The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Part 2

Chateau Yquem 1869.

Grande Fine Champagne 1790 (Ritz Reserve).

There are a score of capital restaurants in Paris which may be called "bourgeois" without in any way detracting from their excellence. An excellent type of such a restaurant is Maire's, at the corner of the Bd.

St-Dennis, owned by the company which controls the Paillard's Restaurant of the Champs Elysees. It is a good place to dine at for any one going to the play at the Porte St-Martin, the Renaissance, the Theatre Antoine, or any of the music halls or theatres in the west of Paris.

Mushrooms always seem to me to play a great part in the cookery at Maire's, and the _Poulet Maire_ is a fowl cooked with mushrooms; but the restaurant has a long list of specialities of all kinds, and the mushroom only appears in some of them. Charbonnier is the especial dinner wine of the house, and it is said that the name was originally given to the wine owing to the discovery of a quant.i.ty of it stored under sticks of charcoal in the days when Maire's was only a wine-shop.

Next door to the Gymnase Theatre is Marguery's, which always seems to be full, and where the service is rather too hurried and too slap-dash to suit the contemplative gourmet; but Marguery's has its special claim to fame as the place where the _Sole Marguery_ was invented, and though I have eaten the dish in half a hundred restaurants, there is no place where it is so perfectly cooked as in the restaurant where it was first thought of, for nowhere else is the sauce quite as good or as strong.

Notta, 2 Bd. Poissoniere, and Noel Peters in the Pa.s.sage des Princes, both have claims to celebrity for their cooking, and the fish dishes at the latter, the _Filet de Sole Noel_ for instance, are a speciality. The Boeuf a la Mode, Rue de Valois, near the Palais Royale, is a place of good cookery.

There are two restaurants to which I generally go if I want good food but have not time to linger over it, having cut my time rather close when going to a theatre or to catch a train. One of these is Lucas's in the little square opposite the Madeleine, and the other is the Champeaux, Place de la Bourse. Lucas has rather an old-fashioned _clientele_ and his restaurant is not very bright, but the cooking is good, and if in a hurry one is served very quickly. The _Hareng Lucas_ is an exceptionally stimulating _hors-d'oeuvre_, and there is a selection of old brandies to choose from as liqueurs which I fancy cannot be surpa.s.sed at any restaurant in Paris. 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 _maitres-d'hotel_ 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. At the Champeaux, which has much history behind it, the _Chateaubriand_ was invented which gives eternal honour to the restaurant.

I am told that Sylvain's remains a good dining place, but I have not been within its doors since the days when it attained celebrity as a supper place in favour with the b.u.t.terfly ladies of Paris.

Across the River

On the south side of the Seine there are three restaurants worthy the consideration of the gourmet,--the Tour d'Argent, La Peyrouse, and Foyot's. The Tour d'Argent is on the Quai de la Tourelle, just beyond the island on which Notre Dame stands. It is a little old-fashioned place with a narrow entrance hall and a low-ceilinged parlour. Frederic is its proprietor, and since Joseph of the Marivaux died Frederic remains the one great "character" in the dining world of Paris. In appearance he is the double of Ibsen, the same sweeping whiskers, the same wave of hair brushed straight off from the forehead. He is an inventor of dishes, and it is well to ask for a list of his "creations,"

which are of fish, eggs, meat, and fruit, and are generally named after some patron of the establishment,--_Canape Clarence Mackay_, _Filet de Sole Gibbs_, _Filet de Lievre Arnold White_, _Oeufs Claude Lowther_, _Poire Wannamaker_, and so on. A marquis, M. de Lauzieres de Themines, has written a long poem about Frederic, which is printed on the back of the list of "creations," and an artist has painted a portrait of the great man which will be shown to you if you have proved yourself a real gourmet. Madame Frederic, or his daughter, will hold the canvas for your inspection, and Frederic himself, brushing back his whiskers, will stand beside it in order that you may see what an excellent likeness it is. It is as well to interest Frederic in the ordering of your meal, and if you give him an idea of your requirements, he will select two or three of his "creations" which will make up a perfect meal. I always ask for a _Filet de Sole Cardinal_, which is one of his best dishes, and look to him to group a couple of other _plats_ with it to make a perfect breakfast, for I look on the Tour d'Argent as being a better place to breakfast at than to dine at, owing to its distance from the centre of Paris. Frederic thinking out his dishes drops into a reverie and turns his eyes up to the ceiling. I once took a lady to breakfast at the Tour--she had selected it as being quite close to the Morgue, which she wanted to see after lunch, having a liking for cheerful sights--and she had the daring to interrupt Frederic's reverie. "And for the eggs?" I had said insinuatingly to the creator of dishes, and he had dropped into deepest thought. "_Uffs a la plat_," said the lady, who fancied we were both at a loss as to how eggs could be cooked. Frederic came back from the clouds and gave the lady one look. It was not a look of anger, or contempt, but simply an expression of pity for the whole of her s.e.x.

