Yelp

“ That is why the choice of the right restaurant is so important. If we are in the mood for conversation there is our club or the Café Royal; if we are alone and it would amuse us to watch other people dance, or should we wish to add as a flavouring to the music and the dancing the note ever so slightly struck of fugitive romances, there is the balcony of the Elysée Café. ”

“ The deep rose of the carpet contrasts with the white of the walls. At a multitude of tables are hundreds of people of every comfortable class in life, from the bank clerk to the field-marshal, and from the typist to the duchess, eating meals simple or elaborate, just as they will. This grill-room, like [Pg 102] most of the others, caters for every taste; for there is an elaborate carte du jour, two table d'hôte luncheons at half-a-crown and three-and-six, and a table d'hôte dinner at five-and-six. Electric fans keep the atmosphere pure. ”

“ The first sight that greets one's eyes on entering the hall is a view of the kitchen, generally with a cook in white clothing busy about his work as the centre of the picture, and those who lunch and dine are, as of yore, asked to walk through the white-tiled, beautifully clean domain of the chef. A grill-room now forms part of the establishment, and the character of the meals is changed in that table d'hôte dinners at various prices are the trump cards of the establishment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 noble dining-hall, with its delicately tinted walls, its pillars and gilded roof, with neatly dressed waiters, and the master of ceremonies patrolling the room seeing to the comfort of the guests, the arrangements of their places, and that each servant did his duty, gave a zest to one’s appetite which the tempting viands increased a hundred fold, and the soups, fish, relèves, entrées, game, relishes, vegetables, pastry, and dessert of the menu differed from the bill of fare of the previous day as does light from darkness, sweet from bitter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is more than one house in New York where I have grave doubts if the host and hostess are quite sure of my name when I dine there; after an abstracted welcome, they rarely put themselves out to entertain their guests. Black coats and evening dresses alternate in pleasing perspective down the long line of their table. Their gold plate is out, and the chef has been allowed to work his own sweet will, so they give themselves no further trouble. ”

“ There was no such thing as a restaurant; each one by turn must do his own cooking in the inn kitchen, open to all. We, of course, were expected to carry our own provisions and do our own culinary work like any other respectable travelers. This we had frequently done before where restaurants were not to be found. Many a time we would enter an inn with our arms filled with provisions, purchased at the neighboring bazaars, take possession of the oven and cooking utensils, and proceed to get up an American meal, while all the time a hundred eyes or more would be staring at us in blank amazement. ”

“ With hundreds of restaurants to select from, each specializing on some particular dish, or some peculiar mode of preparation, one often becomes bewildered and turns to familiar names on the menu card rather than venture into fields that are new, of strange and rare dishes whose unpronounceable names of themselves frequently are sufficient to discourage those unaccustomed to the art and science of cooking practiced by those whose lives have been spent devising means of tickling fastidious palates of a city of gourmets. ”

“ Not one woman in a hundred can order a dinner at a restaurant. I’ve tried them, and I know. Not only can she not order a dinner with taste, discretion, and due appreciation of season, surroundings, and occasion; but she inevitably shows her character, or want of it, if she be allowed to choose the menu. The eternal feminine peeps out in the soup, [Pg 21] lurks designedly in the entrées, and comes into the full glare of the electric light in the sweets and liqueurs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These waiters are certainly ubiquitous; at the table there is one at each elbow, at night a stranger is escorted to bed by a grand procession, and one pulls off his boots while another unbuttons his shirt-collar, and a third lights the gas and turns down the bed-clothes; a waiter meets you at the door, another takes away your overcoat and gives it to a waiter who presents you with a brass check for it—there are waiters in the bar, in the washroom, in the barber-shop, in the cellar, in the reading-room; waiters running races through the halls all night ”

“ As a final word of praise for the Café Royal, let me record that just as many of its waiters grow grey-headed in its service, so the steps of any man who is a lover of good cheer and who has been an habitué of the restaurant seem unconsciously to lead him to its doors. ”

“ I have always thought dinner the most civilized form of entertainment. It may have been an entertainment Philadelphia preferred to reserve for my elders, and, if I am not mistaken, the most formal dinners, or dinners with any pretence to being public, were then usually men's affairs, just as the Saturday Club, and the Wistar parties had been, and the Clover Club, and the Fish-House Club were: from them women being as religiously excluded as from the dinners of the City Companies in London, or from certain monasteries in Italy and the East. ”

