Produced by Stacy Brown, Jason Isbell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE GOURMET'S
GUIDE TO EUROPE
Publisher's Announcement
DINNERS AND DINERS:
Where and how to Dine in London
By Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis
_New and Revised Edition
Small Crown 8vo. Cloth._ 3/6
WHERE AND HOW TO DINE
IN PARIS
By Rowland Strong
_Fcap. 8vo. Cover designed cloth._ 2/6
* * * * *
London: GRANT RICHARDS
The
Gourmet's Guide
To Europe
BY
LIEUT.-COL. NEWNHAM-DAVIS
AND
ALGERNON BASTARD
EDITED BY THE FORMER
[Illustration]
London
GRANT RICHARDS
48 LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.
1903
The pleasures of the table are common to all ages and ranks, to all
countries and times; they not only harmonise with all the other
pleasures, but remain to console us for their loss.
Brillat Savarin.
PREFACE
Often enough, staying in a hotel in a foreign town, I have wished to
sally forth and to dine or breakfast at the typical restaurant of the
place, should there be one. Almost invariably I have found great
difficulty in obtaining any information regarding any such restaurant.
The proprietor of the caravanserai at which one is staying may admit
vaguely that there are eating-houses in the town, but asks why one
should be anxious to seek for second-class establishments when the best
restaurant in the country is to be found under his roof. The hall-porter
has even less scruples, and stigmatises every feeding-place outside the
hotel as a den of thieves, where the stranger foolishly venturing is
certain to be poisoned and then robbed. This book is an attempt to help
the man who finds himself in such a position. His guide-book may
possibly give him the names of the restaurants, but it does no more. My
co-author and myself attempt to give him some details--what his
surroundings will be, what dishes are the specialities of the house,
what wine a wise man will order, and what bill he is likely to be asked
to pay.
Our ambition was to deal fully with the capitals of all the countries of
Europe, the great seaports, the pleasure resorts, and the "show places."
The most acute critic will not be more fully aware how far we have
fallen short of our ideal than we are, and no critic can have any idea
of the difficulty of making such a book as we hope this will some day be
when complete. At all events we have always gone to the best authorities
where we had not the knowledge ourselves. Our publisher, Mr. Grant
Richards, quite entered into the idea that no advertisements of any kind
from hotels or restaurants should be allowed within the covers of the
book; and though we have asked for information from all classes of
gourmets--from ambassadors to the simple globe-trotter--we have not
listened to any man interested directly or indirectly in any hotel or
restaurant.
Hotels as places to live in we have not considered critically, and have
only mentioned them when the restaurants attached to them are the
dining-places patronised by the _bon-vivants_ of the town.
Over England we have not thrown our net, for _Dinners and Diners_ leaves
me nothing new to write of London restaurants.
In conclusion I beg, on behalf of my co-author and myself, to return
thanks to all the good fellows who have given us information; and I
would earnestly beg any travelling gourmet, who finds any change in the
restaurants we have mentioned, or who comes on treasure-trove in the
shape of some delightful dining-place we know nothing of, to take pen
and ink and write word of it to me, his humble servant, to the care of
Mr. Grant Richards, Leicester Square. So shall he benefit, in future
editions, all his own kind. We hear much of the kindness of the poor to
the poor. This is an opportunity, if not for the rich to be kind to the
rich, at least for those who deserve to be rich to benefit their
fellows.
N. Newnham-Davis.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PARIS
PAGE
The "Cuisine de Paris"--A little ancient history--Restaurants
with a "past"--The restaurants of to-day--Over
the river--Open-air restaurants--Supping-places--Miscellaneous 1
CHAPTER II
FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS
The northern ports--Norman and Breton towns--The
west coast and Bordeaux--Marseilles and the Riviera--The
Pyrenees--Provence--Aix-les-Bains and other "cure" places 35
CHAPTER III
BELGIAN TOWNS
The food of the country--Antwerp--Spa--Bruges--Ostende 79
CHAPTER IV
BRUSSELS
The Savoy--The Epaule de Mouton--The Faille Déchirée--The
Lion d'Or--The Regina--The Helder--The Filet de
Sole--Wiltcher's--Justine's--The Etoile--The
Belveder--The Café Riche--Duranton's--The
Laiterie--Miscellaneous 90
CHAPTER V
HOLLAND
Restaurants at the Hague--Amsterdam--Scheveningen--
Rotterdam--The food of the people 105
CHAPTER VI
GERMAN TOWNS
The cookery of the country--Rathskeller and
beer-cellars--Dresden--Münich--Nüremburg--Hanover--
Leipsic--Frankfurt--Düsseldorf--The Rhine valley--"Cure"
places--Kiel--Hamburg 110
CHAPTER VII
BERLIN
Up-to-date restaurants--Supping-places--Military
cafés--Night restaurants 144
CHAPTER VIII
SWITZERLAND
Lucerne--Basle--Bern--Geneva--Davos Platz 151
CHAPTER IX
ITALY
Italian cookery and wines--Turin--Milan--Genoa--
Venice--Bologna--Spezzia--Florence--Pisa--Leghorn--
Rome--Naples--Palermo 157
CHAPTER X
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
Food and wines of the country--Barcelona--San
Sebastian--Bilbao--Madrid--Seville--Bobadilla--
Grenada--Jerez--Algeciras--Lisbon--Estoril 178
CHAPTER XI
AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY
Viennese restaurants and cafés--Baden--Carlsbad--
Marienbad--Prague--Bad Gastein--Budapesth 196
CHAPTER XII
ROUMANIA
The dishes of the country--The restaurants of Bucarest 207
CHAPTER XIII
SWEDEN. NORWAY. DENMARK
Stockholm restaurants--Malmö--Storvik--Gothenburg--
Christiana--Copenhagen--Elsinore 210
CHAPTER XIV
RUSSIA
Food of the country--Restaurants in Moscow--The
dining-places of St. Petersburg--Odessa--Warsaw 217
CHAPTER XV
TURKEY
Turkish dishes--Constantinople restaurants 226
CHAPTER XVI
GREECE
Grecian dishes--Athens 230
INDEX 233
CHAPTER I
PARIS
The "Cuisine de Paris"--A little ancient history--Restaurants with
a "past"--The restaurants of to-day--Over the river--Open-air
restaurants--Supping-places--Miscellaneous.
Paris is the culinary centre of the world. All the great missionaries of
good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever
will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts in the world.
