ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS
Antoine's is to me one of the four or five most satisfactory restaurants
in the United States,--two of the others being the Louisiane and
Galatoire's. But one has one's slight preferences in these things; and
just as I have a feeling that the cuisine of the Hotel St. Regis in New
York surpasses, just a little bit, that of any other eating place in the
city, I have a feeling about Antoine's in New Orleans. This is not,
perhaps, with me, altogether a culinary matter, for whereas I remember
delightful meals at the Louisiane and Galatoire's--meals which, indeed,
could hardly be surpassed--I lived for a week at Antoine's, and felt at
home there, and became peculiarly attached to the quaint, rambling old
restaurant, up stairs and down.
Antoine's has never been "fixed up." The café makes one think of such
old Parisian restaurants as the Boeuf à la Mode, or the Tour d'Argent.
Far from being a showy place, it is utterly simple in its decorations
and equipment, but if there is in this country a restaurant more French
than Antoine's, I do not know where that restaurant is.
Antoine Alciatore, founder of the establishment, departed nearly forty
years ago to the realms to which great chefs are ultimately taken.
Coming from France as a young man he established himself in a small café
opposite the slave market, where he proceeded to cook and let his
cooking speak for him. His dinde à la Talleyrand soon made him famous,
and he prospered, moving before long to the present building. His sons,
Jules and Fernand, were sent to Paris to learn at headquarters the best
traditions of the haute cuisine, doing service as apprentices in such
establishments as the Maison d'Or and Brabant's. Jules is now proprietor
of Antoine's, while Fernand is master of the Louisiane.
The two brothers are of somewhat different type. Fernand is, above all,
a chef; I have never seen him outside his own kitchen. His son, Fernand
Jr., superintends the front part of the Louisiane, which he has
transformed into a place having the appearance of a New York restaurant.
The young man has made a successful bid for the fashionable patronage of
New Orleans, and there is dancing in the Louisiane in the evening.
Jules, upon the other hand, is perhaps more the director than his
brother Fernand--more the suave delightful host, less the man of cap and
apron. Jules loves to give parties--to astonish his guests with a
brilliant dinner and with his unrivaled grace as gérant. That he is able
to do these things no one is better aware than my companion and I, for
it was our good fortune to be accepted by Jules as friends and fellow
artists.
Never while my companion and I lived at Antoine's did we escape the
feeling that we were not in the United States, but in some foreign land.
To go to his rooms he went upstairs, around a corner, down a few steps,
past a pantry, and a back stairway by which savory smells ascended from
the kitchen, along a latticed gallery overlooking a courtyard like that
of some inn in Segovia, along another gallery running at right angles to
the first and overlooking the same court, including the kitchen door and
the laundry, and finally to a chamber with French doors, a canopied bed,
and French windows opening upon a balcony that overlooked the side
street. His room was called "The Creole Yacht," while mine was the
"Maison Vert."
I remember a room in that curious little hotel opposite the Café du
Dôme, in Paris (the hotel in which it is said Whistler stayed when he
was a student), which almost exactly resembled my room at Antoine's,
even to the dust which was under the bed--until 'Génie got to work with
broom and brush. Moreover, connected with my room there was a bath which
actually had a _chaufbain_ to heat the water: one of those weird French
machines resembling the engine of a steam launch, which pops savagely
when you light the gas beneath it, and which, as you are always
expecting it to blow up and destroy you, converts the morning ablutions
from a perfunctory duty into a great adventure.
Then too, there was Marie who has attended to the _linge_ at Antoine's
for the last fifty years, and who helped the gray-haired genial Eugénie
to "make proper the rooms." Ever since 'Génie--as she is called, for
short--came from her native Midi, she has been at Antoine's; and like
François--the gentle, kindly, white-mustached old waiter who, when we
were there, had just moved up to Antoine's after thirty-five years'
service at the Louisiane--'Génie is always ready with a smile; yes, even
in the rush of Mardi Gras!
Antoine's does not set up to be a regular hotel, and we stopped there
because, during the carnival, all rooms in the large modern hotels
across Canal Street were taken. The carnival rush made room-service at
Antoine's a little slow, now and then; sometimes the bell would not be
answered when we rang for breakfast; or again, our morning coffee and
_croissants_ would be forty minutes on the way; sometimes we became a
little bit impatient--though we could never bring ourselves to say so to
such amiable servitors. As a result, when we were leaving the city for a
little trip, we determined to stay, on our return, at the Grunewald, a
hotel like any one of a hundred others in the United States--marble
lobbies, gold ceilings, rathskellers, cabaret shows, dancing, and page
boys wandering through the corridors and dining-rooms, calling in nasal,
sing-song voices: "_Mis_-ter _Shoss_-futt! _Mis_-ter _Ahm_-kaplopps!
_Mis_-ter _Praggle_-fiss! _Mis_-ter Blahms!"
