it would have been difficult to get enough distinctive dishes into
a shorter menu. The _sterlet caviar_ on the little Russian pancakes
made an admirable _hors d'œuvre_; the _consommé_ was of turtle, but
much lighter than the usual turtle soup; the _kapusniack_ is a Russian
soup, in which leeks, celery, turnips, onions, mushrooms, pig's ear,
crushed tomatoes and cabbage seasoned with vinegar play a part, and it
is served with cream stirred into it, and with those little _pâtés_ of
which the Russians are so fond when broken into the soup. The sole was
garnished with fried oysters covered with bread-crumbs, and the _filet
de perdreau_, which was the supreme triumph of the dinner, consisted of
grilled _suprêmes_ of partridges and grilled rashers of bacon dipped
in _poivrade_ sauce. The _noisettes_ were the one plain dish of the
dinner, but the asparagus ends tucked away in the hearts of artichokes
gave it its cachet. The cold chicken filled with a _mousse_ of _foie
gras_ was a very noble dish, and tiny mushrooms, formed from some kind
of _mousse_, which apparently grew amidst the truffles, and slices of
chicken breast which surrounded the white bird adorned with Pompeiian
drawings, were a very happy idea. The nuts soaked in Kummel which
we found in the interior of the pears, which were served with a red
currant ice, was another happy idea much appreciated by the ladies, and
the _canapé esperanza_ proved to be soft roes on toast.
This dinner takes a very high place amongst the many good dinners I
have eaten in my time in the Savoy Restaurant. My bill came to £5, 2s.
Some of the Savoy specialities for which there were not room in one
dinner menu are _huîtres Baltimore_, which are oysters grilled with
bacon; _bortsch Polonaise, homard Miramar, sylphide Savoy,_ which is a
very attractive way of serving lamb sweetbreads; _mignonettes d'agneau
à la Delhi, soufflés belle de nuit,_ which is a variant of the _soufflé
surprise_, peaches and strawberry and vanilla ice being used in it;
and the noble _bécasse à la Soi_, an invention of M. Soi, which is
the breast of a woodcock served with a most delightful sauce on toast
covered with _foie gras_.
I have mentioned the ballroom which has taken the place of the old
courtyard and its fountain, and in which many of the great banquets
given at the Savoy are held. It is a fine room, light grey in
colour, splendidly spacious, and when lighted up its colour shows
off the ladies' dresses to perfection. My only objection to it as a
banqueting-room was that the white light, which is admirable for a
ballroom, was rather too glary for a dining-room. This has now been
obviated by lessening the light when dinners are given in the room.
If the Savoy could find some means of shading the lamps with pink or
putting on pink glasses to the lamps on the occasion of banquets, it
would, I think, please those like myself who think that the best light
for a dining-room is a pink one.
I asked M. Blond to give me the menu of any recent Savoy banquet
of which the management was especially proud, not that I have not
preserved many menus of many great dinners, but that I wished to shift
the responsibility of selection on to his shoulders. This is the menu
of the banquet and wines he has sent me as being typical of great Savoy
feasts:
Caviar de Bélouga.
Blinis à la Gouriew.
Queue de Bœuf à la Française.
Crème Germiny.
Filets de Sole à l'Aiglon.
Suprême de Volaille à l'Aurore.
Côte d'Agneau de Lait au Beurre Noisette.
Pommes Lorette.
Velouté Forestière.
Délice de Strasbourg à la Gelée de Vin du Rhin.
Bécassine Double Flambée à l'Armagnac.
Perles du Perigord.
Cœurs de Laitues Suzette.
Asperges Vertes de Paris.
Comices Toscane.
Soufflé Pont l'Évêque.
Corbeilles de Fruits.
WINES.
Schloss Johannisberg Cabinet, 1893.
Veuve Clicquot, 1904.
Magnums Pommery and Greno (Nature), 1904.
Chât. Haut Brion "Cachet du Château," 1888.
Cockburn's 1890 (Bottled 1893).
Croft's 1881 (Bottled 1884).
Hennessey's 70 year old Cognac.
Many of the dishes included in this great dinner I hope I may meet at a
future time at Savoy banquets.
