bunch of grapes on the summit of a pile of other fruits,
and the manager in the background kept a watchful eye upon the waiter
who was putting the _consommé Brunoise_ on the table. I could not help
wondering whether my telegram had not in some way divulged the fact
that I carried a fork under the banner of the Press, and that I was
getting in consequence a little better treatment than the ordinary.
Certainly my bunch of grapes looked like the one that the Israelitish
spies brought back from Canaan, in comparison with the ones on the
other tables, and the _chef_ had no niggard hand when he apportioned
the truffles and little buttons of mushrooms to our dishes of the
_escalope de barbue_ and the _riz de veau Toulouse_.
My old tutor was considering the diners at the other tables
benignantly, and having quite an unjustifiable belief that I know
the face or everybody in London, asked me who they were. Whether we
had come to dine on an exceptional night I do not know, but all our
fellow-guests were in couples: the men, I should fancy, principally
gentlemen who spend their days in offices in the City, or in banks,
fine specimens, most of them, of young England; and the ladies with
them, either their wives or ladies who will eventually honour them
by becoming so, as handsome representatives of British womanhood as
I have ever seen collected under one roof. Out of all this gathering
of stalwart men and pretty ladies there was not a single face that
I recognised, and I am afraid I went down in the good old man's
estimation as being a walking dictionary of London celebrities. My
old tutor said that the _escalope de barbue_ was excellent, and it
certainly looked good. I tried the whitebait, and found it too dry.
The fillet was good. The _chef_ had surrounded the _riz de veau_ with
truffles and tiny mushrooms and many other good things, and my old
tutor, who ate it, said that it was excellent.
The little tables on the ground floor had all filled by now, and the
lady behind the long bar, with piles of plates on it, and with a long
line of looking-glasses behind it reflecting many bottles, was very
busy. A subdued hum of talking and the faint rattle of knives and forks
against crockery mixed with the music of the band.
The pheasant was a fine plump bird; the ice was excellent. I insisted
on my old tutor having a glass of port to end his dinner, and after
much pressing--for one glass of wine is all he allows himself as a rule
at a meal--he was over-persuaded. Then he rubbed his hands and beamed,
and told me stories of his own schoolboyhood: how he once fought
another boy, now a Colonial Governor, and smote him so severely on
the nose that it bled; and of a dreadful escapade, which still weighs
on his mind--nothing less than going to see a race-meeting, and being
subsequently soundly birched.
This was the bill I paid:--Two dinners at 5s., 10s.; one bottle 6A,
7s.; half-bottle 61, 5s. 6d.; total, £1: 2: 6.
My old tutor went away with his enthusiasm of the summer still
unimpaired; and when next I have a country cousin to take out to dinner
I shall go to Frascati's.
8_th November_.