We did return and go to the Grunewald. But comfortable as we were made
there, we had to own to each other that we missed Antoine's. We missed
our curious old rooms. I even missed my _chaufbain_, and was bored at
the commonplace matutinal performance of turning on hot water without
preliminary experiments in marine engineering. We thought wistfully of
'Génie's patient smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went
out, that "when she had made the apartments she would render the key to
the bureau, _alors_,"--which is to say, leave the key at the office. We
yearned for the café, for good François, for the deliciously flavored
oysters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot rock-salt
which kept them warm; for the cold tomatoes _à la Jules César_; for the
bisque of crayfish _à la Cardinal_; for the bouillibasse (which
Thackeray admitted was as good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and
which Otis Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gombo _à la
Créole_, and pompano _en Papillotte_, and pressed duck _à la Tour
d'Argent_, and orange Brulôt, and the wonderful Café Brulôt
Diabolique--that spiced coffee made in a silver bowl from which emerge
the blue flames of burning cognac, and in honor of which the lights of
the café are always temporarily dimmed.
Nor least of all was it that we wished to see again the mother of Jules,
who sits back of the _caisse_ and takes in the money, like many another
good French wife and mother--a tiny little old lady more than
ninety-five years old, who came to New Orleans in 1840 as the bride of
the then young Antoine Alciatore.
So we put on our hats and coats when evening came, and went back to
Antoine's for dinner, and as long as we were in New Orleans we kept on
going back.
That is not to say, of course, that we did not go also to the Louisiane
and Galatoire's, or that we did not drop in for luncheon, sometimes, at
Brasco's, in Gravier Street, or at Kolb's, a more or less conventional
German restaurant in St. Charles Street; or that we failed to go out to
Tranchina's at Spanish Fort, on Lake Pontchartrain, or to the quainter
little place called Noy's where, we learned, Ernest Peixotto had been
but a short time before, gathering material for indigestion and an
article in "Scribner's Magazine." But when all is said and done there
remain the three restaurants of the old quarter.
I should like to give some history of Galatoire's as well as of the
other two, but when I asked the _patron_ for the story of his
restaurant, he smiled, and with a shrug replied: "But Monsieur, the
story is in the food!"
Do not expect any of these places to present the brilliant appearance of
distinguished New York restaurants. They are comparatively simple, all
of them, and are engaged not with soft carpets and gilt ceilings, but
with the art of cookery.
I have been told that some of them have what may be termed "tourist
cooking," which is not their best, but if you know good food, and let
them know you know it, and if you visit them at any time except during
the carnival, then you have a right to expect in any one of these
establishments, a superb dinner. For as I once heard my friend Col.
Beverly Myles, one of the city's most distinguished _gourmets_, remark:
"To talk of 'tolerably good food' in a French restaurant is like
talking of 'a tolerably honest man.'"
The carnival of Mardi Gras and the several days preceding, is one of
those things about which I feel as I do concerning Niagara Falls, and
gambling houses, and the red light district of Butte, Montana, and the
underground levels of a mine, and the world as seen from an aëroplane,
and the Quatres Arts ball, and a bull fight--I am glad to have seen it
once, but I have no desire to see it again. During the carnival my
companion and I enjoyed a period of sleepless gaiety. To be sure, we
went to bed every morning, but what is the use in doing that if you also
get up every morning? We went to the street pageants, we went to the
balls at the French Opera House, we saw the masking on the streets, and
when the carnival was finished we were finished, too.
The great thing about the carnival, it seems to me, is that it bears the
relation to the life of the city, that a well-developed hobby does to
the life of an individual. It keeps the city young. It keeps it from
becoming pompous, from taking itself too seriously, from getting into a
rut. It stimulates not alone the young, but the grave and reverend
seigniors also, to give themselves up for a little while each year to
play, and moreover to use their imaginations in annually devising new
pageants and costumes. From this point of view such a carnival would be
a good thing for any city.
But that is where the Latin spirit of New Orleans comes in, with its
pleasing combination of gaiety and restraint. You could not hold such a
carnival in every city. You could not do it in New York. For more
important even than the pageants and the balls, is the carnival frame of
mind. To hold a carnival such as New Orleans holds, a city must know how
to be lively and playful without becoming drunk, without breaking
barroom mirrors, upsetting tables, annoying women, thrusting "ticklers"
into people's faces, jostling, fighting, committing the thousand rough
vulgar excesses in which New York indulges every New Year's Eve, and in
which it would indulge to an even more disgusting extent under the
additional license of the mask.
The carnival--_carne vale_, farewell flesh--which terminates with Mardi
Gras--"Fat Tuesday," or Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of
Lent--comes down to us from pagan times by way of the Latin countries.