XLV
THE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS
Dining one wet night in September at the Restaurant des Gourmets in
Lisle Street I told the young manager, with whom I chatted, that it
must be ten years since I dined there, and that at that time M. Brice
was the proprietor. The manager's reply was that fourteen years ago
M. Brice sold the restaurant to its present proprietors. I looked up
the date of my last visit to the Gourmets when I got home, and found
that it was in 1898. It was a queer little place of very eatable food
at extraordinarily cheap prices when first I made its acquaintance. It
then occupied the ground floor of one of the little houses in Lisle
Street, the street in which is the stage door of the Empire Theatre,
and Mr George Edwardes' offices at the back of Daly's Theatre. The
outside of the restaurant in those days did not look inviting. The
woodwork was painted leaden grey, and a yellow curtain hung inside the
window to screen the interior from the view of the public. The glass of
the door was whitened and "Entrée" written across it in black paint.
There were as many little tables, to hold two or four, as could be
crammed into the little room; the benches by the wall were covered with
black leather, the walls were grey, with wooden pegs all round on which
to hang hats and coats, and, here and there, notices on boards "La
Pipe est interdite." By the window was a long counter, on which were
bowls of salad and stacks of French loaves, and a metal coffee-making
machine. By this counter stood a plump Frenchwoman in black with an
apron, who shouted orders down a lift, and up the lift came presently
in response the dish called for. M. Brice, a little Frenchman with a
slight beard and wearing a grey cap, came and sat on a chair by the
table and told me who the star guests were amongst the people of all
nationalities who filled all the space on the chairs and benches. The
_chef d'orchestre_ of the Moore and Burgess Minstrels at St James's
Hall was one of the celebrities; another, a gentleman wearing a red
tie, was a journalist who contributed articles on Anarchists to
the newspapers; there were some Frenchmen who were big men in the
greengrocery line, and came over occasionally to Covent Garden; and
the greatest celebrity of all was a clean-shaven, prosperous-looking
person, the coachman of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild. My bill that
evening totalled 2s. 7d., and for this I obtained _hors d'œuvre_,
2d.; _pain_, 1d.; _potage, pâté d'Italie_, 2d.; _poisson_, 8d. (the
expensive dish of my dinner, turbot and caper sauce); _gigot haricot_,
6d.; an _omelette_, 4d.; cheese, 2d.; and a pint of claret, of which M.
Brice had purchased a supply at the sale of the surplus wines of the
Café Royal, which cost me no more than 6d.
The front of the Restaurant des Gourmets to-day stretches across three
of the houses in Lisle Street, and it has, besides the ground-floor
rooms, quite a spacious restaurant on the first floor, made by throwing
the three rooms of the houses into one. Its ground-floor front is
painted chocolate colour, and its principal entrance, between two
of the houses, is quite imposing, has little Noah's Ark trees and
a _chasseur_ in buttons, stationed there to direct visitors to the
different rooms and to call taxis. The staircase, with brass edges to
the steps and a brass rail, and with walls of white panelling, leads to
the restaurant upstairs, and a little pay-desk, with an opening like
those in a railway ticket office, faces one at the entrance, and it is
here that every visitor pays his bill as he goes out. I looked in at
all three downstairs rooms, which are bright with coloured papers on
their walls, and found all the tables occupied, before I went upstairs
into the larger restaurant. There I found a little table vacant, and
sat down at it with grim apprehension that I might have what scanty
hair I possess on the top of my head blown off, for just above it was
a large electric fan. It was, however, not necessary, the night being
cool, to set this going, and I ate my dinner in a calm atmosphere.
The Gourmets has become quite smart since Madame H. Cosson and her son
succeeded M. Brice in the proprietorship. The upstairs restaurant is
panelled with white woodwork above a green skirting, there are mirrors
in the panelling, and the range of windows looking out on to Lisle
Street have white lace curtains. There is a table in the middle of
the room, and upon it fruits and big-leaved plants and a basket with
bunches of grapes hung invitingly along the handle. Two big stands of
Austrian bent-wood for hats and coats are placed as sentinels on either
side of this table. There is a round-faced clock on the wall to tell
the time, and at intervals notices to say that all drinks must be paid
for in advance, which means, I suppose, that the Gourmets has not yet
obtained a wine and spirit licence. No notice forbidding pipes is now
necessary. The waiters in dress clothes and black ties bustle about,
and when I had given my order for _crème de laitue, cabillaud frit,
poulet au riz, sauce suprême,_ and pudding Gourmets, I looked round at
my fellow-guests to see if I could pick out any celebrities. There was
no M. Brice this time to act as a "Who's Who in Lisle Street," and most
of the people who were dining seemed to me to be young couples. Indeed
from the tables in my vicinity a painter could have limned a series of
pictures of the various stages of matrimony. At the table next to mine
sat a young couple who were still in the holding hands state of love,
who were thinking a great deal about each other and very little about
their dinner, and who ordered anything that the waiter suggested to
them; further on was a couple, each of whom was reading a newspaper,
and next to them again a young husband and wife, who had brought out
to dinner a pig-tailed little girl of six or seven, whose manners were
most admirable, for she bade the waiter "Good-night" when she went away
with all the grace of a duchess. Beyond these again was an elderly
couple, who sat together at one side of a table, an affectionate Darby
and Joan.
