mid-Victorian gluttony and taught Londoners to dine lightly and dine
well, was for a time at the Berkeley before he went to the Continent
to make the Hotel du Palais at Biarritz a very splendid place of
entertainment. He died recently at Le Touquet, where one of his many
sons-in-law, M. Recoussine, is in command of two of the big hotels. In
1897 there were many alterations and additions made to the Berkeley,
the restaurant was almost doubled in size, and when M. Jules was
manager of the hotel and Emile was in charge of the restaurant, and
M. Herpin was _chef de cuisine_, the Berkeley was, as it is now, one
of the "best places" at which to dine in London. The restaurant in
those days was panelled with light oak, and the ante-room, by the
entrance, was all old gold. Jules was translated to the Savoy and now,
as a proprietor, is comfortably settled at the Maison Jules in Jermyn
Street. M. Kroell was another manager who stepped from the Berkeley
to a larger hotel, having only to cross the road to reach the Ritz.
Mr Raymond Slanz, the manager who controls the Berkeley in this year
of grace, is as eminent as any of his predecessors. He is young,
energetic, and has brains, which he has used unsparingly in keeping
the Berkeley abreast of the times. He is the most cosmopolitan of
managers, for he has gained his experience all over the Continent, in
England, America and South Africa. He has been the architect of his
own fortunes, for when he first came to London he started his upward
career from the position of extra waiter at the Savoy. The restaurant
to-day is all white; its walls have a deep white frieze, with on it
in relief a wood through the trees of which a mediæval hunting party
thread their way, half the animals that came out of the Ark being afoot
in this wonderful preserve. There is some gold ornamentation just below
the frieze and on the casings of the windows, and gilt electroliers are
in the centre of the panels. Shields of semi-opaque glass and lamps
hidden by the cornice throw light up on to the ceiling and there are
gilt capitols to the fluted columns. The rose and grey of the carpet
and the rose of the chair cushions form a pleasant contrast to the
white. The ante-room in which a string band of musicians in gorgeous
uniforms play has the same decoration as the restaurant. The Berkeley
restaurant flourishes so satisfactorily that more tables are wanted,
though it is comparatively lately that a new room was added, and the
space occupied by the cashiers is to be thrown into the restaurant.
M. Arturo Giordano, who is generally known as "Arthur" and who used
to oscillate between the Palais at St Moritz and the Berkeley, is now
permanently in charge of the restaurant, and M. J. Granjon, who came to
London from the Grande Cercle Républicain, and who has been created a
Chevalier of the Order of Mérite Agricole, is the _chef de cuisine_.
One warm July evening I found myself at eight o'clock dinnerless in
Mayfair. I was to have dined with friends at their house, but on
arriving there found that my hostess had been taken suddenly ill and
that dinner was the last thing concerning which the household was
troubling itself. My room under these circumstances was more welcome
than my company. My favourite table in my favourite club would, I
knew, be occupied by somebody else; the Berkeley was the nearest
restaurant, and I accordingly walked there and found one of the small
tables at the far end of the room unoccupied. At the Berkeley there
is always a _carte du jour_ with an abundant choice of dishes, those
ready being marked with a cross. It is the custom of the house, and
a very good one too, to allow the diners to choose their own dinner
from the _carte_ and to charge them half-a-guinea or twelve and six,
according to whether the dinner is a long one or a short one. I was in
the course of ordering a short dinner and had selected _rossolnik_, a
Russian soup, some turbot, a wing of a chicken _en cocotte_, and was
hesitating over the various _entremets_, when Arthur espied me, came to
my table and took matters into his own hands. He asked to be allowed to
alter my menu slightly in order that some of the specialities of the
house might play a part in it. I was nothing loth, for my dinner under
those circumstances became interesting, and I was prepared to consider
critically any of M. Granjon's creations that Arthur might put before
me. This was the menu:
Melon Cantaloup.
Crème Raymonde.
Turbotin Beaumarchais.
Suprême de Volaille Bagatelle.
Velouté Châtelaine.
Pêches Glacés Hortense.
The soup was a cream of chicken, delightfully soft, a very gentle
introduction to what was to follow. The _turbotin Beaumarchais_ is a
noble dish, a strong white wine sauce with the essence of the fish
in it, and sliced truffles, and mushrooms and carrots being served
therewith, parsley, and just a suspicion of onion. The _suprême de
volaille Bagatelle_ I recommend to anyone who, like myself, is
occasionally warned off red meats by sundry twinges, as being a dish
of fowl which is interesting and not in the least vapid. Asparagus and
mushrooms and truffles go with it, and the principal ingredients of the
sauce are port and cream reduced. The _entremet_ consisted of peaches
and grapes, raspberries, and a cream ice with, I fancy, more than one
liqueur added, the whole forming a noble _Coupe-Jacques_, served in a
silver bowl. My dinner being a short one, I had plenty of appetite left
for this admirable fruit dish.
