CHAPTER I

PARIS The "Cuisine de Paris"--A little ancient history--Restaurants with a "past"--The restaurants of to-day--Over the river--Open-air restaurants--Supping-places--Miscellaneous. Paris is the culinary centre of the world. All the great missionaries of good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts in the world. Most of the good cooks come from the south of France, most of the good food comes from the north. They meet at Paris, and thus the Paris cuisine, which is that of the nation and that of the civilised world, is created. When the Channel has been crossed you are in the country of good soups, of good fowl, of good vegetables, of good sweets, of good wine. The _hors-d'oeuvre_ are a Russian innovation; but since the days when Henry IV. vowed that every peasant should have a fowl in his pot, soup from the simplest _bouillon_ to the most lordly _consommés_ and splendid _bisques_ has been better made in France than anywhere else in the world. Every great cook of France has invented some particularly delicate variety of the boiled fillet of sole, and Dugleré achieved a place amongst the immortals, by his manipulation of the brill. The soles of the north are as good as any that ever came out of British waters; and Paris--sending tentacles west to the waters where the sardines swim, and south to the home of the lamprey, and tapping a thousand streams for trout and the tiny gudgeon and crayfish--can show as noble a list of fishes as any city in the world. The _chef de cuisine_ who could not enumerate an hundred and fifty entrées all distinctively French, would be no proficient in his noble profession. The British beef stands against all the world as the meat noblest for the spit, though the French ox which has worked its time in the fields gives the best material for the soup-pot; and though the Welsh lamb and the English sheep are the perfection of mutton young and mutton old, the lamb nurtured on milk till the hour of its death, and the sheep reared on the salt-marshes of the north, make splendid contribution to the Paris kitchens. Veal is practically an unknown meat in London; and the calf which has been fed on milk and yolk of egg, and which has flesh as soft as a kiss and as white as snow, is only to be found in the Parisian restaurants. Most of the good restaurants in London import all their winged creatures, except game, from France; and the Surrey fowl and the Aylesbury duck, the representatives of Great Britain, make no great show against the champions of Gaul, though the Norfolk turkey holds his own. A vegetable dish, served by itself and not flung into the gravy of a joint, forms part of every French dinner, large or small; and in the battle of the kitchen gardens the foreigners beat us nearly all along the line, though I think that English asparagus is better than the white monsters of Argenteuil. A truffled partridge, or the homely _Perdrix au choux_, or the splendid _Faisan à la Financière_ show that there are many more ways of treating a game bird than plain roasting him; and the peasants of the south of France had crushed the bones of their ducks for a century before we in London ever heard of _Canard à la Presse_. The Parisian eats a score of little birds we are too proud to mention in our cookery books, and he knows the difference between a _mauviette_ and an _alouette_. Perhaps the greatest abasement of the Briton, whose ancestors called the French "Froggies" in scorn, comes when his first morning in Paris he orders for breakfast with joyful expectation a dish of the thighs of the little frogs from the vineyards. An Austrian pastry-cook has a lighter hand than a French one, but the Parisian open tarts and cakes and the _friandises_ and the ice, or _coupe-jacque_ at the end of the Gallic repast are excellent. Paris is strewn with the wrecks of restaurants, and many of the establishments with great names of our grandfathers' and fathers' days are now only _tavernes_ or cheap _table-d'hôte_ restaurants. The Grand Vefour in the Palais Royal--where the patrons of the establishment in Louis Philippe's time used to eat off royal crockery, bought from the surplus stock of the palaces by M. Hamel, cook to the king, and proprietor of the restaurant--has lost its vogue in the world of fashion. The present Café de Paris has an excellent cook, and is the supper restaurant where the most shimmering lights of the _demi-monde_ may be seen; but the old Café de Paris, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the house which M. Martin Guépet brought to such fame, and where the _Veau à la Casserole_ drew the warmest praise from our grandfathers, has vanished. Bignon's, which was a name known throughout the world, has fallen from its high estate; the Café Riche, though it retains a good restaurant, is not the old famous dining-place any longer; and the Marivaux, where Joseph flourished, has been transformed into a _brasserie_. The Café Hardi, at one time a very celebrated restaurant, made place for the Maison d'Or, and the gilded glory of the latter has now passed in its turn. The Café Veron, Philippe's, of the Rue Mont Orgueil, and the Rocher de Cancale in the Rue Mandar, where Borel, one of the cooks of Napoleon I., made gastronomic