My soup when it came tasted rather too strongly of pepper, but the
fried cod was excellent. The _poulet au riz_ was all that it should be,
and the pudding Gourmets was a simple version of the well-known pudding
Diplomate.
Prices have gone up a little at the Gourmets since my first visit
there, owing, of course, to the general rise in the price of material.
I was charged 3d. for the soup, 6d. for the cod; I had rushed into wild
extravagance in ordering chicken, for that cost me 1s. 3d., and the
price of the pudding Gourmets was 4d.
XLVI
THE MAXIM RESTAURANT
There may not appear at first blush to be any close connection between
Wardour Street, that length of it which lies between Shaftesbury
Avenue and Coventry Street, and the pleasant Austrian watering-place
of Marienbad; but whenever I traverse the thoroughfare where the wax
figures simper in Clarkson's, the wig-maker's, windows, and where the
French library at one of the corners always keeps some passers-by in
front of it looking at the illustrated papers and post cards, the china
figures and the covers of the novels, there rises before me when I
come to the Maxim Restaurant a vision of hills covered with pine-woods
and of the Café Rubezahl, a castellated building of great red roofs
and turrets and spires, high up on the green hill-side, the café at
which the late King Edward often drank the good Austrian coffee of an
afternoon during his annual August trip to the town of healing waters.
The Rubezahl was, in an indirect manner, the parent of the
Restaurant Maxim in Wardour Street, for when the organisers of the
Austro-Hungarian Exhibition at Earl's Court cast about for attractions
which would be in keeping with the spirit of the exhibition it occurred
very naturally to them that an Austrian restaurant where the admirable
plain Austrian dishes could be eaten and where the Hungarian wines and
the cool beer of Pilsen could be drunk would be a pleasant novelty;
and such a restaurant was established opposite to the Welcome Club, and
was eminently successful. And to manage this restaurant the son-in-law
of the proprietor of the Rubezahl came from the Austrian Highlands,
and when King Edward lunched at the restaurant and was given a typical
Austrian meal of "cure food" he recognised M. Maximilian Lurion, the
manager, and chatted with him concerning Marienbad and the Rubezahl.
When Earl's Court had closed its doors for the winter M. Maxim Lurion
was not unwilling to stay in London, and he, in conjunction with a
British syndicate, thought that a site at the corners of Wardour and
Gerrard Streets, which was then in the market, would be a suitable
position for a restaurant. A small public-house carrying a licence
was included in the purchase, and when everything else on the site
was pulled down the business part of the old house of refreshment
stood, looking like a saloon of the Wild West, amidst the ruins. When
a name had to be found for the new restaurant, the shortened form of
M. Lurion's Christian name was chosen, and the building became the
Restaurant Maxim. No doubt Maxim's, in Paris, came by its name in a
like manner, for Maximilian is a very usual name in central and eastern
Europe.
Maxim's has always kept a clean face in a street not remarkable
for smartness, and its white exterior, the touches of gilding on
the wreaths that embellish its outer walls, its rows of mauresque
white-curtained narrow windows on the first floor, its turret domed
with silver, the flowers in its green and gold balconies, and the
commissionaire in a well-fitting coat who stands by the front door,
near the two large menus which set forth what is the dinner of the day,
make it a pleasant feature of the street.
When the Maxim was first opened M. Lurion took me over the
establishment from garret to basement, and showed me how the coffee is
made in Austria, though Austrian coffee never tastes so well in London
surroundings as it does under the little trees of the hill-side cafés
in Carlsbad or Marienbad, or in one of the open-air restaurants in the
Prater of Vienna. The Maxim, however, did not at first fulfil the hopes
of its promoters. Whether its name frightened people or whether it was
too ambitious in its aims I do not know, but it soon changed hands.