The Berkeley, both the hotel and the restaurant, always seem to be a
stronghold of the country gentleman. If I heard that an M.F.H. of my
acquaintance whom I wished to see was in town and I did not know his
address, the hotel to which I should telephone first to ask whether he
was staying there would be the Berkeley, and no doubt the wonderful
frieze of the restaurant is a compliment to the mighty hunters who
stay in the hotel. Many squarsons and the higher ranks of the clergy
are amongst the patrons of the Berkeley, and whenever I dine at the
restaurant it seems to me that it ought to be the week of the Oxford
and Cambridge or Eton and Harrow cricket matches, for I always see
amongst the guests at the dinner-parties pretty girls with complexions
of cream and rose, the sisters of Varsity lads and public schoolboys,
country maidens whom I always associate with "Lord's," light and dark
blue ribbons, and wild enthusiasm.
I have never dined at the Berkeley without coming away a pleased man,
and the dinner that M. Granjon cooked for me when I was dinnerless
in the wilderness which borders the Green Park sent me away from the
Berkeley rejoicing.
XXXIII
THE JOYS OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
THE RESTAURANT GUSTAVE
There are one or two tales of wonderful discoveries of excellent little
restaurants in unexpected places abroad that, with variations, I hear
over and over again from travelled folk.
One of these stories is a motoring one. The scene is usually the south
of France, and a long day's journey, an early _déjeuner_, a breakdown
in some desolate spot and a long delay before the damage could be
repaired are the preliminaries, all told at considerable length. Then
comes a harrowing description of the oncoming of darkness, of the
discovery that the town at which the travellers intend to spend the
night is still many, many kilometres away, of a shortage of petrol, of
the faint feeling that comes through lack of food. A shower of cold
rain, or mud up to the axles, a broken-down bridge or a swollen stream
generally come into the story at this period to lead up to the sense
of relief, described with rapture, which the travellers experience
when, at a turning of the road, a light is seen at a distance. This is
found to be the window of a little inn, quite unpretentious outside,
with a sanded floor inside, everything quite clean, the host a retired
_maître d'hôtel_ who had in his time been a waiter in Soho, and talks
a little English, the hostess an excellent cook. And then the story
ambles along to its happy ending with the description of the _soupe à
l'oignon_ which is put on table, over which a clean napkin is spread,
of the delicious savour it emits and how beautifully hot and strong it
is, of the grilled wings of a chicken which follow; of an _omelette au
confiture_, which the cook herself brings to table; of country wine
and country butter; a long stick of bread and some cheese made on a
neighbouring farm. And the "tag," in a dozen words, tells how the
chauffeur, who has also been well fed, finds a fresh supply of petrol,
and how the contented travellers reach at midnight the town where they
intend to sleep.
The scene of another story is a minor cathedral town in Italy or Spain,
and the tale commences with a vigorous denunciation of the principal
hotel in the place: stuffy rooms, vile food cooked in rancid oil; an
impudent head waiter and an unhelpful hall-porter. The central division
of the story deals with a long day of sight-seeing; a midday meal of
sandwiches, "horrid things made of the ham of the country and coarse
bread"; and a terrifying adventure when, having lost their way in a
network of streets, the ladies of the party are stared at by some
horrible unshaven men who say un-understandable things in patois, and
then laugh. The tale concludes thus:--"Just as we thought that we
should have to pay one of the impudent little boys to show us the way
back to that disgusting hotel we turned a corner, and there we saw a
clean little restaurant with little trees in front of the window and a
bill of fare, with lots of nice things on it quite cheap, hanging on
the door-post."
There are unlimited variations on the above, and the tale can take from
two minutes to three-quarters of an hour in the telling, according to
the volume of guide-book gush and the amount of lip-smacking over the
food that is introduced into it.
But why go to France, Italy or Spain to obtain these materials for
a story? The circumstances can be exactly reproduced in London. The
preliminaries are to eat nothing between breakfast and dinner-time and
to tire yourself out with exercise. Then, if you wish to indulge in the
motoring adventure, engage the most rickety taxi-cab to be found on any
stand and drive round and round the inner circle of Regent's Park until
the inevitable breakdown occurs. When, after a quarter of an hour's
delay, the chauffeur says that he is ready to go on again, tell him to
drive to Soho Square, then to go down Greek Street, and to stop when he
comes to the Restaurant Gustave.
