Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis

“ But Miss Morgan was trifling with her pencil, and, looking over her page, I found that she had noted the dumb-waiter in the centre of the restaurant piled high with fruit and bundles of asparagus, with the duck press of shining silver, the dame de comptoir in black at her little desk with a little clock above it, and the great clock of enamel and ormolu, the principal ornament of the room. The noisettes I thought a little too dry; but I could get no opinion from Miss Morgan except that she thought the little potato-filled open cases on which they were served were pretty. ”

“ It is a most effective room, as I pointed out to Miss Brighteyes, with its oil-paintings of figure-subjects framed in dark wood over the mantelpieces, its line of muslin-draped windows down one side, and on the other mirrors and the comptoir of dark wood, where between two palms one catches a glimpse, under the glow of a red-shaded lamp, of the pretty face of the lady enthroned there. A screen of old gold comes pleasantly into the scheme of colour. "Isn't it delightfully improper to be dining alone with a gentleman in a restaurant! ”

“ The two pillars in the centre of the room are white, the great dumb-waiter is white, the walls are white. There are delicately-painted panels, with gentlemen and ladies in powder and silk and brocade limned upon them; the ceiling is the work of an artist, and there is here and there a touch of gold in the framing of a screen or the capital of a pillar. ”

“ The pretty lady, looking round the dainty bonbonnière of a restaurant—with its walls of the lightest cream colour, its pilasters and cornices picked out with gold, its panels of deep blue-green stamped velvet, its musicians' gallery filled with palms, under which in a glass-enclosed room a young lady in black serves out the wines and liqueurs, its blaze of electric lights on the walls and its shaded lights on the tables—approved thoroughly of my choice. ”

“ I could not well dine at a club without evening clothes, and a smart restaurant was equally out of the question, for I felt, being in the state of humiliation which weariness and London grime bring one to, that I could not have held my own as to the choice of a table or the ordering of a dinner against even the least determined maître d'hôtel. ”

“ M. Diette himself showed us to our table in the dining-room, which is as near a reproduction of an old baronial hall as modern comfort, electric light, and civilisation will allow. The baron of old, in the days when each man cut his own portion off the roast meat with his dagger, might have been able to boast of the open fireplace in green Connemara marble and the panelled walls, but the handsome frieze and the carved oak pillars would have been beyond his artistic dreams. ”

“ It opened with a great flourish of trumpets, I remember, as the Cercle de Luxe, just at the time that Society seemed inclined to take to dining clubs, and the Amphitryon was always full, and the Maison Dorée glittered scarcely a stone's-throw away. I was much impressed then with the gorgeousness of the staircase, with the walls of reddish marble, topped by white, veined with black, and above that a broad painted frieze, red in tone, studded with portraits of Elizabethan worthies, which marbles and frieze and portraits remain to this day. ”

“ To eat a table-d'hôte dinner is like landing a fish which has been hooked and played by someone else.
Mr. Echenard, late of the Savoy, in chatting over the vagaries of diners, shook his head over the want of knowledge of the wines that should be drunk with the various kinds of food. No man knows better what goes to make a perfect dinner than Mr. Echenard does, and as to the sinfulness of Britons in this particular, I quite agreed with him. In Paris no man dreams of drinking champagne, and nothing but champagne, for dinner ”

“ The waiters in black, with a silver number in their button-holes, hover round the tables; somewhere below a string band, which does not impede conversation, plays. My old tutor rubbed his hands gently and smiled genially round at the gorgeousness, while I told the light-bearded manager that what I required was the ordinary table-d'hôte dinner, and picked out a Château Margaux from the long lists of clarets.
This was the menu of the table-d'hôte dinner:
Hors-d'œuvre variés. ”

“ The great dining-room may be thought by some to be a whit gloomy; but the saloon, in which the dinners are served, to use a French term, à la carte, is a bright and withal handsome apartment, panelled to the ceiling with oak, and with tapestry spread on the walls. I fear that you do not approve of the game of billiards; but there is a very delightful room for the pursuit of that game in this hotel, and an ante-room of much comfort, from whence ladies watch the strokes and cannons. The private rooms are most excellently appointed. ”

“ But if Miss Judith is an amateur of music, the dining-room will please her most, for here, in a great and really splendid apartment, which has pillars of white and gold with fine foundations of brass, a band of stringed instruments plays most excellent music during the dinner, and many people of distinction come here—as indeed also to the other two hotels—from great distances in London to partake of the dinner of the table d'hôte. ”

“ A tired man in our heavy atmosphere feels often that champagne is the one wine that will give him life again; and as the ladies as a rule would think a dinner at a restaurant incomplete without champagne, ninety-nine out of a hundred Englishmen, in ordering a little dinner for two, turn instinctively to the champagne page of the wine-card. It is wrong, but until we get a new atmosphere and give up taking ladies out to dinner, champagne will be practically the only wine drunk at restaurants. ”

“ There was scarcely a vacant table, but nowhere could I see an actress to point out to my sister-in-law. There was a celebrated doctor, clean-shaven and with white hair, dining tête-à-tête with his wife; there was a well-known barrister, invincible in licensing cases, who was giving a dinner to his wife and daughter; there was a big dinner-party of men all hailing from the Stock Exchange; there was a smart little lady talking hunting to three entranced youths; but nowhere could I see a face that I recognised as belonging to an actress. ”

“ To-day, if one did not know that the house holds still to its reputation of being one of the very best places where old-fashioned British food is to be obtained, it might, with its tiled floors, its stained-glass windows and doors, its wall-papers of quiet artistic shades, its electric light, be one of those small restaurants where the Parisian art of cooking is cultivated. ”