When one evening last summer I went to the Maxim to dine before going
to one of the theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, I found M. Ducker, the
present manager, in the entrance hall near the cloak-room where hats
and coats are left, and he told me all about the varying fortunes of
the restaurant, who are its present proprietors, and of the struggle
that was necessary to bring it to its present state of prosperity,
for prosperous it now is, there being not a vacant table either on
the ground floor or the first floor when I came in. While I talked
to M. Ducker a couple, who had finished their dinner, rose from a
table by the brass ornamental rail surrounding the oval opening which
makes the restaurant on the first floor a balcony to the room below,
a waiter slipped a clean cloth on to the table, and in a few seconds
it was ready for my occupation. M. Ducker hoped I would have a good
dinner, and left me to the care of the _maître d'hôtel_, and as the
waiter covered the table with little dishes containing _hors d'œuvres_
I looked at the menu, at my surroundings, and at the company. This
was the menu of the half-crown dinner of the house, the arms of the
establishment, three stags' heads on a shield, with a boar's head as a
crest, and two stags as supporters, being at the top of the menu card:
Hors d'œuvre à la Russe.
Consommé Chiffonnette.
Crème Gentilhomme.
Suprême de Barbue Niçoise.
Carré de Pré-Salé Bourguignonne.
Pommes fondantes.
Poulet en Casserole.
Salade.
Glacé Chantilly.
Dessert.
In the upper restaurant of the Maxim, where I sat, the walls are
papered deep red, with white woodwork and white classic ornamentation.
There are mirrors on the walls, and on a large panel the arms of
the house are displayed in proper heraldic colours. The cut glass
electroliers, some hanging, some fixed to the ceiling, give light both
to the upper and lower restaurants. The lower restaurant is panelled
and is all white, red-shaded lamps on the tables and some palms making
a contrast of colour. Down in the basement is a grill-room. The chairs
are of white wood upholstered in green leather, and the carpets are a
deep rose in colour. The little string band of the establishment plays
in the upper restaurant, its leader, who is a talented violinist,
standing close by the brazen railing so that his music shall be as well
heard below as it is above.
Every table, as I have written, was occupied this evening in both the
stages of the restaurant. There are two circular lines of tables above,
one close to the railings, one against the walls, and the people who
sat at them belonged to all the various grades of respectable London.
At the table by the wall level with mine were a young man and a pretty
girl. He was smoking a cigarette, she was drinking a cup of coffee,
and they were evidently obtaining their evening's entertainment in
listening to the music. At the table beyond them were a little lady
whom I include amongst my pleasant acquaintances, her husband and a
friend. Four men, in dinner jackets and black ties, were at the table
beyond them, and then other couples, young and old, and other little
parties of three and four. Here and there were people, like myself,
dressed to go to a theatre; but the Maxim is in the land of Bohemia,
where there are no customs as to wearing clothes of ceremony. What
chiefly struck me as to the diners at the Maxim was that they were all
enjoying to the uttermost their half-crown's worth of dinner and music.
There were smiling faces at all the tables, and the applause at the
conclusion of each item of the band programme was very enthusiastic.
The eating of satisfactory food and the drinking of sound wine are
not the only dining pleasures that make glad the heart of an epicure,
and to be amongst people who are enjoying themselves thoroughly is a
delight that cannot be written down on a menu or contained between the
covers of a wine list.
To come to the important matter of the dinner I ate at the Maxim, the
_crème gentilhomme_, a thick green soup, flavoured, I fancy, with
spinach, was excellent, and there was no fault to find with the fish
and its pink accompaniment of tomatoes and shrimps. When I came to the
next course a strange thing happened. I had noticed, and appreciated as
a special personal compliment, the presence of a jar of caviare amongst
the _hors d'œuvres_; but when, instead of _pré-salé_ mutton, a tender
_tournedos_ of beef was put before me, a great fear came upon me that
I was eating somebody else's specially ordered dinner, perhaps that
of the manager himself. On consideration, when a plump roast chicken
was brought me instead of a portion of the bird _en casserole_, I
came to the conclusion that the manager had conspired with the cook
to give me more than my half-crown's worth of food, and when a noble
bowl of _fraises Melba_ was placed before me instead of the small
_glacé Chantilly_ I felt sure that I had been put on the "most-favoured
nation" basis. But this overkindness was not needed, for, watching my
neighbours, I saw that the mutton they ate looked toothsome; I would
just as soon have been served my wing of a chicken from a white-metal
_casserole_ as from a plate, and I am quite sure that the temptation
to eat too many strawberries and ice brought me near the deadly sin of
greediness.
To anyone making a dining tour of the restaurants of London, I commend
the Maxim Restaurant as a bright and cheerful place, in a neighbourhood
where brightness is not the rule, where good-tempered, pleasant diners
appreciate the food and the music they get for their half-crowns.