The "Cowbellions," a secret organization of Mobile, in 1831 elaborated
the idea of historical and legendary processions, and as early as 1837
New Orleans held grotesque street parades. Twenty years later the
"Mystic Krewe," now known as "Comus," appeared from nowhere and
disappeared again. The success of Comus encouraged the formation of
other secret societies, each having its own parade and ball, and in
1872, Rex, King of the Carnival, entered his royal capital of New
Orleans in honor of the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis--who, by the way,
is one of countless notables who have feasted at Antoine's.
The three leading carnival societies, Comus, Momus, and Proteus, are
understood to be connected with three of the city's four leading clubs,
all of which stand within easy range of one another on the uptown side
of Canal Street: the Boston Club (taking its name from an old card
game); the Pickwick (named for Dickens' genial gentleman, a statue of
whom stands in the lobby); the Louisiana, a young men's club; and the
Chess, Checkers and Whist Club. The latter association is, I believe,
the one that takes no part in the carnival.
Each of the carnival organizations has its own King and Queen, and the
connection between certain clubs and certain carnival societies may be
guessed from the fact that the Comus Queen and Proteus Queen always
appear on the stand in front of the Pickwick Club, to witness their
respective parades, and that the Queen of the entire Carnival appears
with her maids of honor on the stand before the Boston Club upon the day
of Mardi Gras, to witness the triumphal entry and parade of Rex. As Rex
passes the club he sends her a bouquet--the official indication of her
queenship. That night she appears for the first time in the glory of her
royal robes at the Rex Ball, which is held in a large hall; and the
great event of the carnival, from a social standpoint, is the official
visit, on the same night, of Rex and his Queen, attended by their court,
to the King and Queen of Comus, at the Comus Ball, held in the Opera
House.
Passing between the brilliantly illuminated flag-draped buildings,
under festoons of colored electric lights, the street parades, with
their spectacular colored floats, their bands, their negro
torch-bearers, their strangely costumed masked figures, throwing favors
into the dense crowds, are glorious sights for children ranging anywhere
from eight to eighty years of age. Public masking on the streets, on the
day of Mardi Gras, is also an amusing feature of the carnival.
The balls, upon the other hand, are social events of great importance in
the city, and as spectacles they are peculiarly fine. Invitations to
these balls are greatly coveted, and the visitor to the city who would
attend them, must exert his "pull" some time in advance. The
invitations, by the way, are not sent by individuals, but by the
separate organizations, and even those young ladies who are so fortunate
as to have "call-outs"--cards inclosed with their invitations,
indicating that they are to be asked to dance, and may therefore have
seats on the ground floor--are not supposed to know from what man these
cards come. Ladies who have not received call-outs, and gentlemen who
are not members of the societies, are packed into the boxes and seats
above the parquet floor, and do not go upon the dancing floor until very
late in the evening. Throughout each ball the members of the society
giving the ball continue to wear their costumes and their masks, so that
ladies, called from their seats to dance, often find themselves treading
a measure with some gallant who speaks in a strange assumed voice,
striving to maintain the mystery of his identity. The ladies, upon the
other hand, are not in costume and are not masked; about them, there is
no more mystery than women always have about them. After each dance the
masker produces a present for his partner--usually a pretty bit of
jewelry. Etiquette not only allows, but insists, that a woman accept any
gift offered to her at a carnival ball, and it is said that by this
means many a young gentleman has succeeded in bestowing upon the lady of
his heart a piece of jewelry the value of which would make acceptance of
the gift impossible under other than carnival conditions.
After the balls many of the younger couples go to the Louisiane and
Antoine's, to continue the dance, and as my room at Antoine's was
directly over one of the dancing rooms of the establishment, I might
make a shrewd guess as to how long they stayed up, after my companion
and I retired.
Let it not be supposed that we retired early. I remember well the look
of the pale blue dawn of Ash Wednesday morning, and no less do I
remember a conversation with a gentleman I met at the Louisiane, just
before the dawn broke. I never saw him before and I have never seen him
since; nor do I know his name, or where he came from. I only know that
he was an agreeable, friendly person who did not wish to go to bed.
When I said that I was going home he protested.
"Don't do that!" he urged. "There's a nice French restaurant in this
town. I can't think of the name of it. Let's go there."
"Well, how can we go if you don't know what place it is?" I asked,
intending to be discouraging.
The young man looked dazed at this. Then his face brightened suddenly.
"Oh, yes!" he cried. "I remember the name now! It's the Louisiane! Come
on! Let's get our coats an' go there!"
"But," I said, "this is the Louisiane right here."
The thought seemed to stagger him, for he swayed ever so slightly.
"All right," he said, regarding me with great solemnity. "Let's go
there!"
* * * * *
I have wondered since if this same young man may not have been the one
who, returning to the St. Charles Hotel in the early hours of that sad
Ash Wednesday morning, was asked by the clerk, who gave him his key,
whether he wished to leave a call.
"What day's this?" he inquired.
"Wednesday," said the clerk.
"All ri'," replied the other, moving toward the elevator. "Call me
Saturday."