Algernon Bastard

“ Bag in hand, ham in pocket, the man undergoing a cure walks to the Elephant in the Alte Wiese, or to one of the little restaurants which stud the valley and the hillsides, delightful little buildings with great glass shelters for rainy days and lawns and flower-beds and creepers, where neat waitresses in black, with their Christian names in white metal worn as a brooch, or great numbers pinned to their shoulders, receive you with laughing welcome, set a red-clothed table for you, and bring you the hot milk and boiled eggs which complete your repast. ”

“ Dining at the Hôtel de Paris one pays in comfort for its popularity, for on a crowded night the tables in the big dining-room are put so close together that there is hardly room for the waiters to move between them, and the noise of the conversation rises to a roar through which the violins of the band outside the door can barely be heard. ”

“ I am bound to confess that the great salon with its painted panels, its buffet and its skylight screened by an awning, is not a lively room; but the attendance is quiet, soft-footed, and unhurried, and the cooking is distinctly good. It has of course its spécialités du maison, and classical dishes have been invented within its walls; but the man who wants to take his wife out to dine, and who is prepared to pay a couple of sovereigns for the meal, will find that he need not exceed that amount. Here is the menu of a little dinner for two which I ordered last winter at the restaurant. ”

“ The Kornhauskeller, in the basement of the Kornhaus, is a curious place and worth a visit for a meal. At the Schauzli, on a rise opposite the town, from the terrace of which there is a splendid view and where there is a summer theatre, there is a café-restaurant, and another on the Garten, a hill whence another fine view is obtainable.
Geneva, for its size and importance, is the worst catered for capital in Europe. Outside the hotel restaurants, none of which have attained any special celebrity, there are but few restaurants, and those not of any conspicuous merit. ”

“ One of the amusements of the place is that the breakfasters fish out with a net the little fishes which are to form a friture, or point out the bigger victim which they will presently eat for their meal. The cooking is simple and good, and with fish that thirty minutes before were swimming in the green water, an omelette, a simple dish of meat, and a pint of Cerons, or other white wine, a man may breakfast in the highest content looking at some of the sunniest scenes in the world. ”

“ Spain is a country which is no happy hunting ground for a gourmet. The restaurants in Barcelona one can rely on, Madrid comes next in honour, and the rest, to use a sporting term, are "nowhere," the customary table-d'hôte dinner at the restaurants of a small town consisting of Caldo, then the universal stew, then Arroz à la Valencia, rice, chicken, and tomatoes, and finally quince marmalade. ”

“ The Soupe Monégasque had a reminiscence in it of Bouillabaisse, but it was not too insistent; the supions were octopi, but delicate little gelatinous fellows, not leathery, as the Italian ones sometimes are; the dorade was a splendid fish, and though I fancy the langouste had come from northern waters and not from the bay, it was beautifully fresh and a monster of its kind.
The Riviera Palace has a restaurant to which many people come to breakfast, high above Monte Carlo and its heat, and the cook is a very good one. ”

“ It always seems to me that Bruges is the quietest city in the world. At least when one sits out in the garden of the Hôtel de Flandre, after sampling some of the excellent old Burgundy which reposes in its cellars, and listens to the chimes from the brown belfry, a feeling of perfect peace steals over one. ”

“ There is really a great artist there—a man whose sole hobby is his kitchen, and who, if he chooses, can send you up a dinner second to none. His name is Guichard. Go and have a talk with him. Hear what he has to say on the fond-de-cuisine theory. Let him arrange your menu and await the result with confidence. That confidence will not be misplaced.
For purely local dishes of the cuisine-bourgeoise type, you might try a meal at the Hôtel de la Poste. But for general comfort the English Club stands easily first. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Farther and farther south, as the climate becomes hotter, the meat becomes less and less the food of the people, various dishes of paste and fish taking its place, and as a compensation the fruit and the wine become more delicious. The fowls and figs of Tuscany, the white truffles of [Pg 158] Piedmont, the artichokes of Rome, the walnuts and grapes of Sorrento, might well stir a gourmet to poetic flights. The Italians are very fond of their Risotto, the rice which they eat with various seasonings,—with sauce, with butter, and with more elaborate preparations. ”

“ Set a man down in the restaurant of the Grand, or the Winter Garden of the Quirinale, and there will be nothing to give him a hint as to whether he is in London, or Paris, or Rome. He will eat an excellent dinner—French in all respects—and will be waited on by civil waiters, whom he knows to be foreigners, but who will answer him in English whatever language he addresses them in. At either restaurant an excellent dinner of ceremony can be given. The last time that I stayed at the Grand, I ate the table-d'hôte dinner on several occasions and found it good. ”