Most of the good cooks come from the south of France, most of the good
food comes from the north. They meet at Paris, and thus the Paris
cuisine, which is that of the nation and that of the civilised world, is
created.
When the Channel has been crossed you are in the country of good soups,
of good fowl, of good vegetables, of good sweets, of good wine. The
_hors-d'oeuvre_ are a Russian innovation; but since the days when
Henry IV. vowed that every peasant should have a fowl in his pot, soup
from the simplest _bouillon_ to the most lordly _consommés_ and splendid
_bisques_ has been better made in France than anywhere else in the
world. Every great cook of France has invented some particularly
delicate variety of the boiled fillet of sole, and Dugleré achieved a
place amongst the immortals, by his manipulation of the brill. The soles
of the north are as good as any that ever came out of British waters;
and Paris--sending tentacles west to the waters where the sardines swim,
and south to the home of the lamprey, and tapping a thousand streams for
trout and the tiny gudgeon and crayfish--can show as noble a list of
fishes as any city in the world. The _chef de cuisine_ who could not
enumerate an hundred and fifty entrées all distinctively French, would
be no proficient in his noble profession. The British beef stands
against all the world as the meat noblest for the spit, though the
French ox which has worked its time in the fields gives the best
material for the soup-pot; and though the Welsh lamb and the English
sheep are the perfection of mutton young and mutton old, the lamb
nurtured on milk till the hour of its death, and the sheep reared on the
salt-marshes of the north, make splendid contribution to the Paris
kitchens. Veal is practically an unknown meat in London; and the calf
which has been fed on milk and yolk of egg, and which has flesh as soft
as a kiss and as white as snow, is only to be found in the Parisian
restaurants. Most of the good restaurants in London import all their
winged creatures, except game, from France; and the Surrey fowl and the
Aylesbury duck, the representatives of Great Britain, make no great show
against the champions of Gaul, though the Norfolk turkey holds his own.
A vegetable dish, served by itself and not flung into the gravy of a
joint, forms part of every French dinner, large or small; and in the
battle of the kitchen gardens the foreigners beat us nearly all along
the line, though I think that English asparagus is better than the white
monsters of Argenteuil. A truffled partridge, or the homely _Perdrix au
choux_, or the splendid _Faisan à la Financière_ show that there are
many more ways of treating a game bird than plain roasting him; and the
peasants of the south of France had crushed the bones of their ducks for
a century before we in London ever heard of _Canard à la Presse_. The
Parisian eats a score of little birds we are too proud to mention in our
cookery books, and he knows the difference between a _mauviette_ and an
_alouette_. Perhaps the greatest abasement of the Briton, whose
ancestors called the French "Froggies" in scorn, comes when his first
morning in Paris he orders for breakfast with joyful expectation a dish
of the thighs of the little frogs from the vineyards. An Austrian
pastry-cook has a lighter hand than a French one, but the Parisian open
tarts and cakes and the _friandises_ and the ice, or _coupe-jacque_ at
the end of the Gallic repast are excellent.
Paris is strewn with the wrecks of restaurants, and many of the
establishments with great names of our grandfathers' and fathers' days
are now only _tavernes_ or cheap _table-d'hôte_ restaurants. The Grand
Vefour in the Palais Royal--where the patrons of the establishment in
Louis Philippe's time used to eat off royal crockery, bought from the
surplus stock of the palaces by M. Hamel, cook to the king, and
proprietor of the restaurant--has lost its vogue in the world of
fashion. The present Café de Paris has an excellent cook, and is the
supper restaurant where the most shimmering lights of the _demi-monde_
may be seen; but the old Café de Paris, at the corner of the Rue
Taitbout, the house which M. Martin Guépet brought to such fame, and
where the _Veau à la Casserole_ drew the warmest praise from our
grandfathers, has vanished. Bignon's, which was a name known throughout
the world, has fallen from its high estate; the Café Riche, though it
retains a good restaurant, is not the old famous dining-place any
longer; and the Marivaux, where Joseph flourished, has been transformed
into a _brasserie_. The Café Hardi, at one time a very celebrated
restaurant, made place for the Maison d'Or, and the gilded glory of the
latter has now passed in its turn. The Café Veron, Philippe's, of the
Rue Mont Orgueil, and the Rocher de Cancale in the Rue Mandar, where
Borel, one of the cooks of Napoleon I., made gastronomic history,
Beauvilliers's, the proprietor of which was a friend of all the
field-marshals of Europe, and made and lost half-a-dozen fortunes, the
Trois Frères Provençeaux, the Café Very, and D'Hortesio's are but
memories.
The saddest disappearance of all, because the latest, is the Maison
d'Or, which is to be converted, so it is said, into a _brasserie_. The
retirement of Casimir, one of the Verdier family, who was to the D'Or
what Dugleré was to the Anglais, precipitated the catastrophe, and in
the autumn of 1902 the house gave its farewell luncheon, and closed with
all the honours of war. Alas for the _Carpe à la Gelée_ and the _Sole au
vin Rouge_ and the _Poularde Maison d'Or_! I shall never, I fear, eat
their like again. There was much history attached to the little golden
house; more, perhaps, than to any other restaurant in the world. From
its doors Rigolboche, in the costume of Mother Eve, started for her run
across the road to the Anglais. At the table by one of the windows
looking out on to the boulevard Nestor Roqueplan, Fould, Salamanca, and
Delahante used always to dine. Upstairs in "Le Grand 6," which was to
the Maison d'Or what "Le Grand 16" is to the Anglais, Salamanca, who
drew a vast revenue from a Spanish banking-house, used to give
extraordinary suppers at which the lights of the _demi-monde_ of that
day, Cora Pearl, Anna Deslions, Deveria, and others used to be present.
The amusement of the Spaniard used to be to spill the wax from a candle
over the dresses, and then to pay royally for the damage. One evening he
asked one of the MM. Verdier whether a very big bill would be presented
to him if he burned the whole house down, and on being told that it was
only a matter of two or three million francs he would have set light to
the curtains if M. Verdier had not interfered to prevent him. The "beau
Demidoff," the duelling Baron Espeleta, Princes Galitzin and Murat,
Tolstoy, and the Duc de Rivoli gave their parties in the "Grand 6"; and
down the narrow, steep flight of steps which led into the side street
the Duke of Hamilton fell and broke his neck. The Maison d'Or was the
meeting-place, in the sixty odd years of its existence, of many
celebrities of literature. Dumas, Meilhac, Emmanuel Arène used to dine
there before they went across the road for a game of cards at the Cercle
des Deux Mondes, and later Oncle Sarcey was one of the _habitués_ of the
house.