Frederic, as Joseph did, holds that a dinner to be good must be short, which is, I believe, the first axiom that every true gourmet should enunciate and hold by, and an excellent proof that he holds to his tenets was once given me. When the Behring Sea Conference sat in Paris, the American and English members used frequently to dine together after their labours. Lord Hannen had heard of the Tour d'Argent, and sent his secretary, a clever barrister, to order dinner there for all the members. He went to the Quai de la Tourelle, saw Frederic, and sketched out to him a regular Eaton Square dinner, two entrees, a joint, sorbet, game, an iced pudding, a savoury, and fruit. Frederic heard him out, and then very politely suggested that he should go elsewhere, for such a barbarous feast could not be served in the Tour d'Argent. If you are in great favour Frederic will cook you a dish himself, and will bustle into the room with the "creation" in his hands and great beads of perspiration, drawn out by the kitchen fire, on his broad brow. I am sorry, however, to have to write that the last time I saw Frederic, at the close of 1902, he was very ill. He complained of his chest, said that the weather oppressed him, and lamented the death of Joseph which had taken a friend and a brother artist away. His hair had lost its bold curve and his whiskers their glory. I told him in all sincerity that he must get over his malady, for that as there are so few "creators" and great _maitres-d'hotel_ left we cannot spare one of the most original and most accomplished of them.

La Peyrouse on the Quai des Grands Augustins, is a little house with many small rooms. It is known to the students of the "Quartier" as "Le Navigateur." It is a favourite resort of the members of the Paris bar, has its special dishes, one of which is, as a matter of course, _Filets de Sole La Peyrouse_, and a most excellent cellar of Burgundies and white Bordeaux. The Cerons at 3 francs is excellent money's worth.

The Restaurant Foyot is almost opposite the Luxembourg Gallery, and is a very handy restaurant to dine at when going to the Odeon. _Potage Foyot_, _Riz de Veau Foyot_, _Homard Foyot_, and _Biscuit Foyot_ are some of the dishes of the house, and all to be recommended. The anarchists once tried to blow up Foyot's with a bomb; but the only person injured was an anarchist poet, who has so far been false to his tenets as to dine in the company of aristocrats, and was tranquilly eating a _Truite Meuniere_, in company with a beautiful lady, when his friends outside let off their firework. The _hors-d'oeuvre_ at Foyot's are particularly good. It is, however, a restaurant at which it is exceptionally difficult to get one's bill when one is in a hurry.

Summer Restaurants

Of the restaurants in the Champs Elysees, Laurent's and Paillard's are the most aristocratic. At Laurent's I generally find in summer some of the younger members of the staffs of the Emba.s.sies breakfasting under the trees behind the hedge which shuts the restaurant off from the bustle of Paris outside. Of the special dishes of the house the _Canard Pompeienne_ remains to me an especially grateful memory. It is a cold duck stuffed with most of the rich edible things of this world, _foie gras_ predominating, and it is covered with designs in red and black on a white ground.

Paillard's _bonbonniere_, in the Champs Elysees, is in the hands of the company which also owns Maire's Restaurant, to which I have already alluded. M. Paillard and the company formed under his name settled a disagreement in the law courts, with the result that M. Paillard retained the restaurant at the corner of the Chaussee d'Antin as his property, and the company took possession of the Restaurant Maire and the Pavillion des Champs Elysees. This, however, is mere history, for the Pavillion serves its meals with all the quiet luxury of the parent house, and I have a memory of a _Potage Creme d'Antin_ which was especially excellent.

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" cla.s.ses 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.

The Bouillon Riche, just behind the Alcazar, with its girl waiters I have generally found even more haphazard than Ledoyen's. Its food is neither noticeably good nor is it indifferent.