“ Amid flowers and softly shaded lights sits the gracious woman who pours the liquid gold into the fragile cups, dispensing meanwhile, smiles and the bright charming small talk that is so necessary to the success of these occasions. A wise hostess selects for this important position the most brilliant, tactful woman within her circle of friends. The menu, although by no means regulated on the English house-party plan, should consist of trifles—sandwiches, wafers, fancy cakes, ices, and possibly a salad. ”

“ Every name is written upon a card, and placed beside his plate. A careful clerk has assorted the whole company with the nicest care. Each table has its own party of persons suitable to each other. The courses come on in due order, with all the luxuries of fish, flesh, and fowl, and an admirable dessert. Tea and supper are served at seven o’clock, and after the tables are cleared the waiters, who are all musicians, play an hour of quadrilles, waltzes, &c., and the passengers dance if they are so inclined. Then music and conversation grow lively aft, and cards still livelier forward. ”

“ If you or I, in the absence of the maître d'hôtel and the head waiter, fall into the hands of an [Pg xix] underling, Heaven help us. He will lure you or me on to order the most expensive dinner that his limited imagination can conceive, and thinks he is doing his duty to the patron. Luckily, such ill-luck as this rarely occurs. The manager is the man to look for, if possible, when composing a menu. ”

“ There is nothing more conducive to thorough enjoyment of an evening, to the thorough enjoyment of a menu, than when table and appointments are perfect and artistically simple. The hostess should give as much time and thought to the preparation and arrangement of the table, as she does to the planning of the menu. She will find that her guests will appreciate novel lighting effects, surprising color tones, unusual serving innovations. And she will find that a correctly laid table will add surprisingly to the entire success of her dinner party. ”

“ When a man sits down at his table there at dinner-time, M. Kugi, the maître d'hôtel, puts before him the carte du jour, an ample one, with any special delicacies in larger print than the others, and also lays on the table the menus of the half-sovereign and seven-and-six table d'hôte dinners, and it is his experience that the greater number of diners look at the carte du jour and then, mistrusting their own judgment, order one or the other of the table d'hôte meals. ”

“ Our bachelor may take the party to a restaurant for supper, to his club if this possesses a dining-room for ladies, or to his own apartment or studio, should this be large enough and conveniently located. In either of the first two cases the table should be engaged and the menu made out beforehand. If supper is to be given in his own rooms, he should have one or more competent persons to set the table, do any cooking that may be necessary, and have all in readiness on the arrival of the party. ”

“ The cost of the dinner, including wine, came to about two guineas a head.
And now as a contrast I give you the menu of the banquet given in the Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day, 1837. This was a Royal entertainment. The menu [Pg 305] is a yard in length, and it comprises the dishes at the Royal table and the general bill of fare as well. I only give you the dishes served at the Royal table, which form an extraordinary mass of flesh, of fish, fruit, fowl, in season and out of season. The buffet, no doubt, held the dishes for which there was not room on the table. ”

“ In one matter Epitaux's is deficient—there is no entrance lounge or waiting-room. A very smart little buffet, with ornamental glass windows, faces the street, and alongside this a narrow entrance passage, gorgeous in white and gold, leads to a short flight of steps and the glass doors which shield the restaurant. I had asked Miss Belle to dine at eight, and I waited at the street entrance, hoping that instinct would point her out to me when she arrived. ”

“ You perceive that this wondrous restaurant ramifies under all London, and that a table on one verge is beneath St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a table on the other verge beneath the Albert Memorial. All the tables—all the thousands of tables—are occupied. An official comes to you, and, putting his mouth to your ear (for the din is terrific) , tells you that he will have a table for you in three minutes. You wait, forlorn. It reminds you of waiting at the barber’s for a shave, except that the barber gives you an easy-chair and a newspaper. ”

“ The bar is one of the most—if not the most—important departments in the hotel; comparatively nothing is drunk at dinner, but the moment the meal is over, the bar becomes assailed by applicants; moreover, from morning to midnight, there is a continuous succession of customers; not merely the lodgers and their friends, but any parties passing along the street, who feel disposed, walk into the bar of any hotel, and get "a drink." The money taken at a popular bar in the course of a day is, I believe, perfectly fabulous. ”

“ Sheltered behind a convenient standing cab, the young man followed her movements closely with his eyes. Passing down the sidewalk of the street opposite the park, she entered the restaurant with the blazing sign. The place was one of those frankly glaring establishments, all white paint and glass, where one may dine cheaply and conspicuously. The girl penetrated the restaurant to some retreat at its rear, whence she quickly emerged without her hat and veil. ”