history, Beauvilliers's, the proprietor of which was a friend of all the field-marshals of Europe, and made and lost half-a-dozen fortunes, the Trois Frères Provençeaux, the Café Very, and D'Hortesio's are but memories. The saddest disappearance of all, because the latest, is the Maison d'Or, which is to be converted, so it is said, into a _brasserie_. The retirement of Casimir, one of the Verdier family, who was to the D'Or what Dugleré was to the Anglais, precipitated the catastrophe, and in the autumn of 1902 the house gave its farewell luncheon, and closed with all the honours of war. Alas for the _Carpe à la Gelée_ and the _Sole au vin Rouge_ and the _Poularde Maison d'Or_! I shall never, I fear, eat their like again. There was much history attached to the little golden house; more, perhaps, than to any other restaurant in the world. From its doors Rigolboche, in the costume of Mother Eve, started for her run across the road to the Anglais. At the table by one of the windows looking out on to the boulevard Nestor Roqueplan, Fould, Salamanca, and Delahante used always to dine. Upstairs in "Le Grand 6," which was to the Maison d'Or what "Le Grand 16" is to the Anglais, Salamanca, who drew a vast revenue from a Spanish banking-house, used to give extraordinary suppers at which the lights of the _demi-monde_ of that day, Cora Pearl, Anna Deslions, Deveria, and others used to be present. The amusement of the Spaniard used to be to spill the wax from a candle over the dresses, and then to pay royally for the damage. One evening he asked one of the MM. Verdier whether a very big bill would be presented to him if he burned the whole house down, and on being told that it was only a matter of two or three million francs he would have set light to the curtains if M. Verdier had not interfered to prevent him. The "beau Demidoff," the duelling Baron Espeleta, Princes Galitzin and Murat, Tolstoy, and the Duc de Rivoli gave their parties in the "Grand 6"; and down the narrow, steep flight of steps which led into the side street the Duke of Hamilton fell and broke his neck. The Maison d'Or was the meeting-place, in the sixty odd years of its existence, of many celebrities of literature. Dumas, Meilhac, Emmanuel Arène used to dine there before they went across the road for a game of cards at the Cercle des Deux Mondes, and later Oncle Sarcey was one of the _habitués_ of the house. 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. It was originally a little wine-merchant's shop, with its door leading into the Rue Marivaux, and was owned by a M. Chevereuil. The ownerships of MM. Chellet and de L'Homme marked successive steps in its upward career, and when the restaurant came into the market in '79 or '80 it was bought by a syndicate of bankers and other rich business men who parted with it to its present proprietor. The Comte de Grammont Caderousse and his companions in what used to be known as the "Loge Infernale" at the old Opera, were the best-known patrons of the Anglais; and until the Opera House, replaced by the present building, was burnt down, the Anglais was a great supping-place, the little rabbit-hutches of the _entresol_ being the scene of some of the wildest and most interesting parties given by the great men of the Second Empire. The history of the Anglais has never been written because, as the proprietor will tell you, it never _could_ be written without telling tales anent great men which should not be put into print; but if you ask to see the book of menus, chiefly of dinners given in the "Grand Seize," the room on the first floor, the curve of the windows of which look up the long line of the boulevards, and if you are shown the treasure you will find in it records of dinners given by King Edward when he was Prince of Wales, by the Duc de Morny and by D'Orsay, by all the Grand Dukes who ever came out of Russia, by "Citron" and Le Roi Milan, by the lights of the French jockey club, and many other celebrities. There is one especially interesting menu of a dinner at which Bismarck was a guest--before the terrible year of course. While I am gossiping as to the curiosities of the Anglais I must not forget a little collection of glass and silver in a cabinet in the passage of the _entresol_. Every piece has a history, and most of them have had royal owners. The great sight of the restaurant, however, is its cellars. Electric light is used to light them, luminous grapes hang from the arches, and an orange tree at the end of a vista glows with transparent fruit. In these cellars, beside the wine on the wine-list of the restaurant, are to be found some bottles of all the great vintage years of claret, an object-lesson in Bordeaux; and there are little stores of brandies of wondrous age, most of which were already in the cellars when the battle of Waterloo was fought. From a gourmet's point of view the great interest in the restaurant will lie, if he wishes to give a large dinner, in the Grand Seize or one of the other private rooms; if he is going to dine alone, or is going to take his wife out to dinner, in the triangular room on the ground floor with its curtains of lace, its white walls, its mirrors and its little gilt tripod in the centre of the floor. Dugleré