“ I have eaten some good dinners at the Freemasons' Tavern, and others not so good. To-night the cook is not up to his best form, and has not responded to the inspiration of the menu. The turtle soup is not like that of the excellent Messrs. Ring and Brymer, or that of Mr. Painter; the faisan Souvaroff is dry, and the cook's nerve has failed him when the truffles had to be added; but, on the other hand, the sole Meunière and the vol-au-vent are admirable, and the marrow-bones are large and scalding-hot. ”

“ Washington said, peas, beans, truffles, potatoes, beetroot, flavoured by a slice of saucisson and dressed with whipped white of eggs, was one of the triumphs of the dinner, and so was the salade de fruits. For Mrs. Washington to praise a fruit salad is a high honour, for she is one of the favoured people for whom François, late of the Grand Hotel, Monte Carlo and now of the Hotel Cecil, deigns to mix one with his own hands. The gourmets of Europe say that as a salad maker no man can approach François. ”

“ A little group of men who bore the stamp of racing men about them had congregated round the bar window while we had been at table, and were being attended to by a rosy-faced maiden. Cheese and celery we paid but little attention to, for Smith, now quite the cheery, confident cavalryman of old, said that he must not miss his appointment in the City, but that when the splendid fortune that was in his grasp came to him he would give the battle-painter and myself, in return for our mid-day meal, a dinner at the Savoy that would outdo the celebrated rouge-et-noir one. ”

“ No pains are spared nowadays to put on the table of a first-class restaurant the very best food that the world can produce. Not only France, but countries much farther afield are systematically pillaged that Londoners may dine, and I do not despair of some day eating mangostines for dessert. All this costs money; but the gourmets, like the dilettanti in any other art, do not get a chef-d'œuvre for the price of a "pot-boiler."
I, personally, always prefer a dinner à la carte to a table-d'hôte one. ”

“ George laid down his newspaper. "Since you took her to dine in that private room at Kettner's nothing has been good enough for her. She would like a maître d'hôtel and a head waiter dancing round her at every meal, and she can't go out of the front door without looking round to see if there is a manager there to bow her out."
"You are perfectly horrid, George," said little Mrs. Tota with some asperity. "You won't take me out yourself, and when other people are kind enough to offer to do so you are as cross and sarcastic as you can be." ”

“ Before we left the old-fashioned house, about which the steam of saddles of mutton seems to cling, we looked in on the Knights of the Round Table, who have their club-room at Simpson's, who possess a wonderful collection of portraits of past worthies of the club, and a unique book of playbills, whose motto is, "I will go eat with thee and see your Knights," and who once a week dine together off plain English food at the round table, one piece of mahogany, from which they draw their name. ”

“ And the company in the restaurant, the great room with mahogany panels, golden frieze and gold and red ceiling, of the Savoy on a Sunday night is as fine a society salad as any capital in the world can show. ”

“ In the evening, before Miss Brighteyes, who was to be escorted as far as the ante-room to the East Room by Sir George, arrived, I had a few minutes in which to go and see that all was ready at my table, and to look round to see whether there was anybody whom I knew dining. It was, I should think, the first occasion on which I have dined in the East Room and have not recognised a single face; but all the ladies appeared very smart, all the men were well groomed, the usual type of diners at a good restaurant. ”

“ George's and found myself in a long room with plenty of palms and a general look of being cared for, with a counter and many long white-clothed tables, with seats for about half a dozen at each. There were little black-dressed waitresses flitting about, and at the tables a fair sprinkling of men, neither obtrusively smart nor obtrusively shabby, who were dining, and who nearly all kept their hats on. I drifted down to the end of the room and sat at a table and told the waitress in rather a feeble way that I should like the best vegetarian dinner that the house could give me. ”

“ The pillars are chiefly of gold, and the ceiling, the pattern of which is formed by palm leaves, is white and gold. There are soft dark green portières and curtains, and the chairs are upholstered in dark green velvet. Orange shades to the electric globes which hang from the ceiling diffuse a soft warm light over everything. And no prettier subject for a handsome background to show up could be found than the Princesse when she had shed her furs. Two little light curls came down upon her forehead, the pearls and diamonds were her throat ornaments, and her dress was all white and silver. ”

“ It is an impressive room. There is a very broad frieze, on which rosy cupids gambol against a gold background, above the panels and carving in deep-toned oak. Across a large stained-glass window some warm-coloured brown curtains were almost drawn-to; a tall chiffonnier, bright with glass and napery, cut off the serving-room; clusters of electric lights sparkled in the skylight which forms the roof. ”

“ We had a table in the corner of the great restaurant, with its dozen marble pillars, its walnut panelling, its tapestries, the gilt Cecil arms on a great square of red velvet, its great crystal lamps that hold the electric light, its fireplaces of Sicilian marble, its gilt ceiling, its musicians' gallery in one corner. ”

“ The Editor, stroking his pointed beard with satisfaction, was reading through the menu, the gracious lady and the handsome niece were noting, one by one, the celebrities dining at the other tables, and the head waiter was standing watching the Editor with the calm but deferential confidence an artist shows when an important patron is inspecting his work. A minor servitor, a thin tape of gold on the collar of his livery coat and wearing white gloves, was also in attendance, and the overture in the way of hors-d'œuvre à la Russe was before us. ”

“ A Moorish gentleman, who I expect does nothing more ferocious than make coffee, made a fine splash of colour in his crimson and gold.
The Epicure having announced that he was not hungry, and that he could not drink champagne, I felt that the menu which had been devised by the management, and had met with my entire approval, might be too long for him, and I thought regretfully of the bottle of Moët and Chandon which I had ordered to be put in the ice-pail just long enough to get a chill into the wine. This was our dinner:—
Hors-d'œuvre. ”