Two restaurants in particular seem to me to head the list of the
classic, quiet establishments, proud of having a long history, satisfied
with their usual _clientèle_, non-advertising, content to rest on their
laurels. Those two are the Anglais and Voisin's, the former on the
Boulevard des Italiens, the latter in the Rue St-Honoré. The Café
Anglais, the white-faced house at the corner of the Rue Marivaux, is the
senior of the two, for it has a history of more than a hundred years. It
was originally a little wine-merchant's shop, with its door leading into
the Rue Marivaux, and was owned by a M. Chevereuil. The ownerships of
MM. Chellet and de L'Homme marked successive steps in its upward career,
and when the restaurant came into the market in '79 or '80 it was bought
by a syndicate of bankers and other rich business men who parted with it
to its present proprietor. The Comte de Grammont Caderousse and his
companions in what used to be known as the "Loge Infernale" at the old
Opera, were the best-known patrons of the Anglais; and until the Opera
House, replaced by the present building, was burnt down, the Anglais was
a great supping-place, the little rabbit-hutches of the _entresol_
being the scene of some of the wildest and most interesting parties
given by the great men of the Second Empire. The history of the Anglais
has never been written because, as the proprietor will tell you, it
never _could_ be written without telling tales anent great men which
should not be put into print; but if you ask to see the book of menus,
chiefly of dinners given in the "Grand Seize," the room on the first
floor, the curve of the windows of which look up the long line of the
boulevards, and if you are shown the treasure you will find in it
records of dinners given by King Edward when he was Prince of Wales, by
the Duc de Morny and by D'Orsay, by all the Grand Dukes who ever came
out of Russia, by "Citron" and Le Roi Milan, by the lights of the French
jockey club, and many other celebrities. There is one especially
interesting menu of a dinner at which Bismarck was a guest--before the
terrible year of course. While I am gossiping as to the curiosities of
the Anglais I must not forget a little collection of glass and silver in
a cabinet in the passage of the _entresol_. Every piece has a history,
and most of them have had royal owners. The great sight of the
restaurant, however, is its cellars. Electric light is used to light
them, luminous grapes hang from the arches, and an orange tree at the
end of a vista glows with transparent fruit. In these cellars, beside
the wine on the wine-list of the restaurant, are to be found some
bottles of all the great vintage years of claret, an object-lesson in
Bordeaux; and there are little stores of brandies of wondrous age, most
of which were already in the cellars when the battle of Waterloo was
fought.
From a gourmet's point of view the great interest in the restaurant will
lie, if he wishes to give a large dinner, in the Grand Seize or one of
the other private rooms; if he is going to dine alone, or is going to
take his wife out to dinner, in the triangular room on the ground floor
with its curtains of lace, its white walls, its mirrors and its little
gilt tripod in the centre of the floor. Dugleré was the _chef_ who,
above all others, made history at the Anglais, and the present
proprietor, M. Burdel, was one of his pupils; and therefore the cookery
of Dugleré is the cookery still of the Anglais. _Potage Germiny_ is
claimed by the Café Anglais as a dish invented by the house, but the
Maison d'Or across the way also laid claim to it, and told an anecdote
of its creation--how it was invented by Casimir for the Marquis de
St-George. The various fish _à la Dugleré_ there can be no question
concerning, the _Barbue Dugleré_ being the most celebrated; and the
_Poularde Albufera_ and the _Filet de Sole Mornay_ (which was also
claimed by the Grand Vefour) are both specialities of the house. You can
order as expensive a dinner as you will for a great feast at the
Anglais, and you can eat rich dishes if you desire it; but there is no
reason that you should not dine there very well, and as cheaply as you
can expect to get good material, good cooking, and good attendance
anywhere in the world. The "dishes of the day" are always excellent,
and I have dined off a plate of soup, a pint of Bordeaux, and some
slices of a _gigot de sept heures_--one of the greatest achievements of
cookery--for a very few francs. I always find that I can dine amply, and
on food that even a German doctor could not object to, for less than a
louis. For instance, a dinner at the Anglais of half-a-dozen Ostende
Oysters, _Potage Laitues et Quenelles_, _Merlans Frits_, _Cuisse de
Poularde de Rôtie_, _Salade Romaine_, cheese, half a bottle of Graves
1e Cru, and a bottle of St-Galmier costs 18 francs.
Voisin's, in the Rue St-Honoré, the corner house whose windows,
curtained with lace, promise dignified quiet, is a restaurant which has
a history, and has, and has had, great names amongst its _habitués_.
Many of these have been diplomats, and Voisin's knows that ambassadors
do not care to have their doings, when free from the cares of office,
gossiped about. When I first saw Voisin's, it looked as unlike the house
of to-day as can be imagined. I was in Paris immediately after the days
of the Commune and followed, with an old General, the line the troops
had taken in the fight for the city. In the Rue St-Honoré were some of
the fiercest combats, for the regulars fought their way from house to
house down this street to turn the positions the Communists took up in
the Champs Elysées and the gardens of the Tuileries. The British Embassy
had become a hospital, and all the houses which had not been burned
looked as though they had stood a bombardment. There were bullet
splashes on all the walls, and I remember that Voisin's looked even
more battered and hopeless than did most of its neighbours.
The diplomats have always had an affection for Voisin's, perhaps because
of its nearness to the street of the Embassies; and in the "eighties"
the attachés of the British Embassy used to breakfast there every day.
Nowadays, the _clientèle_ seems to me to be a mixture of the best type
of the English and Americans passing through Paris, and the more elderly
amongst the statesmen, who were no doubt the dashing young blades of
twenty-five years ago. The two comfortable ladies who sit near the door
at the desk, and the little show-table of the finest fruit seem to me
never to have changed, and there is still the same quiet-footed,
unhurrying service which impressed me when first I made the acquaintance
of the restaurant. It is one of the dining-places where one feels that
to dine well and unhurriedly is the first great business of life, and
that everything else must wait at the dinner-hour. The proprietor,
grey-headed and distinguished-looking, goes from table to table saying a
word or two to the _habitués_, and there is a sense of peace in the
place--a reflection of the sunshine and calm of Provence, whence the
founder of the restaurant came.