XLVII
BIRCH'S
No. 15 Cornhill, which dates back to about 1700, is a little slip of
a building, old-fashioned in appearance and tall in comparison to its
breadth, its ground area being just fifteen feet by thirty. This is
Birch's, the famous little pastry-cook's shop, which for years almost
unnumbered has supplied the Lord Mayor's Mansion House banquets and the
great feasts at the Guildhall.
Its ground floor has an old-fashioned carved front with three windows
with little panes, one of ground glass in the centre of each window
setting forth that soups, ices and wine are to be obtained within.
The woodwork of the front is curiously carved, the carving having
reappeared in recent years, when coat after coat of paint was taken
off, a section of the various layers being of as many colours as
a Neapolitan ice. The double door of the little shop, unusual in
shape, also has glass panels. There used to be on the woodwork of
the door an old brass plate on which, in letters almost worn out by
constant rubbing, the name of the proprietor was given as Birch, late
Hornton. But some young bloods one night screwed this off and it has
disappeared. Through the glass windows can be seen many wedding cakes,
biscuits in tall glass cylinders and a royal crown which was probably
part of the table decorations at some great feast.
The little shop has an atmosphere of its own. Directly one goes into
it one smells the good scent of turtle soup and Old Madeira, with an
added aroma of puff pastry. The shop is divided into two parts by an
open screen, and a counter runs its full length. There are old black
bottles in glass cupboards, and decanters on shelves, and an old clock.
The floor is saw-dusted, and men in white aprons bustle about attending
to the wants of the customers. Tray after tray of pastry of all kinds
is put on the counter and cleared within a few minutes of their
appearance. Dignified City men, plate in hand, jostle each other to get
a first chance at the macaroons, to obtain a still smoking bun, or a
three-cornered puff fresh from the oven. Plates of sandwiches are put
before customers to disappear with great rapidity. Whiskies and sodas,
glasses of Old Madeira or Port or East Indian Sherry seem to be the
favourite drinks. When a customer has eaten all he wants and drunk all
he wants, he tells an amiable lady in black what he has taken, and she,
being a lightning calculator, tells him in reply what he has to pay.
The soup-room on the first floor, to which a flight of narrow little
steps ascends, has a calmer atmosphere. Here, in a room with walls
the paper of which has been turned to a deep amber tint by the London
atmosphere, gentlemen sup, sitting down, their plates of turtle soup or
oxtail, and drink their wine with dignified composure. There are tall
white wedding cakes under glasses in this room also. The servitors in
white aprons are busy in the soup-room, though not quite as busy as
downstairs amongst the jam puffs.
Up yet another Jacob's ladder of stairs is the ladies' room, which
I fancy is used as a chapel of ease for the soup-room, though it is
said that rich old widow ladies going quarterly to draw their income
from the Bank of England always go into Birch's for a plate of turtle
soup and a glass of sherry. Yet one flight of stairs higher is the
office of the firm of Messrs Ring and Brymer, who have owned Birch's
since 1836. In this room, in old leather-covered books, are wonderful
records of hecatombs of baked meats and roasted fowl served at City
banquets without end. The two oldest members of the firm have died of
late years. These two old gentlemen, Mr Ring and Mr Brymer, who looked
like archdeacons in mufti, and had exactly the right dignity for men
who provide and control the Lord Mayor's feasts, had both a wonderful
memory for banquets that the firm had provided. I happened to mention
one day in their presence that a forbear of mine, a banker and brewer,
Alderman Newnham, had been Lord Mayor of London, and at once they said
that in their books were the details of a feast given by the worthy
old gentleman when he was sheriff, and taking down an old volume they
showed me how many gallons of turtle soup, the number of sirloins of
beef, and the quantity of fair white chickens, orange jellies and plum
puddings that the old alderman paid for. It is a very cosy little room
in which to lunch, this office of the firm, and the turtle soup, with
its great squares of turtle flesh in it, a sole Colbert, a grouse pie,
angels on horseback, and a big helping of that wonderful orange jelly,
a clouded delicacy that has the flavour of the orange stronger than any
other jelly made by any other pastry-cook, and which is a speciality
of the house, taste all the better for being eaten in the little room
on the walls of which are old Guildhall menus and old pictures of City
feasts and portraits of city celebrities, and many letters from the
great panjandrums of City companies, giving praise to Messrs Ring and
Brymer for the excellence of the banquets supplied by them.