was the _chef_ who, above all others, made history at the Anglais, and the present proprietor, M. Burdel, was one of his pupils; and therefore the cookery of Dugleré is the cookery still of the Anglais. _Potage Germiny_ is claimed by the Café Anglais as a dish invented by the house, but the Maison d'Or across the way also laid claim to it, and told an anecdote of its creation--how it was invented by Casimir for the Marquis de St-George. The various fish _à la Dugleré_ there can be no question concerning, the _Barbue Dugleré_ being the most celebrated; and the _Poularde Albufera_ and the _Filet de Sole Mornay_ (which was also claimed by the Grand Vefour) are both specialities of the house. You can order as expensive a dinner as you will for a great feast at the Anglais, and you can eat rich dishes if you desire it; but there is no reason that you should not dine there very well, and as cheaply as you can expect to get good material, good cooking, and good attendance anywhere in the world. The "dishes of the day" are always excellent, and I have dined off a plate of soup, a pint of Bordeaux, and some slices of a _gigot de sept heures_--one of the greatest achievements of cookery--for a very few francs. I always find that I can dine amply, and on food that even a German doctor could not object to, for less than a louis. For instance, a dinner at the Anglais of half-a-dozen Ostende Oysters, _Potage Laitues et Quenelles_, _Merlans Frits_, _Cuisse de Poularde de Rôtie_, _Salade Romaine_, cheese, half a bottle of Graves 1e Cru, and a bottle of St-Galmier costs 18 francs. Voisin's, in the Rue St-Honoré, the corner house whose windows, curtained with lace, promise dignified quiet, is a restaurant which has a history, and has, and has had, great names amongst its _habitués_. Many of these have been diplomats, and Voisin's knows that ambassadors do not care to have their doings, when free from the cares of office, gossiped about. When I first saw Voisin's, it looked as unlike the house of to-day as can be imagined. I was in Paris immediately after the days of the Commune and followed, with an old General, the line the troops had taken in the fight for the city. In the Rue St-Honoré were some of the fiercest combats, for the regulars fought their way from house to house down this street to turn the positions the Communists took up in the Champs Elysées and the gardens of the Tuileries. The British Embassy had become a hospital, and all the houses which had not been burned looked as though they had stood a bombardment. There were bullet splashes on all the walls, and I remember that Voisin's looked even more battered and hopeless than did most of its neighbours. The diplomats have always had an affection for Voisin's, perhaps because of its nearness to the street of the Embassies; and in the "eighties" the attachés of the British Embassy used to breakfast there every day. Nowadays, the _clientèle_ seems to me to be a mixture of the best type of the English and Americans passing through Paris, and the more elderly amongst the statesmen, who were no doubt the dashing young blades of twenty-five years ago. The two comfortable ladies who sit near the door at the desk, and the little show-table of the finest fruit seem to me never to have changed, and there is still the same quiet-footed, unhurrying service which impressed me when first I made the acquaintance of the restaurant. It is one of the dining-places where one feels that to dine well and unhurriedly is the first great business of life, and that everything else must wait at the dinner-hour. The proprietor, grey-headed and distinguished-looking, goes from table to table saying a word or two to the _habitués_, and there is a sense of peace in the place--a reflection of the sunshine and calm of Provence, whence the founder of the restaurant came. The great glory of Voisin's is its cellar of red wines, its Burgundies and Bordeaux. The Bordeaux are arranged in their proper precedence, the wines from the great vineyards first, and the rest in their correct order down to mere bourgeois tipple. Against each brand is the price of the vintage of all the years within a drinkable period, and the man who knew the wine-list of Voisin's thoroughly would be the greatest authority in the world on claret. Mr. Rowland Strong, in his book on Paris, tells how, one Christmas Eve, he took an Englishman to dine at Voisin's, and how that Englishman demanded plum-pudding. The _maître-d'hôtel_ was equal to the occasion. He was polite but firm, and his assertion that "The House of Voisin does not serve, has never served, and will never serve, plum-pudding" settled the matter. If the Anglais and Voisin's may be said to have much of their interest in their "past," Paillard's should be taken as a restaurant which is the type and parent of the present up-to-date restaurant. The white restaurant on the Boulevard des Italiens has kept at the top of the tree for many years, and has sent out more culinary missionaries to improve the taste of dining man than any other establishment in Paris. Joseph, who brought the Marivaux to such a high pitch of fame before he emigrated to London, came from Paillard's and so did Frederic of the Tour d'Argent, of