The great glory of Voisin's is its cellar of red wines, its Burgundies
and Bordeaux. The Bordeaux are arranged in their proper precedence, the
wines from the great vineyards first, and the rest in their correct
order down to mere bourgeois tipple. Against each brand is the price of
the vintage of all the years within a drinkable period, and the man who
knew the wine-list of Voisin's thoroughly would be the greatest
authority in the world on claret.
Mr. Rowland Strong, in his book on Paris, tells how, one Christmas Eve,
he took an Englishman to dine at Voisin's, and how that Englishman
demanded plum-pudding. The _maître-d'hôtel_ was equal to the occasion.
He was polite but firm, and his assertion that "The House of Voisin does
not serve, has never served, and will never serve, plum-pudding" settled
the matter.
If the Anglais and Voisin's may be said to have much of their interest
in their "past," Paillard's should be taken as a restaurant which is the
type and parent of the present up-to-date restaurant. The white
restaurant on the Boulevard des Italiens has kept at the top of the tree
for many years, and has sent out more culinary missionaries to improve
the taste of dining man than any other establishment in Paris. Joseph,
who brought the Marivaux to such a high pitch of fame before he
emigrated to London, came from Paillard's and so did Frederic of the
Tour d'Argent, of whom I shall have something to say later on. Henri of
the Gaillon, Notta, Charles of Foyot's--all were trained at Paillard's.
The restaurant has its history, and its long list of great patrons. _Le
Désir de Roi_, which generally appears in the menu of any important
dinner at Paillard's, and which has _foie gras_ as its principal
component, has been eaten by a score of kings at one time or another,
our own gracious Majesty heading the list. The restaurant at first was
contained in one small room. Then the shop of Isabelle, the Jockey Club
flower-girl, which was next door, was acquired, and lastly another
little shop was taken in, the entrance changed from the front to its
present position at the side, the accountant's desk put out of sight,
and the little musicians' gallery built--for Paillard's has moved with
the time and now has a band of Tziganes, much to the grief of men like
myself who prefer conversation to music as the accompaniment of a meal.
The restaurant as it is with its white walls and bas-reliefs of cupids
and flowers, its green Travertine panels let into the white pilasters,
its chandeliers of cut glass, is very handsome. M. Paillard, hair parted
in the middle and with a small moustache, irreproachably attired,
wearing a grey frock-coat by day, and a "smoking" and black tie in the
evening, is generally to be seen superintending all arrangements, and
there is a _maître-d'hôtel_ who speaks excellent English, and a head
waiter with whiskers who deserted to Henri, but subsequently returned,
who is also an accomplished linguist.
Amongst the specialities of the house are _Pomme Otero_ and _Pomme
Georgette_, both created, I fancy, by Joseph when he was at Paillard's,
_Homard Cardinal_, _Filet de Sole à la Russe_, _Sole Paillard_, _Filet
de Sole Kotchoubey_, _Timbale de queues d'Ecrevisses Mantua_, _Côte de
Boeuf braisé Empire_, _Pommes Macaire_, _Filet Paillard_, _Suprême de
Volaille Grand Duc_, _Rouennais Paillard_, _Baron d'agneau Henri IV._,
_Poularde Archiduc_, _Poularde à la Derby_, _Poularde Wladimir_, _Filet
de Selle Czarine_, _Bécasse au Fumet_, _Rouennais à la Presse_,
_Terrine de Foie Gras à la gelée au Porto_, _Perdreau et Caille
Paillard_.
Two menus of dinners M. Paillard has given me, one a very noble feast,
to the length of which I am a conscientious objector but which I print,
presently, in full, and the other a banquet of lesser grandeur with
_Crème Germiny_, _Barbue Paillard_, _Ortolans en surprise_, _Salade
Idéale_, and many other good things in it from which I select the
following dishes as making a typical little Paillard feast for two, the
price of which would not be a king's ransom:--
Caviar frais.
Consommé Viveur.
Filets de Sole Joinville.
Coeurs de Filet Rachel.
Pommes Anna.
Haricots Verts à la Touranquelle.
An Ice or some iced Fruits and some Coffee.
And this repast might well be washed down by a bottle of Montrachet
1885, with a glass of Fine Champagne Palais de St-Cloud to follow.
This is the menu of the banquet:--
| Le Caviar Impérial.
| Les Huîtres de Burnham.
| -----
| Le Consommé Paillard.
| Pailles Parmesan.
| La Crème d'Arétin.
| -----
| Les Croustades à la Victoria.
_Eau-de-vie Russe._ | -----
| La Carpe à la Chambord.
_Chablis Moutonne._ | Le Turbot à l'Amiral.
| -----
_Johannisberg 1893._ | Le Baron de Pauillac persillé.
| Les pommes Macaire.
_Mouton Rothschild | Le Velouté Favorite.
1875._ | -----
| Le Désir de Roi.
_Clos Vougeot 1858._ | -----
| Les Bécasses au fumet.
_Moët brut 1884._ | La Salade Espérance.
| -----
_Fine Champagne des | Les Asperges d'Argenteuil
Tuileries 1800._ | Sce Mousseline.
| -----
| La Pyramide à l'Ananas.
| Le Soufflé aux Mandarines.
| Macarons et Gaufrettes
| Chantilly.
| -----
| La Corbeille de Fruits.
| Café.
What the cost of this feast would be it is difficult to estimate, and I
will not even hazard a guess.
I asked, last spring, an Englishman who knows his Paris better than most
Parisians, what he would consider a typical breakfast, dinner, and
supper in Paris, and he answered, "Breakfast _chez Henri_ at the
Gaillon, dine at the Ritz, and sup at Durand's."
There are two Henri's in Paris, one is the little hotel and English bar,
and the other is in the Place Gaillon. Henri's Restaurant Gaillon had
its days of celebrity in the Second Empire, and then sank, as the Maison
Grossetête, from grace until Henri Drouet, leaving Paillard's,
established himself there. When I first knew the restaurant it had
Paillard's cookery, but not Paillard's prices; but now that the whole of
the _monde qui dîne_ has found it out, I fancy that the scale of prices
has risen to a level with that of the parent restaurant. The first room
is the best one to breakfast or dine in, for the others on hot days are
apt to be very stuffy; and it is well to order a table by telephone in
advance. Henri's, it always seems to me, has a more tempting table of
cold viands, patés, and tarts and _friandises_ set out than any other
restaurateur's, and many of the _habitués_ at lunch-time order eggs or
fish, and then turn their attention to the cold buffet.