Or if it is the cathedral city incidents you would like to live through
once more, start in a worn-out condition from Golden Square, and make
your way in a zigzag through the narrowest streets and alleys you can
find to St Anne's, Soho, which is big enough to be a second-class
cathedral, and go on, still zigzagging, till you reach Greek Street and
Gustave's.
And this is what you will find when you get there. A little restaurant
with a chocolate face and with a plate-glass window, on which the fact
is announced that it is an _à la carte_ establishment. Two little trees
are in front of the window--little evergreen trees are fashionable just
now in Soho--and the name "Gustave" is well in evidence above, with an
electric lamp to throw light upon it. Inside the window a long lawn
curtain gives privacy to the restaurant. The card of the day, with
half-a-hundred names of dishes written in black ink, hangs in a brass
frame by the door.
Go inside, and you find yourself in a little room--a French gentleman
who went on my recommendation to Gustave's described it to me
afterwards as a _boîte_--with cream-coloured walls and a chocolate
skirting. A counter, to which the waiters go to fetch the dishes, with
a girl behind it very busily engaged, is at one side of the room.
Oilcloth is on the floor, and a little staircase leads to the first
floor. Eleven tables are in this room, all of them generally occupied,
mostly by French people; but there is a second smaller room on beyond,
which holds four tables, and on the two occasions lately that I have
dined at Gustave's I have found one of these tables vacant.
Everything is very clean at Gustave's, and if the napery is thin and
the glass is thick, that is quite in keeping with the travel story.
The people at the other tables are probably French. They belong to
the respectable classes, and they behave just as well as though they
carried innumerable quarterings on their escutcheons. A young waiter
puts the _carte du jour_, with an ornamental blue border, on the table
in front of you, and Monsieur Gustave, who, napkin on arm, bustles
about his little restaurant, comes to give advice, if needed, as to a
choice of dishes.
Gustave--who must not, of course, be confused with that other Gustave
who was manager of the Savoy, and who is now at the Lotus Club--is a
little Frenchman, with a moustache, who is very wide awake. He has a
sense of humour, and he talks excellent English. He was for a time at
an hotel in Hatton Garden, and at the Restaurant des Gourmets before he
came to Greek Street.
The first item on a bill of fare that I took away, with me reads: "½
doz. Escargots, 8d.," but long ago, at Prunier's in Paris, I tried to
attune my palate to snails, and failed, so on this particular night I
did not even consider their inclusion in my dinner. Nor did I dally
with _hors d'œuvre_, though I might have had sardines, or _filets
de hareng_, or _anchois_, or _salmis_ for twopence. But I ordered
soup, and I think I went up in Gustave's opinion when I preferred
three-pennyworth of _soupe à l'oignon_ to _pot au feu_ at the same
price. There were three fish dishes on the card, _moules Marinières_,
6d.; _merlan frit_, 6d.; _sole frit_, 10d.; and Gustave recommended the
_moules_ as being a dish of the house, and having come in that morning.
Looking down the list of entrées to find something sufficiently bizarre
in taste to match the commencement of my dinner, I hesitated over a
_pilaff_, which would have cost me 8d., almost plumped for a _râble de
lièvre_, which meant an outlay of 1s., and then, remembering that it
was Christmas-time, as near as possible ordered a _boudin_, which is
the sausage that all good Frenchmen eat once a year at the _réveillon_
suppers on Christmas Eve. But I remembered the nightmare that followed
the last _réveillon_ supper to which I went in Paris, and, passing
over all the entrées, ordered nothing more exciting than a wing of
chicken, 1s., and a _salade chicorée_. A _crème chocolat_, 4d., was my
_entremet_.
The onion soup proved to be excellent--quite strong and quite oniony,
which, as I was not going into polite society that evening, could
offend no one. The mussels quite justified M. Gustave's eulogium,
but as I did not eat the whole bowlful, and left some of the savoury
liquid, M. Gustave, with an expression of concern on his face, came
to my table to ask whether I had found any fault with the dish. I
assured him that my appetite, not the mussels or the cook, was alone
to blame. The wing of the chicken was plump and tender, and had I
paid half-a-crown it could not have been better. The _crème chocolat_
certainly tasted of chocolate, if the cream was not a very pronounced
feature in it.
It was a very excellent meal--at the price--and had I carried out the
starvation and strong exercise and vivid imagination preparation that
I have so strongly recommended to you, instead of lounging out to tea
in the afternoon with a pretty lady and eating tea cake and sugary
things at five o'clock, I should have recorded all the beautiful things
about the little restaurant that I hear in the travel stories.