whom I shall have something to say later on. Henri of the Gaillon, Notta, Charles of Foyot's--all were trained at Paillard's. The restaurant has its history, and its long list of great patrons. _Le Désir de Roi_, which generally appears in the menu of any important dinner at Paillard's, and which has _foie gras_ as its principal component, has been eaten by a score of kings at one time or another, our own gracious Majesty heading the list. The restaurant at first was contained in one small room. Then the shop of Isabelle, the Jockey Club flower-girl, which was next door, was acquired, and lastly another little shop was taken in, the entrance changed from the front to its present position at the side, the accountant's desk put out of sight, and the little musicians' gallery built--for Paillard's has moved with the time and now has a band of Tziganes, much to the grief of men like myself who prefer conversation to music as the accompaniment of a meal. The restaurant as it is with its white walls and bas-reliefs of cupids and flowers, its green Travertine panels let into the white pilasters, its chandeliers of cut glass, is very handsome. M. Paillard, hair parted in the middle and with a small moustache, irreproachably attired, wearing a grey frock-coat by day, and a "smoking" and black tie in the evening, is generally to be seen superintending all arrangements, and there is a _maître-d'hôtel_ who speaks excellent English, and a head waiter with whiskers who deserted to Henri, but subsequently returned, who is also an accomplished linguist. Amongst the specialities of the house are _Pomme Otero_ and _Pomme Georgette_, both created, I fancy, by Joseph when he was at Paillard's, _Homard Cardinal_, _Filet de Sole à la Russe_, _Sole Paillard_, _Filet de Sole Kotchoubey_, _Timbale de queues d'Ecrevisses Mantua_, _Côte de Boeuf braisé Empire_, _Pommes Macaire_, _Filet Paillard_, _Suprême de Volaille Grand Duc_, _Rouennais Paillard_, _Baron d'agneau Henri IV._, _Poularde Archiduc_, _Poularde à la Derby_, _Poularde Wladimir_, _Filet de Selle Czarine_, _Bécasse au Fumet_, _Rouennais à la Presse_, _Terrine de Foie Gras à la gelée au Porto_, _Perdreau et Caille Paillard_. Two menus of dinners M. Paillard has given me, one a very noble feast, to the length of which I am a conscientious objector but which I print, presently, in full, and the other a banquet of lesser grandeur with _Crème Germiny_, _Barbue Paillard_, _Ortolans en surprise_, _Salade Idéale_, and many other good things in it from which I select the following dishes as making a typical little Paillard feast for two, the price of which would not be a king's ransom:-- Caviar frais. Consommé Viveur. Filets de Sole Joinville. Coeurs de Filet Rachel. Pommes Anna. Haricots Verts à la Touranquelle. An Ice or some iced Fruits and some Coffee. And this repast might well be washed down by a bottle of Montrachet 1885, with a glass of Fine Champagne Palais de St-Cloud to follow. This is the menu of the banquet:-- | Le Caviar Impérial. | Les Huîtres de Burnham. | ----- | Le Consommé Paillard. | Pailles Parmesan. | La Crème d'Arétin. | ----- | Les Croustades à la Victoria. _Eau-de-vie Russe._ | ----- | La Carpe à la Chambord. _Chablis Moutonne._ | Le Turbot à l'Amiral. | ----- _Johannisberg 1893._ | Le Baron de Pauillac persillé. | Les pommes Macaire. _Mouton Rothschild | Le Velouté Favorite. 1875._ | ----- | Le Désir de Roi. _Clos Vougeot 1858._ | ----- | Les Bécasses au fumet. _Moët brut 1884._ | La Salade Espérance. | ----- _Fine Champagne des | Les Asperges d'Argenteuil Tuileries 1800._ | Sce Mousseline. | ----- | La Pyramide à l'Ananas. | Le Soufflé aux Mandarines. | Macarons et Gaufrettes | Chantilly. | ----- | La Corbeille de Fruits. | Café. What the cost of this feast would be it is difficult to estimate, and I will not even hazard a guess. I asked, last spring, an Englishman who knows his Paris better than most Parisians, what he would consider a typical breakfast, dinner, and supper in Paris, and he answered, "Breakfast _chez Henri_ at the Gaillon, dine at the Ritz, and sup at Durand's." There are two Henri's in Paris, one is the little hotel and English bar, and the other is in the Place Gaillon. Henri's Restaurant Gaillon had its days of celebrity in the Second Empire, and then sank, as the Maison Grossetête, from grace until Henri Drouet, leaving Paillard's, established himself there. When I first knew the restaurant it had Paillard's cookery, but not Paillard's prices; but now that the whole of the _monde qui dîne_ has found it out, I fancy that the scale of prices has risen to a level with that of the parent restaurant. The first room is the best one to breakfast or dine in, for the others on hot days are apt to be very stuffy; and it is well to order a table by telephone in advance. Henri's, it always seems to me, has a more tempting table of cold viands, patés, and tarts and _friandises_ set out than any other restaurateur's, and many of the _habitués_ at lunch-time order eggs or fish, and then turn their attention to the cold buffet. When dining at Henri's the _Consommé Fortunato_, the _filets de sole_ of the restaurant, the _Noisettes de Veau Port Mahon_, the _Crêpes des Gourmets_ should be remembered. If you