The Amba.s.sadeurs prides itself on being quite a first-cla.s.s restaurant, and it is one of the special experiences of the foreigner in Paris to dine at one of the tables in the balcony looking towards the stage, and to listen to the concert while you drink your coffee and sip your _fine champagne_. I have kept the menu of one such dinner, very well cooked and well served in spite of the crowded balcony and general hubbub of the evening, on a Grand Prix night. What the amount of the bill was that the host of the party had to pay I did not inquire, but I feel sure that it was a very long one.

This is the menu:--

Melon.

Potage Amba.s.sadeurs.

Hors-d'oeuvre.

Truite Gelee Maconnaise.

Ris de Veau Financiere.

Demi-Vierge en Chaud-Froid.

Poulets de Grain Rotis.

Salade de Romaine.

Asperges Froides.

Coupes Jacques.

Dessert.

Pet.i.tes Fraises.

The cold trout was excellent, and the wine was De St-Marceaux '89.

The Alcazar has a restaurant somewhat similar to that of the Amba.s.sadeurs.

Chevillard's, at the Rond Point des Champs Elysees, is not an out-of-doors restaurant, but it is a favourite place to breakfast at on the way out to the races. The cooking is good. Sometimes the restaurant is crowded, and it is as well to secure a table in advance.

There are half-a-dozen cafes, farms where milk is sold, and other refreshment places in the Bois; but the two restaurants which the travelling gourmet is likely to dine at are the Pavillion d'Armenonville and the Chateau de Madrid. The first is very "smart," and the gla.s.s shelter which runs round the little house is filled on a summer night with men, all in dress-clothes, and ladies in flowered or feathered hats. The world and the half-world dine at adjacent tables, and neither section of Paris objects. The tables are decorated with flowers, and two bands, which play alternately, make music so softly that it does not interfere with conversation. The cooking is good, and the prices are rather high. There are tables under the trees surrounding the building, and some people dine at these; but "all Paris" seems to prefer to be squeezed into the least possible s.p.a.ce under the gla.s.s verandah.

At the Chateau de Madrid the tables are set under the trees in the courtyard of the building, and the effect of the dimly seen buildings, the dark foliage, and the lights is very striking. The Madrid has always been an expensive place to dine at, but its reputation for cookery is good. Last year I dined at the Chateau one hot summer's night and found there M. Aubanel, who had left his little hotel at Monte Carlo, during the great heats, to take temporary command at the Madrid, striving to serve a great crowd of diners with an insufficient staff of waiters. I trust that the proprietors have made better arrangements since to meet any sudden inrush of guests. The Madrid has a capital cellar of wine.

On a race-morning I have eaten a little breakfast, well enough served, at the restaurant of the Cafe de la Cascade.

Supping-Places

The fickle Parisian crowd changes its supping-places without any apparent cause. A few hundred francs spent in gilding a ceiling, a quarrel between two damsels in gigantic hats as to which of them ordered a particular table to be reserved, and the whole cloud of b.u.t.terflies rises to settle elsewhere. Julien's, Sylvain's, La Rue's, the Cafe de La Paix, Maire's, Paillard's all had their time when there was not a vacant seat in their rooms at 1 A.M. Durand's, in the summer of '92, was the society supping-place. At the Cafe de Paris, where M. Mourier, a former _maitre-d'hotel_ of Maire's reigns, the British matron and the travelling American gaze at the _haute cocotterie_--who patronise the right fork of the room as you enter. At Maxim's, any gentleman may conduct the band if he wishes to, and the tables are often cleared away and a little impromptu dance organised. At the Cafe Americain, 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 Cafe de Paris. You should not take her to Maxim's, and you cannot take her to the Americain. 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. Personally, I am never happier at supper-time than when I am sitting in the back room at the Taverne Pousset picking crayfish out of a wooden bowl where they swim in savoury liquid, pulling them to pieces, and eating them as they were eaten before forks and spoons put fingers out of fashion. The Restaurant des Fleurs, the newest of the Parisian restaurants, in the Rue St-Honore, is making a bid with its decoration in the "new art" style to capture those who sup.

Miscellaneous

Since Cubat in dudgeon gave up his restaurant in the Avenue of the Champs Elysees, there has been no prominent foreign restaurant in Paris.