XXXIV
A SUPPER TRAIN
One day last year I ate two meals under roofs owned by the Great
Eastern Railway Company.
I lunched in the dining-room of the Great Eastern Hotel, Liverpool
Street, a splendid, airy room, light grey and gold, with brown
Scagliola marble columns. The tables in this dining-room are set a good
distance apart, rather a rare luxury in the City, where space is very
limited; one is not forced to overhear the conversation of the people
dining at other tables, and waiters do not kick one's chair every time
they pass. The people lunching seemed to be a happy blend of visitors
staying in the hotel and City men who had come in from their offices,
but there was none of that breathless hurry-scurry that I always
associate with a lunch in the City.
A curious piece of furniture, glass above, wood below, caught my eye
as we went into the room. It looked at a distance like a jeweller's
showcase, and I asked my host if it was that. He laughed and told me to
inspect the jewels that it contained. It was a sideboard for the cold
meats, showing them, but at the same time keeping the dust from them.
It is cooled by ice. It is such a happy idea that the Carlton Club has
copied it.
This is the menu of the lunch that I might have eaten in its entirety
had I chosen:
Consommé Pluche.
Potage Solferino.
Boiled Salmon, Caper Sauce.
Fried Fresh Haddock.
Omelette Alsacienne.
Grilled Kidney, Vert Pré.
Roast Haunch of Mutton, Red Currant Jelly.
Roast Veal à l'Anglaise
(Or choice of cold meats).
Cabbage. Tomatoes.
Boiled and Lyonnaise Potatoes.
Roast Partridge and Chips.
Damson Pudding. Baked Custard.
Stewed Apricots.
Cheese. Radishes. Watercress.
I know of old that the cookery at the hotel is excellent, for I have
often lunched both there and at the Abercorn Rooms, next door, so I did
not feel in honour bound to form myself into a tasting committee of
one, and to go through the menu. I ate salmon and partridge and damson
pudding, and found them excellent. On the menu I saw that the price of
the lunch was 3s. 6d.
My host, being a Freemason of high degree, asked me if I had ever seen
the Masonic temple in the Abercorn Rooms, and as I said that I had not
we crossed on the first floor from the hotel to the rooms, and, meeting
Mr Amendt, the manager of all the Great Eastern catering enterprises,
on the way, he showed us the temple, splendid with panels of onyx and
columns of delicately tinted marble, the lamps of onyx, dish-shaped
and throwing their light up to the ceiling, seeming to me to be the
most beautiful things of their kind I have ever seen in a temple. Mr
Amendt, having his master key in his pocket, took us through many
ante-rooms and small banqueting-rooms, with pictures by Lely of some
of the beauties of Charles II.'s Court on the walls, and we looked in,
on my way to the street, at the great Hamilton Hall, a replica of the
banqueting-room of the Palais Soubise, where the waiters, lunch being
finished, were putting the chairs upside down on the tables, and at the
grill-room, named after the county of Norfolk, which, with its violet
marble pilasters and its paintings of City celebrities--Nell Gwynne
being cheek by jowl with such eminent respectabilities as Whittington
and Gresham--is at night one of the pleasantest little banqueting-rooms
in which I have ever feasted.
As I said good-bye to my host and to Mr Amendt, I remarked that I
should be at Liverpool Street again early next morning, as I was going
down to Southend for the week-end, and that if I had not been due at a
London theatre that night I should have enjoyed sleeping in the fresh
sea air. Whereon Mr Amendt pointed out to me that I could perfectly
well go to the play and catch the supper train down to Southend at
midnight. If this suited me I had only to telegraph to the hotel at
which I was going to stay, and Mr Amendt said that he himself would
order my supper for me. It all seemed to fit in so admirably that I
said, "Thank you very much," and sent off my telegram at once.
I had abundant time to change my clothes after the theatre, and taxied
down to Liverpool Street Station through the deserted City streets.
At the station, however, there were many people on the platforms, the
refreshment rooms blazed with light, and scores of little parties in
them seemed to be partaking of midnight tea. I found that a table had
been reserved for me in the restaurant car of the Southend train,
and a white-jacketed waiter told me that my supper would be served
immediately the train started, and that a compartment in the carriage
next to the restaurant car was at my disposal. Mr Amendt had been even
better than his word.