When dining at Henri's the _Consommé Fortunato_, the _filets de sole_ of
the restaurant, the _Noisettes de Veau Port Mahon_, the _Crêpes des
Gourmets_ should be remembered. If you want a dinner for twelve, you
cannot do better than order the following, or rather select dishes from
it, for it is unreasonably lengthy as it stands:--
Hors-d'oeuvre à la Russe.
POTAGES.
Consommé Viveur.
Pailles et Parmesan.
POISSON.
Timbale de Homard à l'Américaine.
ENTRÉES.
Baron de Pauillac à la Boulangère.
Endives Pochées au jus.
Escalopes de Foies grand Opéra.
RÔTI.
Bécasses Flambées au fumet.
Salade Port Mahon.
Mousse Bohémienne glacée.
Truffes au Champagne à la gelée.
LÉGUMES.
Asperges fraîches. Sce Mousseline.
ENTREMETS.
Soufflé Valenciennes.
Poires Gaillon.
There are several other restaurants which claim to be quite first class,
and which are smart and amusing. Two such are the restaurants facing the
Madeleine, Durand's, and La Rue's. It was in one of the little rooms on
the first floor of Durand's that the Brav' General sat debating in his
mind whether he should initiate a _coup d'état_, and the crowd outside
waited and watched, expecting something to happen. Nothing did happen.
General Boulanger thought so long, that the decisive moment passed, and
he went home to bed. Boulanger has gone, but his friends, grey-headed
now, breakfast daily at Durand's. La Rue's was also a restaurant in
favour with General Boulanger, and I fancy that the little
dinner-parties he gave there helped much to bring the place into
celebrity. Both these restaurants have lately been enlarged and
redecorated, and La Rue's advertises a great deal, which no doubt has
increased its _clientèle_, but which has not decreased its prices.
Parisian Society has decreed that it is "smart" to sup at Durand's, and
I always find it an excellent place at which to breakfast. The last time
that I took my morning meal there I found all the younger members of the
British Embassy breakfasting there, a sure sign that the place is just
now on the crest of the wave.
Some of the specialities of Durand's are _Potage Henri IV._, _Consommé
Baigneuse_, _petits diables_, _Barbue Durand_, _Poulet Sauté Grand Duc_,
_Salade Georgette_, _Soufflé Pôle Nord_, and of course a variation of
the inevitable _canard à la presse_ and the woodcock subjected to an
_auto-da-fé_.
This is the supper that the Restaurant Durand gave its clients on the
greatest supping night of the year, Christmas Eve, 1902. The _boudin_ of
course all Paris has for supper on the night before the great Christmas
feast:--
Consommé de Volaille au fumet de Céleris.
Boudin grillé à la Parisienne.
Ailerons de Volaille à la Tzar.
Cailles à la Lucullus.
Salade Durand.
Ecrevisses de la Meuse à la nage.
Crêpes Suzette.
Dessert.
Champagnes.
Clicquot Brut, Pommery Drapeau Américain.
Gde Fine Napoléon.
At La Rue's I have felt inclined sometimes to protest when I have been
charged 2 francs for half-a-dozen prawns, and to think that the
vermillion-coloured seats are being paid for too quickly out of profits;
but I rarely pass through Paris without breakfasting there, and eating
the cold poached eggs in jelly, the _Grenouilles à la Marinière_, or
one of the dishes of cold fish which are excellently served. Some of the
specialities of the house are _Potage Reine_, _Barbue à la Russe_,
_Caille à la Souvaroff_, _Tournedos à la Rossini_, _Caneton de Rouen au
Sang_, _Bécasse Flambée_, _Salade Gauloise_, _Crêpes Suzette_, _Glace
Gismonda_, _Pêches Flambées_ and from this list any one could choose
either a little dinner or a big one.
Of restaurants attached to hotels I do not propose to write in this
article, with one exception, for there are few of the hundreds of hotels
at which one cannot get a very fair dinner; and at some, such as the
Elysée Palace, over which Caesario presides, one can get an excellent
one; but the purpose of this book is to give information to the man who
wishes to dine away from hotels. The one exception is the Ritz, in the
Place Vendôme, and I include this in my list because the Ritz is a
restaurant firstly, and an hotel secondly, and because as a dining place
it holds an exceptional position in Paris. It is the restaurant of the
smartest foreign society in Paris, and the English, Americans, Russians,
Spaniards, dining there always outnumber greatly the French. It is a
place of great feasts, but it is also a restaurant at which the
_maîtres-d'hôtel_ are instructed not to suggest long dinners to the
patrons of the establishment. In M. Elles' hands or that of the
_maître-d'hôtel_ there is no fear of being "rushed" into ordering an
over-lengthy repast. This is a typical little dinner for three I once
ate at the Ritz, and as a feast in the autumn it is worth recording and
repeating:--
Caviar.
Consommé Viveni.
Mousseline de Soles au vin du Rhin.
Queues d'Ecrevisses à l'Américaine.
Escalopes de Riz de veau Favorite.
Perdreaux Truffés.
Salade.
Asperges vertes en branches.
Coupes aux Marrons.
Friandises.
In the afternoon the long passage with its chairs, carpets, and hangings
all of crushed strawberry colour is filled with tea-drinkers, for the "5
o'clock" is very popular in Paris, and the Ritz is one of the smartest
if not the smartest place at which to drink tea. In the evening the big
restaurant, with its ceiling painted to represent the sky and its
mirrors latticed to represent windows, is always full, the contrast to a
smart English restaurant being that three-quarters of the ladies dine in
their hats. Sometimes very elaborate entertainments are given in the
Ritz, and I can recall one occasion on a hot summer night, when the
garden was tented over and turned into a gorge apparently somewhere near
the North Pole, there being blocks and pillars of ice everywhere. The
anteroom was a mass of palms, and the idea of the assemblage of the
guests in the tropics and their sudden transference to the land of ice
was excellently carried out. I give the menu of another great dinner at
the Ritz because, not only has it some of the specialities of the house
embodied in it, but that it is a good specimen of what a great dinner
should be, being important but not heavy:--
Caviar frais. Hors-d'oeuvre.
Royal Tortue Claire. Crème d'Artichauts.
Mousseline d'Eperlans aux Ecrevisses à l'Américaine.
Noisettes de Ris de Veau au fumet de Champignons.
Selle de Chevreuil Grand Veneur. Purée de Marrons.
Poularde de Houdan Vendôme.
Sorbets au Kirsch.
Ortolans aux Croûtons.
Coeurs de Laitues.
Asperges vertes en branches. Sauce Mousseline.