want a dinner for twelve, you cannot do better than order the following, or rather select dishes from it, for it is unreasonably lengthy as it stands:-- Hors-d'oeuvre à la Russe. POTAGES. Consommé Viveur. Pailles et Parmesan. POISSON. Timbale de Homard à l'Américaine. ENTRÉES. Baron de Pauillac à la Boulangère. Endives Pochées au jus. Escalopes de Foies grand Opéra. RÔTI. Bécasses Flambées au fumet. Salade Port Mahon. Mousse Bohémienne glacée. Truffes au Champagne à la gelée. LÉGUMES. Asperges fraîches. Sce Mousseline. ENTREMETS. Soufflé Valenciennes. Poires Gaillon. There are several other restaurants which claim to be quite first class, and which are smart and amusing. Two such are the restaurants facing the Madeleine, Durand's, and La Rue's. It was in one of the little rooms on the first floor of Durand's that the Brav' General sat debating in his mind whether he should initiate a _coup d'état_, and the crowd outside waited and watched, expecting something to happen. Nothing did happen. General Boulanger thought so long, that the decisive moment passed, and he went home to bed. Boulanger has gone, but his friends, grey-headed now, breakfast daily at Durand's. La Rue's was also a restaurant in favour with General Boulanger, and I fancy that the little dinner-parties he gave there helped much to bring the place into celebrity. Both these restaurants have lately been enlarged and redecorated, and La Rue's advertises a great deal, which no doubt has increased its _clientèle_, but which has not decreased its prices. Parisian Society has decreed that it is "smart" to sup at Durand's, and I always find it an excellent place at which to breakfast. The last time that I took my morning meal there I found all the younger members of the British Embassy breakfasting there, a sure sign that the place is just now on the crest of the wave. Some of the specialities of Durand's are _Potage Henri IV._, _Consommé Baigneuse_, _petits diables_, _Barbue Durand_, _Poulet Sauté Grand Duc_, _Salade Georgette_, _Soufflé Pôle Nord_, and of course a variation of the inevitable _canard à la presse_ and the woodcock subjected to an _auto-da-fé_. This is the supper that the Restaurant Durand gave its clients on the greatest supping night of the year, Christmas Eve, 1902. The _boudin_ of course all Paris has for supper on the night before the great Christmas feast:-- Consommé de Volaille au fumet de Céleris. Boudin grillé à la Parisienne. Ailerons de Volaille à la Tzar. Cailles à la Lucullus. Salade Durand. Ecrevisses de la Meuse à la nage. Crêpes Suzette. Dessert. Champagnes. Clicquot Brut, Pommery Drapeau Américain. Gde Fine Napoléon. At La Rue's I have felt inclined sometimes to protest when I have been charged 2 francs for half-a-dozen prawns, and to think that the vermillion-coloured seats are being paid for too quickly out of profits; but I rarely pass through Paris without breakfasting there, and eating the cold poached eggs in jelly, the _Grenouilles à la Marinière_, or one of the dishes of cold fish which are excellently served. Some of the specialities of the house are _Potage Reine_, _Barbue à la Russe_, _Caille à la Souvaroff_, _Tournedos à la Rossini_, _Caneton de Rouen au Sang_, _Bécasse Flambée_, _Salade Gauloise_, _Crêpes Suzette_, _Glace Gismonda_, _Pêches Flambées_ and from this list any one could choose either a little dinner or a big one. Of restaurants attached to hotels I do not propose to write in this article, with one exception, for there are few of the hundreds of hotels at which one cannot get a very fair dinner; and at some, such as the Elysée Palace, over which Caesario presides, one can get an excellent one; but the purpose of this book is to give information to the man who wishes to dine away from hotels. The one exception is the Ritz, in the Place Vendôme, and I include this in my list because the Ritz is a restaurant firstly, and an hotel secondly, and because as a dining place it holds an exceptional position in Paris. It is the restaurant of the smartest foreign society in Paris, and the English, Americans, Russians, Spaniards, dining there always outnumber greatly the French. It is a place of great feasts, but it is also a restaurant at which the _maîtres-d'hôtel_ are instructed not to suggest long dinners to the patrons of the establishment. In M. Elles' hands or that of the _maître-d'hôtel_ there is no fear of being "rushed" into ordering an over-lengthy repast. This is a typical little dinner for three I once ate at the Ritz, and as a feast in the autumn it is worth recording and repeating:-- Caviar. Consommé Viveni. Mousseline de Soles au vin du Rhin. Queues d'Ecrevisses à l'Américaine. Escalopes de Riz de veau Favorite. Perdreaux Truffés. Salade. Asperges vertes en branches. Coupes aux Marrons. Friandises. 