The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Part 5

I am free to confess that the _Tutti Frutti de la Mare_, or stew consisting of the many lovely and variegated small fish that are caught in those waters, has no charm for me. Personally, I would as soon eat a surprise packet of pins, but of course, _chacun a son got_. Anyway, if you are stranded in Ma.r.s.eilles for an afternoon or longer, you could go to many a worse place than the Reserve.

I suppose it is not necessary for me to add to A.B.'s discourse any description of what _Bouillabaisse_ is, or how the Southerners firmly believe that this dish cannot be properly made except of the fish that swim in the Mediterranean, the rascaz, a little fellow all head and eyes, being an essential in the savoury stew, along with the eel, the lobster, the dory, the mackerel, and the girelle. Thackeray has sung the ballad of the dish as he used to eat it, and his _recette_, because it is poetry, is accepted, though it is but the fresh-water edition of the stew. If you do not like oil, garlic, and saffron, which all come into its composition, give it a wide berth. The _Brandade_, which is a cod-fish stew and a regular fisherman's dish, is by no means to be despised.

Before leaving the subject of Ma.r.s.eilles and its cookery and restaurants, let me record the verdict of a true gourmet and Englishman who always lives the winter through in Ma.r.s.eilles. He writes me that in Ma.r.s.eilles itself there are no restaurants worthy of the name, the best being Isnard's (Hotel des Phoceens), Rue Thubaneau, and another good one that of the Hotel d'Orleans, Rue Vacon, where the proprietor and the cook are brothers and charming people.

Those adventurous souls who wish to eat the fry of sea-urchins and other highly savoury dishes, with strange sh.e.l.l-fish and other extraordinary denizens of the deep as their foundation, should go to Bregaillon's at the Vieux Port. It is necessary to have a liking for garlic and a nose that fears no smells for this adventure; but if you bring your courage to the sticking point, order a dozen _oursins_, a _pet.i.t poelon_, which is a _tournedos_ in a _ca.s.serole_, and a _grive_. Ca.s.sis is the white wine of the house; and it has some good Chateau Neuf de Pape.

Cannes

Cannes is the first important town of the Riviera that the gourmet flying south comes to, and at Cannes he will find a typical Riviera restaurant. The Reserve at Cannes consists of one gla.s.sed-in shelter and another smaller building on the rocks, which juts out into the sea from the elbow of the Promenade de la Croisette. The spray of the wavelets set up by the breeze splash up against the gla.s.s, and to one side are the Iles des Lerins, St-Marguerite, and St-Honorat, where the liqueur Lerina is made, shining on the deep blue sea, and to the other the purple Montagnes de l'Esterel stand up with a wonderful jagged edge against the sky. Amongst the rocks on which the building of the restaurant stand are tanks, and in these swim fish, large and small, the fine lazy _dorades_ and the lively little sea-gudgeon. One of the amus.e.m.e.nts 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. There is always some little band of Italian musicians playing and singing at the Reserve, and though in London one would vote them a nuisance, at Cannes the music seems to fit in with the lazy pleasure of breakfasting almost upon the waves, and the throaty tenor who has been singing of Santa Lucia gets a lining of francs to his hat. Most of the crowned heads who make holiday at Cannes have taken their breakfast often enough in the little gla.s.s summer-house, but the prices are in no way alarming. The ladies gather at tea-time at the white building, where Mme. Rumplemayer sells cakes and tea and coffee; and the Gallia also has a _clientele_ of tea-drinkers, for whose benefit the band plays of an afternoon.

Nice

At Nice the London House is one of the cla.s.sical restaurants of France, and one may talk of it in comparison with the great houses of the boulevards of the capital. 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 _specialites du maison_, and cla.s.sical 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. With a pint of white wine, a pint of champagne, a liqueur, and two cups of coffee, my bill was 46 francs.

Hors-d'oeuvre.

Potage Lamballe.

Friture de Goujons.

Longe de veau aux Celeris.

Gelinotte a la Ca.s.serole.

Salade Romaine et Concombre.

Dessert.