Waiting on the platform, I watched another train, a suburban one, on
the next line of rails, fill up. Bare-headed ladies, clutching in
their hands the programmes of the theatres to which they had been,
came sailing along; little messenger boys, their evening's work
over, climbed into the carriages, and one gentleman, who evidently
thought his time for rest had arrived, took the whole of one side of a
third-class compartment to himself, lay down, and went at once to sleep.
When the suburban train had left, a few minutes before midnight, the
stream of passengers set towards the Southend train, and I wondered
which of them were going to be my fellow-supperers in the restaurant
car. A party consisting of an elderly gentleman--I am sure he was an
uncle, for he had the good-natured look that all genuine Dickensy
uncles acquire--had evidently brought up two nieces and a little
schoolboy nephew to see some play. They were returning in the highest
of spirits, and got into the restaurant car at once, the uncle asking
whether his champagne had been properly iced. A clergyman with a paper
bag in his hand, which I think must have contained sponge cakes, looked
regretfully at the car, and told the guard that had he known that it
was running he would not have brought his supper with him. I saw nobody
else who was an obvious supperer, but when the whistle blew and the
flag was waved, and the train started, I found that in the section of
the restaurant car where my table was there were two elderly ladies at
one of the tables, a young man in spectacles at another, the good uncle
and his little party at the third and that the fourth was reserved for
me. There was on my table a little bunch of chrysanthemums in a glass
vase with a heavy foot to prevent it from overturning, and I noticed
with appreciation several devices for holding in their places cruets,
water bottles, salt cellars and glasses should the train at express
pace threaten to shake things off the table. This was the menu of the
supper that Mr Amendt had ordered for me:
Lobster Mayonnaise.
Mutton Cutlets Reform.
Roast Grouse. Straw Potatoes.
Salad.
Omelette au Confiture.
Devilled Sardines.
Cheese. Biscuits. Butter.
Watercress. Lettuce. Celery.
Black Coffee.
Like my lunch earlier in the day, the Great Eastern offered me more
than I had sufficient appetite to cope with. I found the _mayonnaise_
excellent, and did full justice to the grouse, the _omelette_ and
the devilled sardines. The young man in spectacles, I could see, had
ordered for his supper fried cod and a glass of porter; the elderly
ladies were drinking tea and eating cake; and the uncle and his little
party were, like myself, eating a sumptuous meal.wAs I ate my supper the train rushed through the East of London, and
Bethnal Green and Stratford were patches of lighted windows in the
darkness, but when we were out of the zone of bricks and mortar and in
the country there was a full moon high above, and fields and trees all
grey and shadowy in the mist that was rising.
The two elderly ladies had gone back to their compartment, the young
man in spectacles paid his bill, and I judged from this that we must
be nearing Southend, and asked for mine. The waiter bowed politely and
informed me that I was the guest of the Great Eastern Company. As I
could not argue with such an indefinite thing as a railway company, I
had to accept the situation, and therefore I cannot set down how much
the excellent meal I ate should have cost me.
When the train ran in to the terminus at Southend it certainly did not
seem to me that I had been travelling for an hour.
XXXV
THE ADELAIDE GALLERY
There is no story of the success of a London restaurant more
interesting than that of the Adelaide Gallery, which is more generally
known as Gatti's.
The first Gatti to come to this country from the Val Blegno in the
Ticino Canton of Switzerland, on the Italian side of the Alps, was
the pioneer of penny ices in England, and his shop in Villiers Street
by the steps leading down to the steamboat pier below Hungerford
Market was for the sale of these ices and _gaufres_, the thin batter
cakes pressed in a mould and baked, a delicacy the small children of
Continental countries love, but which has never ousted the British
penny bun for its pre-eminence in these islands. When Hungerford Market
was swept away to give space for the building of Charing Cross Station,
its name, however, being perpetuated by the bridge, the first Gatti's
was re-established under the arches of the station and became in due
course the Charing Cross Music Hall.
To the Gatti of Villiers Street and the Arches came from their native
village two of his young nephews, Agostino and Stefano--the wags of
the later Victorian days called them Angostura and Stephanotis. They
determined, as soon as they felt their feet, to launch out on their
own account. They leased the derelict Adelaide Gallery, which had its
entrance in Adelaide Street, converted it into a café restaurant after
the Continental pattern, and opened it on 21st May 1862. So juvenile
were these enterprising young Swiss that the younger brother could not
legally sign the lease, being under twenty-one. The Adelaide Gallery
was then right in the centre of the triangle of buildings bounded by
King William Street, Adelaide Street and the Strand: it was parallel
to the Lowther Arcade, and the entrance to it was by a narrow corridor
from Adelaide Street, a street named, of course, after King William the
Fourth's queen.