“ A story is told that an Englishman, new to Monte Carlo and its ways, asked the liveried porter outside Ciro's whether it was a cheap restaurant. "Not exactly cheap," said the Machiavelian servitor, "but really very cheap for what you get here." On a fine day grand duchesses and the haute cocotterie beseech Ciro to reserve tables for them on the balcony looking out on the sea, and unless you are a person of great importance or notoriety, or of infinite push, you will find yourself relegated to a place inside the restaurant. At dinner there is not so much competition. ”

“ In the late spring there is an exodus from the Riviera to Aix-les-Bains; doctors, maîtres d'hôtel [Pg 75] musicians, lawyers, fly-men, waiters move into summer quarters; and any one who has time to spare, and enjoys a three-day drive through beautiful scenery, might well do worse than make a bargain with a fly-man for the trip from the coast to the town on the banks of the lake. When a fly-man does not secure a "monsieur" as a passenger, he as often as not drives a brace of friendly waiters over just for company sake. ”

“ The Belgian is a big eater and a bird-eater. As a rule, in Belgium the restaurant that can put forth the longest menu will attract the most customers. There are people in Brussels who regularly travel out to Tirlemont, a little Flemish town nearly twenty miles away, to partake of a famous table-d'hôte dinner to which the guests sit down at one o'clock, and from which they seldom rise before five. ”

“ The buffet at Calais always has had the reputation of being one of the best in Europe, and though the Englishman new landed after a rough passage generally selects clear soup and stewed chicken as his meal, it is quite possible to obtain an admirably cooked lunch or dinner in the room off the restaurant; and the cold viands, the cream cheese, the vegetables and fruit are all worthy of attention. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The capital of Spain cries aloud for a Carlton, or a Ritz, or a Savoy, and is, I believe, soon to have a really large hotel with a restaurant managed on the lines which we are accustomed to in all the important European capitals. The Hôtel de Paris, one of the two noisy and expensive hotels on the Puerta del Sol, has always had a reputation for its cookery, always remembering that the standard in Spain is not high. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no cookery in Europe so often maligned without cause as that of Italy. People who are not sure of their facts often dismiss it contemptuously as being "all garlic and oil," whereas very little oil is used except at Genoa, where oil, and very good oil as a rule, takes the place of butter, and no more garlic than is necessary to give a slight flavour to the dishes in which it plays a part. An Italian cook frys better than one of any other nationality. In the north very good meat is obtainable, the boiled beef of Turin being almost equal to our own Silverside. ”

“ At Seville you dine and breakfast at your hotel, whether it be the Madrid or the Paris, both very good hotels for Spain. There is a table-d'hôte dinner at each after the style of the meal of which I have given a menu under the heading of Madrid. At both hotels an extra charge is made to those aristocrats who will not [Pg 190] sit at the long table which runs down the centre of the highly ornamented dining-room and are accommodated at little tables at the sides of the room. The great patio of the Madrid, with its palm grove and creepers, is a delightful place to sit in after dinner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pfordte is a man of small stature but of most courteous and polished manners, and is no exception to the general rule that small men have usually great brains. His restaurant is facile princeps of all the houses of entertainment at Hamburg where riches abound, and where good cheer is scientifically appreciated. Entering the establishment from the street, you find yourself in a fair-sized hall, where a deferential servant in livery is prompt to relieve men of their overcoats and ladies of their wraps. ”

“ Probably twenty Englishmen go to Carlsbad for their liver's sake for every ten who go to Vienna to be amused, and the great Bohemian town in the valley where the hot spring gushes up is one of the resorts to which gourmets, who have eaten not wisely but too well, are most frequently sent. It is a town of good but very simple fare, for the doctors rule it absolutely, and nothing which can hurt a patient's digestion is allowed to appear on the bill of fare of any of the restaurants or hotels. ”

“ It is not the sort of place you would choose to take a lady in her summer frocks to, but you get a fine fish dinner there nevertheless. There is no restaurant in the world where moules à la marinière are served in such perfection, and you can rely on every bit of fish supplied there being fresh. ”

“ At the Roches Noires one is likely to be kept waiting for a table, and at the Casino a harassed waiter thrusts a red mullet before one, when one has ordered a sole. The moules of Trouville are supposed to be particularly good, and also the fish. There are table-d'hôte meals at the restaurants of the Helder and De la Plage, the second being the cheaper of the two, and food is to be obtained at the little Café Restaurant on the edge of the promenade des planches. But Trouville in the season may be taken to be exiled Paris in a fever, half as expensive again, and not half so "well done." ”