Ananas voilé à l'Orientale.
Friandises.
Corbeilles de Fruits.
VINS.
Château Caillou 1888.
Château Léoville Lascases 1878 (Magnums).
Lanson Brut 1892 (Magnums).
Château Yquem 1869.
Grande Fine Champagne 1790 (Ritz Réservé).
There are a score of capital restaurants in Paris which may be called
"bourgeois" without in any way detracting from their excellence. An
excellent type of such a restaurant is Maire's, at the corner of the Bd.
St-Dennis, owned by the company which controls the Paillard's Restaurant
of the Champs Elysées. It is a good place to dine at for any one going
to the play at the Porte St-Martin, the Renaissance, the Théâtre
Antoine, or any of the music halls or theatres in the west of Paris.
Mushrooms always seem to me to play a great part in the cookery at
Maire's, and the _Poulet Maire_ is a fowl cooked with mushrooms; but the
restaurant has a long list of specialities of all kinds, and the
mushroom only appears in some of them. Charbonnier is the especial
dinner wine of the house, and it is said that the name was originally
given to the wine owing to the discovery of a quantity of it stored
under sticks of charcoal in the days when Maire's was only a wine-shop.
Next door to the Gymnase Theatre is Marguery's, which always seems to be
full, and where the service is rather too hurried and too slap-dash to
suit the contemplative gourmet; but Marguery's has its special claim to
fame as the place where the _Sole Marguery_ was invented, and though I
have eaten the dish in half a hundred restaurants, there is no place
where it is so perfectly cooked as in the restaurant where it was first
thought of, for nowhere else is the sauce quite as good or as strong.
Notta, 2 Bd. Poissonière, and Noel Peters in the Passage des Princes,
both have claims to celebrity for their cooking, and the fish dishes at
the latter, the _Filet de Sole Noël_ for instance, are a speciality. The
Boeuf à la Mode, Rue de Valois, near the Palais Royale, is a place of
good cookery.
There are two restaurants to which I generally go if I want good food
but have not time to linger over it, having cut my time rather close
when going to a theatre or to catch a train. One of these is Lucas's in
the little square opposite the Madeleine, and the other is the
Champeaux, Place de la Bourse. Lucas has rather an old-fashioned
_clientèle_ and his restaurant is not very bright, but the cooking is
good, and if in a hurry one is served very quickly. The _Hareng Lucas_
is an exceptionally stimulating _hors-d'oeuvre_, and there is a
selection of old brandies to choose from as liqueurs which I fancy
cannot be surpassed at any restaurant in Paris. The Champeaux, with its
garden and trees growing through the roof, is the restaurant of the
Bourse. It has a good cook, it has its specialities of cuisine, and it
has a particularly good cellar of wines. One can dine there in the
leisurely manner in which a dinner should be eaten by sane men; but the
_maîtres-d'hôtel_ used to business men know that there are occasions
when it is necessary to be in a hurry, and they can serve a dinner very
quickly. At the Champeaux, which has much history behind it, the
_Chateaubriand_ was invented which gives eternal honour to the
restaurant.
I am told that Sylvain's remains a good dining place, but I have not
been within its doors since the days when it attained celebrity as a
supper place in favour with the butterfly ladies of Paris.
Across the River
On the south side of the Seine there are three restaurants worthy the
consideration of the gourmet,--the Tour d'Argent, La Peyrouse, and
Foyot's. The Tour d'Argent is on the Quai de la Tourelle, just beyond
the island on which Notre Dame stands. It is a little old-fashioned
place with a narrow entrance hall and a low-ceilinged parlour. Frederic
is its proprietor, and since Joseph of the Marivaux died Frederic
remains the one great "character" in the dining world of Paris. In
appearance he is the double of Ibsen, the same sweeping whiskers, the
same wave of hair brushed straight off from the forehead. He is an
inventor of dishes, and it is well to ask for a list of his "creations,"
which are of fish, eggs, meat, and fruit, and are generally named after
some patron of the establishment,--_Canapé Clarence Mackay_, _Filet de
Sole Gibbs_, _Filet de Lièvre Arnold White_, _Oeufs Claude Lowther_,
_Poire Wannamaker_, and so on. A marquis, M. de Lauzières de Themines,
has written a long poem about Frederic, which is printed on the back of
the list of "creations," and an artist has painted a portrait of the
great man which will be shown to you if you have proved yourself a real
gourmet. Madame Frederic, or his daughter, will hold the canvas for your
inspection, and Frederic himself, brushing back his whiskers, will stand
beside it in order that you may see what an excellent likeness it is. It
is as well to interest Frederic in the ordering of your meal, and if you
give him an idea of your requirements, he will select two or three of
his "creations" which will make up a perfect meal. I always ask for a
_Filet de Sole Cardinal_, which is one of his best dishes, and look to
him to group a couple of other _plats_ with it to make a perfect
breakfast, for I look on the Tour d'Argent as being a better place to
breakfast at than to dine at, owing to its distance from the centre of
Paris. Frederic thinking out his dishes drops into a reverie and turns
his eyes up to the ceiling. I once took a lady to breakfast at the
Tour--she had selected it as being quite close to the Morgue, which she
wanted to see after lunch, having a liking for cheerful sights--and she
had the daring to interrupt Frederic's reverie. "And for the eggs?" I
had said insinuatingly to the creator of dishes, and he had dropped into
deepest thought. "_Uffs à la plat_," said the lady, who fancied we were
both at a loss as to how eggs could be cooked. Frederic came back from
the clouds and gave the lady one look. It was not a look of anger, or
contempt, but simply an expression of pity for the whole of her sex.
Frederic, as Joseph did, holds that a dinner to be good must be short,
which is, I believe, the first axiom that every true gourmet should
enunciate and hold by, and an excellent proof that he holds to his
tenets was once given me. When the Behring Sea Conference sat in Paris,
the American and English members used frequently to dine together after
their labours. Lord Hannen had heard of the Tour d'Argent, and sent his
secretary, a clever barrister, to order dinner there for all the
members. He went to the Quai de la Tourelle, saw Frederic, and sketched
out to him a regular Eaton Square dinner, two entrées, a joint, sorbet,
game, an iced pudding, a savoury, and fruit. Frederic heard him out, and
then very politely suggested that he should go elsewhere, for such a
barbarous feast could not be served in the Tour d'Argent. If you are in
great favour Frederic will cook you a dish himself, and will bustle
into the room with the "creation" in his hands and great beads of
perspiration, drawn out by the kitchen fire, on his broad brow. I am
sorry, however, to have to write that the last time I saw Frederic, at
the close of 1902, he was very ill. He complained of his chest, said
that the weather oppressed him, and lamented the death of Joseph which
had taken a friend and a brother artist away. His hair had lost its bold
curve and his whiskers their glory. I told him in all sincerity that he
must get over his malady, for that as there are so few "creators" and
great _maîtres-d'hôtel_ left we cannot spare one of the most original
and most accomplished of them.