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. Sometimes very elaborate entertainments are given in the Ritz, and I can recall one occasion on a hot summer night, when the garden was tented over and turned into a gorge apparently somewhere near the North Pole, there being blocks and pillars of ice everywhere. The anteroom was a mass of palms, and the idea of the assemblage of the guests in the tropics and their sudden transference to the land of ice was excellently carried out. I give the menu of another great dinner at the Ritz because, not only has it some of the specialities of the house embodied in it, but that it is a good specimen of what a great dinner should be, being important but not heavy:-- Caviar frais. Hors-d'oeuvre. Royal Tortue Claire. Crème d'Artichauts. Mousseline d'Eperlans aux Ecrevisses à l'Américaine. Noisettes de Ris de Veau au fumet de Champignons. Selle de Chevreuil Grand Veneur. Purée de Marrons. Poularde de Houdan Vendôme. Sorbets au Kirsch. Ortolans aux Croûtons. Coeurs de Laitues. Asperges vertes en branches. Sauce Mousseline. Ananas voilé à l'Orientale. Friandises. Corbeilles de Fruits. VINS. Château Caillou 1888. Château Léoville Lascases 1878 (Magnums). Lanson Brut 1892 (Magnums). Château Yquem 1869. Grande Fine Champagne 1790 (Ritz Réservé). 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 Elysées. It is a good place to dine at for any one going to the play at the Porte St-Martin, the Renaissance, the Théâtre 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 quantity 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. Poissonière, and Noel Peters in the Passage des Princes, both have claims to celebrity for their cooking, and the fish dishes at the latter, the _Filet de Sole Noël_ for instance, are a speciality. The Boeuf à 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 _clientèle_ 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 surpassed 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 _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. 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 butterfly 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,--_Canapé Clarence Mackay_, _Filet de Sole Gibbs_, _Filet de Lièvre Arnold White_, _Oeufs Claude Lowther_, _Poire Wannamaker_, and so on. A marquis, M. de Lauzières 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 à 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 sex. 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 entrées, 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 _maîtres-d'hôtel_ 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 Cérons 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 Odéon. _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 Meunière_, 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 Elysées, 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 Embassies 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 Pompéienne_ 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 _bonbonnière_, in the Champs Elysées, 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 Chaussée d'Antin as his property, and the company took possession of the Restaurant Maire and the Pavillion des Champs Elysées. 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 Crème 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" 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. 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 Ambassadeurs prides itself on being quite a first-class 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 Ambassadeurs. Hors-d'oeuvre. Truite Gelée Mâconnaise. Ris de Veau Financière. Demi-Vierge en Chaud-Froid. Poulets de Grain Rôtis. Salade de Romaine. Asperges Froides. Coupes Jacques. Dessert. Petites 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 Ambassadeurs. Chevillard's, at the Rond Point des Champs Elysées, 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 cafés, 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 Château de Madrid. The first is very "smart," and the glass 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 space under the glass verandah. At the Château 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 Château 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 Café 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 butterflies rises to settle elsewhere. Julien's, Sylvain's, La Rue's, the Café 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 Café de Paris, where M. Mourier, a former _maître-d'hôtel_ 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 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. 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-Honoré, 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 Elysées, 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 _Paté 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-Honoré, 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, Zélandes, 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 shells, 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 Tréteau 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 Tréteau, there is often some amusement forward. Upstairs at the Rat Mort, you may dine in comfort with _Soupe à l'Onion_ and _Tournedos Rat Mort_ in the menu; and at the Abbaye de Thélème, and at the Restaurant Blanche in the place of that name, you will find the artists and sculptors of the Butte. 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 Dickens 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'hôte_ 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 Petit Vefour, and another is the Dîner Français, 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.