Cubat, whose restaurant in St. Petersburg is so well known, brought Russian cookery to Paris; but though the Parisians are fond enough of cheering for the Dual Alliance, they did not dip into their pockets to keep the Russian restaurant in existence. An expensive German restaurant, a relic of the last exhibition, showed its lights just off the great boulevards, but after a time disappeared. There are Viennese restaurants on the boulevards and in the Rue d'Hauteville, and Spanish and Italian establishments may be found by the curious who wish to impair their digestion. The Englishman or American who has been feeding on rich food for any length of time, often yearns for perfectly simple food. At Henry's, at the Club Restaurant, and at most of the English and American bars with which Paris is now studded, a chop is obtainable, and a whisky and soda which is not poison; but I, personally, when _Pate de Foie Gras_ becomes a horror, truffles a burden, and rich sauces an abomination, go to one of the _Tavernes_, the Royale in the Rue Royale, or the Anglais in the Rue Boissy d'Anglas (where you get Lucas's food at lower prices than in the restaurant by the Madeleine), or into one of the many houses of plain cookery on the boulevards, and order the simplest and least greasy soup on the bill of fare, some plainly grilled cutlets, and some green vegetables. A pint of the second or third claret on the wine-card washes down this penitential repast. At Puloski's, an uninviting-looking little establishment in the Rue St-Honore, I have eaten excellent dishes of oysters cooked according to American methods, and that dry hash which boarding-house keepers across the Atlantic are supposed to serve perpetually to their paying guests, but which an American abroad is always glad to meet. You will find a great variety of oysters, Marennes, Ostendes, Zelandes, at Prunier's, in the Rue Duphot, and the dishes of the house--soup, sole, steak--are all cooked with oysters as a foundation, sauce, or garnish. Prunier's is the house at which the travelling gourmet generally tastes his first snails, the great Burgundian ones with striped sh.e.l.ls, or the little gray fellows from the champagne vineyards. If you eat Prunier's oysters you should drink his white Burgundy. If you eat his snails, you should drink his red wine, for he has some excellent red Burgundy.

Most travellers at least once in their lives go the round of Montmartre and its Bohemian shows. I have dined with the great Fursy in the restaurant attached to the Treteau de Tabarin, and was given good substantial bourgeois cookery. I asked the singer of the "Chansons Rosses" how it was that he, who girds at all things bourgeois and commonplace, ran the restaurant on such simple and non-eccentric lines; and he shrugged his shoulders, which I took to mean that you may trifle with a man's intellect but not with his stomach. About two in the morning, in the upstairs room at the Treteau, there is often some amus.e.m.e.nt forward. Upstairs at the Rat Mort, you may dine in comfort with _Soupe a l'Onion_ and _Tournedos Rat Mort_ in the menu; and at the Abbaye de Theleme, and at the Restaurant Blanche in the place of that name, you will find the artists and sculptors of the b.u.t.te.

In the Quartier, Thurion's in the Boulevard St-Germain is an interesting restaurant for a wandering Anglo-Saxon to become acquainted with, for there he will see most of the young Americans and English who are climbing up the ladder of pictorial fame. It is a Parisian "Cheshire Cheese." The floors are sawdusted, the waiters rush about in hot haste, and the chickens stray in from the courtyard at the back and pick up the crumbs round the tables. The place has its traditions, and you can hear tales of d.i.c.kens and Thackeray from the plump lady who makes up the bills.

Good Cheap Restaurants

I feel tempted in connection with this heading to write as did the naturalist of snakes in Iceland; but besides the _tavernes_ and _bouillons_, which give wonderful value for the money spent but do not require any lengthy mention in a book dealing with temples of the higher art, there are one or two interesting _table-d'hote_ restaurants where the meals are very cheap. One of these is Philippe's, on the first floor of the Palais Royal, next door to the Pet.i.t Vefour, and another is the Diner Francais, 27 Bd. des Italiens.

St-Germain

The Pavillion Henri IV., on the terrace of St-Germain, where every travelling Briton and American breakfasts once during his summer stay in Paris, is "run" by the management of the Champeaux, and one gets very excellent cookery and service in consequence, the prices not being at all exorbitant. One groans, sitting at the little tables on the terraces and looking at the view, to think of the chances some of our hotels near London, with even finer views, throw away through lack of enterprise.

St-Cloud

The Pavillion Bleu at St-Cloud, the proprietor of which, M. Moreaux, bought the greater portion of the "grands vins" of the Maison d'Or, deserves a special word of commendation.

N.N.-D.