La Peyrouse on the Quai des Grands Augustins, is a little house with
many small rooms. It is known to the students of the "Quartier" as "Le
Navigateur." It is a favourite resort of the members of the Paris bar,
has its special dishes, one of which is, as a matter of course, _Filets
de Sole La Peyrouse_, and a most excellent cellar of Burgundies and
white Bordeaux. The Cérons at 3 francs is excellent money's worth.
The Restaurant Foyot is almost opposite the Luxembourg Gallery, and is a
very handy restaurant to dine at when going to the Odéon. _Potage
Foyot_, _Riz de Veau Foyot_, _Homard Foyot_, and _Biscuit Foyot_ are
some of the dishes of the house, and all to be recommended. The
anarchists once tried to blow up Foyot's with a bomb; but the only
person injured was an anarchist poet, who has so far been false to his
tenets as to dine in the company of aristocrats, and was tranquilly
eating a _Truite Meunière_, in company with a beautiful lady, when his
friends outside let off their firework. The _hors-d'oeuvre_ at Foyot's
are particularly good. It is, however, a restaurant at which it is
exceptionally difficult to get one's bill when one is in a hurry.
Summer Restaurants
Of the restaurants in the Champs Elysées, Laurent's and Paillard's are
the most aristocratic. At Laurent's I generally find in summer some of
the younger members of the staffs of the Embassies breakfasting under
the trees behind the hedge which shuts the restaurant off from the
bustle of Paris outside. Of the special dishes of the house the _Canard
Pompéienne_ remains to me an especially grateful memory. It is a cold
duck stuffed with most of the rich edible things of this world, _foie
gras_ predominating, and it is covered with designs in red and black on
a white ground.
Paillard's _bonbonnière_, in the Champs Elysées, is in the hands of the
company which also owns Maire's Restaurant, to which I have already
alluded. M. Paillard and the company formed under his name settled a
disagreement in the law courts, with the result that M. Paillard
retained the restaurant at the corner of the Chaussée d'Antin as his
property, and the company took possession of the Restaurant Maire and
the Pavillion des Champs Elysées. This, however, is mere history, for
the Pavillion serves its meals with all the quiet luxury of the parent
house, and I have a memory of a _Potage Crème d'Antin_ which was
especially excellent.
Ledoyen's has attained a particular celebrity as the restaurant where
every one lunches on the _vernissage_ day of the Salon. At dinner-time,
on a fine evening, every table on the stretch of gravel before the
little villa is occupied, and the good bourgeois, the little clerk
taking his wife and mother-in-law out to dinner, are just as much in
evidence, and more so, than the "smarter" classes of Parisians. The
service is rather haphazard on a crowded night, and scurrying waiters
appeal to the carvers in pathetic tones to wheel the moving tables on
which the joints are kept hot up to their particular tables. The food is
good, but not always served as hot as it should be--the fault of all
open-air dining places. The wine-list is a good one, and I have drunk at
Ledoyen's excellent champagne of the good brands and the great years at
a comparatively small price. Guillemin, who was cook to the Duc de
Vincennes, brought Ledoyen's into great favour in the fifties of the
last century.
The Bouillon Riche, just behind the Alcazar, with its girl waiters I
have generally found even more haphazard than Ledoyen's. Its food is
neither noticeably good nor is it indifferent.
The Ambassadeurs prides itself on being quite a first-class restaurant,
and it is one of the special experiences of the foreigner in Paris to
dine at one of the tables in the balcony looking towards the stage, and
to listen to the concert while you drink your coffee and sip your _fine
champagne_. I have kept the menu of one such dinner, very well cooked
and well served in spite of the crowded balcony and general hubbub of
the evening, on a Grand Prix night. What the amount of the bill was that
the host of the party had to pay I did not inquire, but I feel sure that
it was a very long one.
This is the menu:--
Melon.
Potage Ambassadeurs.
Hors-d'oeuvre.
Truite Gelée Mâconnaise.
Ris de Veau Financière.
Demi-Vierge en Chaud-Froid.
Poulets de Grain Rôtis.
Salade de Romaine.
Asperges Froides.
Coupes Jacques.
Dessert.
Petites Fraises.
The cold trout was excellent, and the wine was De St-Marceaux '89.
The Alcazar has a restaurant somewhat similar to that of the
Ambassadeurs.
Chevillard's, at the Rond Point des Champs Elysées, is not an
out-of-doors restaurant, but it is a favourite place to breakfast at on
the way out to the races. The cooking is good. Sometimes the restaurant
is crowded, and it is as well to secure a table in advance.
There are half-a-dozen cafés, farms where milk is sold, and other
refreshment places in the Bois; but the two restaurants which the
travelling gourmet is likely to dine at are the Pavillion d'Armenonville
and the Château de Madrid. The first is very "smart," and the glass
shelter which runs round the little house is filled on a summer night
with men, all in dress-clothes, and ladies in flowered or feathered
hats. The world and the half-world dine at adjacent tables, and neither
section of Paris objects. The tables are decorated with flowers, and two
bands, which play alternately, make music so softly that it does not
interfere with conversation. The cooking is good, and the prices are
rather high. There are tables under the trees surrounding the building,
and some people dine at these; but "all Paris" seems to prefer to be
squeezed into the least possible space under the glass verandah.
At the Château de Madrid the tables are set under the trees in the
courtyard of the building, and the effect of the dimly seen buildings,
the dark foliage, and the lights is very striking. The Madrid has always
been an expensive place to dine at, but its reputation for cookery is
good. Last year I dined at the Château one hot summer's night and found
there M. Aubanel, who had left his little hotel at Monte Carlo, during
the great heats, to take temporary command at the Madrid, striving to
serve a great crowd of diners with an insufficient staff of waiters. I
trust that the proprietors have made better arrangements since to meet
any sudden inrush of guests. The Madrid has a capital cellar of wine.
On a race-morning I have eaten a little breakfast, well enough served,
at the restaurant of the Café de la Cascade.