The little Restaurant Francais, on the Promenade des Anglais, is one of the cheeriest places possible to breakfast at on a sunny morning. In the garden are palm-trees, and the tables are further shaded by great pink and white umbrellas. A scarlet-coated band of Hungarians plays inoffensive music under the verandah of the house, and the page and the _cha.s.seur_ water the road before the garden constantly with a fire-hose, in order that the motor-cars which go rushing past shall not smother the breakfast-eaters with dust. Broiled eggs and asparagus points, a trout fresh from the river Loup--if such a fish is on the bill of fare--and some tiny bird either roasted or _en ca.s.serole_, with some light white wine, is a suitable meal to be eaten in this garden of a doll's-house restaurant. The house has its history. It was formerly the Villa Wurtz Dundas, where so many art treasures were collected in the salons Louis XV. and XVI. Mons. Emile Favre, the new proprietor, has added considerably to the old house.

The Restaurant du Helder, the white building in the arcade of the big Place, has good cookery, and its _table-d'hote_ meals are excellent.

On regatta days the world of fashion occupies all the tables of the restaurant on the _jetee_ at breakfast-time.

Two resorts patronised by the young sparks of Nice are the Regence and the Garden Bar. The subjoined menu shows what the Regence can do when a big dinner is given there:--

Hors-d'oeuvre varies.

Consomme a la d'Orleans.

Bouchees Montglas.

Filets de soles Joinville.

Piece de boeuf Renaissance.

Chaud-froid de foie gras.

Pet.i.ts pois a la Francaise.

Faisans de Boheme a la broche.

Salade nicoise.

Mousse Regence.

Patisserie. Dessert.

The great confectioner's shop in the Place Ma.s.sena and the Casino Munic.i.p.al are always crowded with ladies at tea-time.

Beaulieu

At Beaulieu the Restaurant de la Reserve is famous. It is just a convenient distance for a drive from Monte Carlo, and the world and the half-world drive or motor out there from the town on the rock and sit at adjacent tables in the verandah without showing any objection one to the other. The restaurant is a little white building in a garden, with a long platform built out over the sea, so that breakfasting one looks right down upon a blue depth of water. There are tables inside the building, but the early-comers and those wise people who have telephoned for tables take those in the verandah if the day be sunny. There are tanks into which the water runs in and out with each little wave and in these are the Marennes oysters and other sh.e.l.l-fish. Oysters, a _Mostelle a l'Anglaise_--Mostelle being the especial fish of this part of the world--and some tiny bit of meat is the breakfast I generally order at the Beaulieu Reserve; but the cook is capable of high flights, and I have seen most elaborate meals well served. The proprietors are two Italians who also own the neighbouring hotel, and who take their cook with them to Aix-les-Bains when they migrate during the summer to the restaurant of one of the casinos there. A little band of Italian singers and musicians add to the noise of this very merry little breakfasting place.

At Villefranche there are two unpretentious inns where men with an unnatural craving for _Bouillabaisse_ go and eat it, and return with a strong aroma of saffron and garlic accompanying them, saying that they have partaken of the real dish, such as the fishermen cook for themselves, and not the stew toned down to suit civilised palates.

Monte Carlo

The first time that I stayed for a week or so in the princ.i.p.ality, I lodged at the Hotel du Monte Carlo, on the hill below the Post Office.

