CHAPTER VII

BERLIN Up-to-date restaurants--Supping-places--Military cafés--Night restaurants. Twenty years ago Berlin had no restaurant worthy of the name, now of course they are plentiful; in many instances, however, showy paintings, bad gilding, and heavy decorations seem to atone with a certain class of the public for inferior _matériel_ and mediocre cookery. The Monopole part of the Hôtel-Restaurant L. Schaurté is first-rate, and the set dinner for the price is as good as one could get anywhere. I append an everyday menu which, for 5 marks, ought to satisfy the most exacting customer. The second soup is a _Consommé_ with _quenelles_. The fish dishes are _Sole Normande_ and _Turbot au Gratin_. MENU. From 2 P.M. to 9 P.M. Häringfilet nach Daube. Mulligatawny-Suppe. Kraftbrühe mit Einlage. Seezungenfilet auf normännische Art. Steinbutt in Muscheln gratiniert. Eng. Roast-beef. Yorker Schinken in Burgunder. Spinat. Homard de Norvège. Sauce Ravigotte. Französ. Poularde. Fasan. Salat Compot. Sellerie. Fürst Pückler Bombe. Käse. Früchte. Nachtisch. Estimated cost of two dinners at the Restaurant Schaurté (Monopole):-- M. Pfgs. Dinner 5 00 1/2 Pontet Canet (1890) 7 00 Coffee 60 Cognac 60 ------ 13 20 M. Pfgs. Dinner 5 00 1/2 Roederer 8 75 (1893 Reserve for England) 1 Cognac (1860) 75 Coffee 60 ------ 15 10 If you drink no wine with the above repast, you are charged 6 marks for the dinner instead of 5. The wine charges are rather expensive, otherwise there is no fault to be found. This restaurant is a fashionable place at which to sup. The Bristol Restaurant, attached to the hotel of that name, is also one of the best and answers, on a reduced scale, to the Carlton Restaurant in London; you get as good a dinner at the Bristol as you can wish to have, especially if you interview Mons. Maxim (who was for a time in London) the _maître-d'hôtel_, a proceeding which will ensure your being well cared for. In fact with regard to most restaurants, it is always better, in Berlin as elsewhere in the world, if you have time or happen to be passing that way, to look in wherever you may have settled to dine, choose your table, and see what they propose to give you. It simplifies and expedites matters on arriving, especially if you are going on to some entertainment and have not much time to spare. Borchard's, in the Französischerstrasse, is a capital place to drop in to lunch, as there is a cold buffet there with every sort of Delikatesse. You can get a very good dinner there, and the wines are of excellent quality. The attachés of the British Embassy patronise it, and it is to the Bristol in Berlin what Claridge's is to the Carlton in London. The Hôtel de Rome has an excellent restaurant, and many dinners of ceremony are given there. This is the menu, headed by the motto, "The Tubercle Bacillus will federate the World," of a dinner given at the Berlin by a distinguished British physician to some of his German colleagues of the great Congress:-- Hors-d'oeuvre. Consommé Sévigné. Potage Oxtail. Sole à la Bordelaise. Filet de boeuf à la Moderne. Côtelettes de Foies gras aux Truffes. Faisan Rôti. Compote Salade. Asperges en branches. Prince Pückler. Fromage. Fruits. The Palast Hotel and restaurant, at the corner of the Potsdamerplatz, and the Savoy in the Friedrichstrasse are also excellent. The Hiller and the Dressel, in the Unter den Linden, are bright, pleasant, and good restaurants. Dressel gives an excellent lunch for 2.50 and dinners for 3 marks or 5. This is a sample lunch:-- Bouillon in Tassen. Eier Skobeleff. Seezunge gebacken, Sauce Tartare. Kalbskopf aux Champignons. Mutton Chops. Pfirsich nach Condé. Käse. The English bar in the Passage is a grill-room and restaurant, and ladies can lunch there, though the sporting British element is rather too prominent. In the evening it is frequented by the theatrical world and is practically open all night. One can enjoy a peaceable supper there without having to pay the bill and leave shortly after one has sat down, as is the custom in England. Kempinsky's, in the Leipzigerstrasse, a very popular restaurant and always crowded, rather corresponds to Scott's in the Haymarket. Here you get very good oysters (when in season) and excellent Holstein crayfish, lobsters, etc. The cook at this restaurant has an excellent manner of cooking lobsters, called _Homard chaud au beurre truffé_. It consists of chopped truffles worked up into best fresh butter rolled out, and then laid on the hot lobster. I subjoin a menu, in order to show the moderate charge for an extremely well-cooked dinner. As a rule a portion of any dish on the bill of fare costs M. 1.25. MENU. Hors-d'oeuvre. Consommé double à la Moelle. Homard chaud au Beurre Truffé. Escaloppes de Veau. Choux de Bruxelles. Faisan Rôti. Salade. Fromage, Céleri. Café, Cigare. 1 Bottle German Champagne. For two people, including the champagne, the total came to 12 marks 75 = 12s. 9d. As to the German champagne, "Sect," as it is called, they are now making very pleasant light wines of this character in the country at very reasonable prices. They are excellent of their sort, though they are rarely kept long enough in the cellar, and I should certainly advise their being tried, in preference to paying heavily for _soi-disant_ French brands which in Germany are of very doubtful origin. "Herb" does not guarantee what we understand by "dry." If you wish to sample German dishes well and inexpensively, you could not do better than go to the Rüdesheimer in the Friedrichstrasse. The house can provide you with an excellent bottle of Rhine wine, having a special celebrity for this. The Reichshof, in the Wilhelmstrasse, is a café of a more Bohemian description. It is most frequented towards the evening and for suppers after the theatres; usually a first-class but very noisy band is engaged there. It is also a good hotel. It is next door to the British Embassy. There are also two cafés in which the military element predominates, one might almost say exclusively. These are Topfer's and the Prinz Wilhelm, both in the Dorotheenstrasse. Here the officers usually lunch and make a general rendezvous, often bringing their wives. There are, of course, plenty of suburban cafés open in the summer, but they are more refreshment establishments, and appeal rather to the general public than to the higher class; they are opened or closed according to the seasons. Bauer's, in Unter den Linden, is also a well-known café, and is much frequented by the Berliners; it is, however, more of the refreshment saloon class, and is patronised by a large newspaper-reading public, from the fact that there are few of the leading publications in all languages that you would fail to find here. This café has become a general rendezvous in the afternoon and evening, and everything supplied there is of the best quality. The walls are decorated with paintings by the eminent German artists of thirty years ago. Upstairs, between 5 and 6 P.M., one sees many of the people of the world of the theatres and music halls. At Ewest, just off the Friedrichstrasse, there are two or three little quiet dining-rooms. The management is not anxious to find accommodation for any except old customers, but the best wine in Berlin is to be obtained there. The Kaiserkeller, with its rooms decorated splendidly in various styles, one after the model of the Lübeck Schiffergesellschaft, and others after other famous German rooms, is one of the sights of Berlin. It retains an army of cooks and its wine-list is a wonderful one. If you wish to see the rowdy student life of Berlin, the Bohemian festivity which corresponds to the life of Paris in the _cabarets_ of Montmartre, and if you speak German, go to the Bauernschänke, which has obtained a celebrity for the violence and rudeness of its proprietor, who, as Lisbonne and Bruant used to, and Alexander does in the _cabarets_ of the City of Light, insults his customers to the uttermost and turns out any one who objects. Die Räuberhohle is an inferior imitation of Die Bauernschänke. A noted night restaurant is Der Zum Weissen Rössl, in which each room is decorated to represent some typical street in Berlin. This is a hostel much frequented by artists.