Supping-Places
The fickle Parisian crowd changes its supping-places without any
apparent cause. A few hundred francs spent in gilding a ceiling, a
quarrel between two damsels in gigantic hats as to which of them ordered
a particular table to be reserved, and the whole cloud of butterflies
rises to settle elsewhere. Julien's, Sylvain's, La Rue's, the Café de La
Paix, Maire's, Paillard's all had their time when there was not a vacant
seat in their rooms at 1 A.M. Durand's, in the summer of '92, was the
society supping-place. At the Café de Paris, where M. Mourier, a former
_maître-d'hôtel_ of Maire's reigns, the British matron and the
travelling American gaze at the _haute cocotterie_--who patronise the
right fork of the room as you enter. At Maxim's, any gentleman may
conduct the band if he wishes to, and the tables are often cleared away
and a little impromptu dance organised. At the Café Américain, the
profession of the ladies who frequent it at supper-time is a little too
obvious. You should take your wife to Durand's. She will insist on going
to the Café de Paris. You should not take her to Maxim's, and you cannot
take her to the Américain. Of course, the supping-places I have
enumerated are but a few of the many, for there is no Early Closing Act
in France, every restaurant in Paris keeps open till 2 A.M., and some
later, and supper is to be had at all of them. Personally, I am never
happier at supper-time than when I am sitting in the back room at the
Taverne Pousset picking crayfish out of a wooden bowl where they swim
in savoury liquid, pulling them to pieces, and eating them as they were
eaten before forks and spoons put fingers out of fashion. The Restaurant
des Fleurs, the newest of the Parisian restaurants, in the Rue
St-Honoré, is making a bid with its decoration in the "new art" style to
capture those who sup.
Miscellaneous
Since Cubat in dudgeon gave up his restaurant in the Avenue of the
Champs Elysées, there has been no prominent foreign restaurant in Paris.
Cubat, whose restaurant in St. Petersburg is so well known, brought
Russian cookery to Paris; but though the Parisians are fond enough of
cheering for the Dual Alliance, they did not dip into their pockets to
keep the Russian restaurant in existence. An expensive German
restaurant, a relic of the last exhibition, showed its lights just off
the great boulevards, but after a time disappeared. There are Viennese
restaurants on the boulevards and in the Rue d'Hauteville, and Spanish
and Italian establishments may be found by the curious who wish to
impair their digestion. The Englishman or American who has been feeding
on rich food for any length of time, often yearns for perfectly simple
food. At Henry's, at the Club Restaurant, and at most of the English and
American bars with which Paris is now studded, a chop is obtainable, and
a whisky and soda which is not poison; but I, personally, when _Paté de
Foie Gras_ becomes a horror, truffles a burden, and rich sauces an
abomination, go to one of the _Tavernes_, the Royale in the Rue Royale,
or the Anglais in the Rue Boissy d'Anglas (where you get Lucas's food at
lower prices than in the restaurant by the Madeleine), or into one of
the many houses of plain cookery on the boulevards, and order the
simplest and least greasy soup on the bill of fare, some plainly grilled
cutlets, and some green vegetables. A pint of the second or third claret
on the wine-card washes down this penitential repast. At Puloski's, an
uninviting-looking little establishment in the Rue St-Honoré, I have
eaten excellent dishes of oysters cooked according to American methods,
and that dry hash which boarding-house keepers across the Atlantic are
supposed to serve perpetually to their paying guests, but which an
American abroad is always glad to meet. You will find a great variety of
oysters, Marennes, Ostendes, Zélandes, at Prunier's, in the Rue Duphot,
and the dishes of the house--soup, sole, steak--are all cooked with
oysters as a foundation, sauce, or garnish. Prunier's is the house at
which the travelling gourmet generally tastes his first snails, the
great Burgundian ones with striped shells, or the little gray fellows
from the champagne vineyards. If you eat Prunier's oysters you should
drink his white Burgundy. If you eat his snails, you should drink his
red wine, for he has some excellent red Burgundy.
Most travellers at least once in their lives go the round of Montmartre
and its Bohemian shows. I have dined with the great Fursy in the
restaurant attached to the Tréteau de Tabarin, and was given good
substantial bourgeois cookery. I asked the singer of the "Chansons
Rosses" how it was that he, who girds at all things bourgeois and
commonplace, ran the restaurant on such simple and non-eccentric lines;
and he shrugged his shoulders, which I took to mean that you may trifle
with a man's intellect but not with his stomach. About two in the
morning, in the upstairs room at the Tréteau, there is often some
amusement forward. Upstairs at the Rat Mort, you may dine in comfort
with _Soupe à l'Onion_ and _Tournedos Rat Mort_ in the menu; and at the
Abbaye de Thélème, and at the Restaurant Blanche in the place of that
name, you will find the artists and sculptors of the Butte.
In the Quartier, Thurion's in the Boulevard St-Germain is an interesting
restaurant for a wandering Anglo-Saxon to become acquainted with, for
there he will see most of the young Americans and English who are
climbing up the ladder of pictorial fame. It is a Parisian "Cheshire
Cheese." The floors are sawdusted, the waiters rush about in hot haste,
and the chickens stray in from the courtyard at the back and pick up the
crumbs round the tables. The place has its traditions, and you can hear
tales of Dickens and Thackeray from the plump lady who makes up the
bills.
Good Cheap Restaurants
I feel tempted in connection with this heading to write as did the
naturalist of snakes in Iceland; but besides the _tavernes_ and
_bouillons_, which give wonderful value for the money spent but do not
require any lengthy mention in a book dealing with temples of the higher
art, there are one or two interesting _table-d'hôte_ restaurants where
the meals are very cheap. One of these is Philippe's, on the first floor
of the Palais Royal, next door to the Petit Vefour, and another is the
Dîner Français, 27 Bd. des Italiens.
St-Germain
The Pavillion Henri IV., on the terrace of St-Germain, where every
travelling Briton and American breakfasts once during his summer stay in
Paris, is "run" by the management of the Champeaux, and one gets very
excellent cookery and service in consequence, the prices not being at
all exorbitant. One groans, sitting at the little tables on the terraces
and looking at the view, to think of the chances some of our hotels near
London, with even finer views, throw away through lack of enterprise.
St-Cloud
The Pavillion Bleu at St-Cloud, the proprietor of which, M. Moreaux,
bought the greater portion of the "grands vins" of the Maison d'Or,
deserves a special word of commendation.
N.N.-D.