It was a dingy hotel then, not having been redecorated and brightened up as it has been now; but it had the supreme attraction to a lieutenant in a marching regiment of being cheap. When the first day at dinner I cast my eye down the wine-list, I found amongst the clarets wines of the great vintage years at extraordinarily low prices, and in surprise I asked the reason. The manager explained to me that the hotel was in the early days used as a casino, and that the wines formed part of the cellar of the proprietor--whether Mons. Blanc, or another, I do not remember. Most of them were too old to bear removal to Paris, and they were put down on the wine-list at ridiculously low prices in order to get rid of them, for, as the manager said, "In Monte Carlo the winners drink nothing but champagne, the losers water or whisky and soda." So it is. In Monte Carlo, when a man has won, he wants the very best of everything, and does not mind what he pays for it; when he has lost he has no appet.i.te, and grudges the money he pays for a chop in the grill-room of the Cafe de Paris. The prices at the restaurants are nicely adapted to the purses of the winners; and there is no place in the world where it is more necessary to order with discrimination and to ask questions as to prices. At Monte Carlo it is the custom to entirely disa.s.sociate your lodging from your feeding, and you may stay at one hotel and habitually feed at the restaurant of another without the proprietor of the first being at all unhappy. Ciro's in the arcade is a restaurant only, and is very smart and not at all cheap. 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 d.u.c.h.esses 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 compet.i.tion. Ciro himself is a little Italian, who speaks broken English and has a sense of humour which carries him over all difficulties. Every day brings some fresh story concerning the little man, and a typical one is his comforting a.s.surance to some one who complained of an overcharge for b.u.t.ter. "Alla right" said Ciro complacently, "I take him off your bill and charge him to the Grand Duke. He not mind." The joke is sometimes against Ciro, as when, anxious to have all possible luxuries for a great British personage who was going to dine at the restaurant, and knowing that plover's eggs are much esteemed in England, he obtained some of the eggs, cooked them, and served them hot. Ciro's Restaurant originally was where his bar now is; but when the Cafe Riche, almost next door, was sold, he bought it, redecorated it, and transferred his restaurant to the new and more gorgeous premises, putting his brother Salvatore--who, poor fellow, has since died--in charge of the bar which he established in his old quarters. I cannot put my hand on the menu of any of the many breakfasts I have eaten at Ciro's, so I borrow a typical menu from V.B's. interesting little book _Ten Days at Monte Carlo_. He and three friends ate and drank this at _dejeuner_:--

Hors-d'oeuvre varies.

Oeufs poches Grand Duc.

Mostelle a l'Anglaise.

Volaille en Ca.s.serole a la Fermiere.

Patisserie.

Fromage.

Cafe.

1 Magnum Carbonnieux 1891.

Fine Champagne 1846.

This feast cost 61 francs. The Mostelle, as I have previously mentioned, is the special fish of this part of the coast. It is as delicate as a whiting, and is split open, fried, and served with bread crumbs and an over-sufficiency of melted b.u.t.ter.

At Monte Carlo one is given everything that can be imported and which is expensive. The salmon comes from Scotland or Sweden, and most of the other material for the feasts is sent down daily from Paris. The thrushes from Corsica, and some very good asparagus from Genoa or Rocbrune, are about the only provisions which come from the neighbourhood, except of course the fish, which is plentiful and excellent. I was last spring entrusted with the ordering of a dinner for six at the restaurant of the Hotel de Paris, the most frequented of all the dining places at Monte Carlo, and I told Mons. Fleury, the manager, that I wanted as much local colour introduced into it as possible. He referred me to the _chef_, and between us we drew up this menu, which certainly has something of the sunny south about it:--

Hors-d'oeuvre et Caviar frais.

Creme de Langoustines.

Friture de Nonnats.

Selle d'Agneau aux Primeurs.

Beca.s.sines roties.

Salade Nicoise.

Asperges de Genes.

Sauce Mousseline.

Dessert.

VINS.

1 bottle Barsac.

3 bottles Pommery Vin Nature 1892.

To crown this feast we had some of the very old brandy, a treasure of the house, which added 60 francs to the bill. The total was 363 francs 10 centimes.

In this dinner the _Creme de Langoustines_ was excellent, a most delightful _bisque_. The _nonnats_ are the small fry of the bay, smaller far than whitebait, and are delicious to eat. They are perhaps more suitable for breakfast than for a dinner of ceremony, and had I not yearned for local colour I should have ordered the _Filets de Sole Egyptiennes_ in little paper coffins which look like mummy cases, a dish which is one of the specialities of the house.

Dining at the Hotel 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. Bachelier, the _maitre-d'hotel_ at the Francais, a disciple of Francois, is quite one of the foremost men of his calling.

The restaurant of the Grand Hotel, where MM. Noel and Pattard themselves see to the comfort of their guests, is also a fashionable dining place.

I first tasted the _Sole Waleska_, with its delicate flavouring of Parmesan, at the Grand Hotel many years ago, and it has always been one of the special dishes of the house. _Poularde a la Santos Dumont_ is another speciality. This is a menu of a dinner for six given at the Grand, as a return for the one quoted above as a product of the Hotel de Paris:--