CHAPTER VIII

SWITZERLAND Lucerne--Basle--Bern--Geneva--Davos Platz. Switzerland is a country of hotels and not of restaurants. In most of the big towns the hotels have restaurants attached to them, and in some of these a dinner ordered _à la carte_ is just as well cooked as in a good French restaurant, and served as well; in other restaurants attached to good hotels the _table-d'hôte_ dinner is served at separate tables at any time between certain hours, and this is the custom of most of the restaurants in most of the better class of hotels. There is in every little mountain-hotel a restaurant; but this is generally used only by invalids, or very proud persons, or mountaineers coming back late from a climb. There is no country in which the gourmet has to adapt himself so much to circumstances and in which he does it, thanks to exercise and mountain air, with such a Chesterfieldian grace. I have seen the man who, at the restaurants of the Schweitzerhof or National at Lucerne, ate a perfectly cooked little meal which he had ordered _à la carte_ on the day of his arrival in Switzerland, and who was hoping to find something to grumble at, sitting in peace two days later eating the _table-d'hôte_ meal at a little table in the restaurant of one of the hotels at Lauzanne or Vevey, Montreux or Territet, after a walk along the lake side or up the mountain to Caux, and four days after one at a long table at Zermatt or the Riffel Alp, talking quite happily to perfect strangers on either side of him and eating the menu through from end to end, more conscious of the splendid appetite a day on the glaciers had given him than of what he is eating. Switzerland entirely demoralises the judgment of a gourmet, for its mountain air gives it undue advantages over most other countries, and an abundant appetite has a way of paralysing all the finer critical faculties. At one period all hotels in Switzerland were "run" on one simple, cheap, easy plan. There were meals at certain hours, there was a table in the big room for the English, another for the Germans, and another for mixed nationalities. If any one came late for a meal, so much the worse for him or her, for they had to begin at the course which was then going round. If travellers appeared when dinner was half over, they had to wait till it was quite finished; and then, as a favour, the _maître-d'hôtel_ would instruct a waiter to ask the cook to send the late comers in something to eat, which was generally some of the relics of the just-completed feast, the odours of which still hung about the great empty dining-hall. I fancy that it is a matter of history that M. Ritz, who has since become the Napoleon of hotels, coming as manager to the National at Lucerne and finding this system in practice, put an end to it at once and started the restaurant there, which was and is quite first class. Whether some one else was making history at the Schweitzerhof at the same time in the same way I do not know, but the two hotels have run neck and neck in the excellence of their restaurants, and not only are they first rate, but, as is always the case, the average of the cooking at the other hotels has gone up in sympathy, as the doctors would say, with the two leading caravanserais, and one usually finds that any one who has stayed at Lucerne has a good word to say for his hotel. I was once at Lucerne during race week, and was doubtful whether I should find a room vacant at either of the hotels I usually stay at. A charming old priest, who was a fellow-voyager, suggested to me that I should come to a little hotel hard by the river; and there, though the room I was given was of the very old continental pattern, the dinner my friend ordered for himself and me was quite excellent. I have breakfasted at the buffet at the station and found it very clean, and the simple food was well cooked. There is a restaurant at the Kursaal, but I have never had occasion to breakfast or dine there. In Northern Switzerland some of the towns have restaurants which are not attached to hotels, and Basle has quite a number of them, though the interest attaching to most of them is due to the quaintness of the buildings they are in or the fine view to be obtained from them rather than from any particular excellence of cookery or any surprisingly good cellar. The restaurant in the Kunsthalle, for instance, is ornamented by some good wall paintings; and by the old bridge there is a restaurant with a pleasant terrace overlooking the river. There is a good cellar at the Schutzenhaus, and there is music and a pretty garden as an attraction to take visitors out to the Summer Casino. Of the Bern restaurants much the same is to be said as of the Basle ones. Historical paintings are thought more of than the cook's department. The Kornhauskeller, in the basement of the Kornhaus, is a curious place and worth a visit for a meal. At the Schauzli, on a rise opposite the town, from the terrace of which there is a splendid view and where there is a summer theatre, there is a café-restaurant, and another on the Garten, a hill whence another fine view is obtainable. Geneva, for its size and importance, is the worst catered for capital in Europe. Outside the hotel restaurants, none of which have attained any special celebrity, there are but few restaurants, and those not of any conspicuous merit. There is a restaurant in the noisy Kursaal, and two in the Rue de Rhone, and most of the cafés on the Grand Quai are feeding-places as well; but I never ate a dinner yet in Geneva--and I have known the place man and boy, as they say in nautical melodrama, for thirty-five years--that was worth remembering; and though the trout are as palatable as they were when Cambacérès used to import them to France for his suppers, I have never tasted the _Ombre Chevalier_ of which Hayward wrote appreciatively. There are two little out-of-door restaurants which are amusing to breakfast at during the summer. One is in the Jardin Anglais and the other in the Jardin des Bastions. At each a cheap _table-d'hôte_ meal is served at little tables. There is also a restaurant in the Park des Eaux Vives. On the borders of the Lake of Geneva there are many good hotels, though some of the best of them pick and choose their visitors, and writing beforehand does not mean that a room will be found for a bachelor who only intends to stay a few days. The better the hotel the better the restaurant, and if the haughty hotel porter at the station says "No" very courteously when you look appealingly at him and ask if a room has been kept for you, the only way is to try the next on your list. Fresh-water fish, fruit, cheese, honey, are all excellent by the lake, and the wines of the Rhone valley are some of them excellent. At Lauzanne, Vevey, Montreux, Territet, the wines of the country are well worth tasting, for in the valley above Villeneuve there are a dozen vineyards each producing an excellent wine; and the vines imported from the Rhine valley, from the Bordeaux and Burgundy districts, give wine which is excellent to drink and curious as well, when the history of the vine is known. Always ask what the local cheese is. There are varieties of all kinds, and they afford a change from the eternal slab of Gruyère. Of course Switzerland has its surprises like every other country, and one does not expect to find an ex-head _chef_ of Claridge's running a little restaurant by a lake in the Swiss mountains. Mr. Elsener, who is this benefactor to humanity, was the head of the catering department at the Imperial Institute when a very praiseworthy effort was made to make a smart dining place in the arid waste called a garden in the centre of the buildings; and he also catered for the Coldstream Guards, so that he started business with a good _clientèle_. As a sample of what can be done on the mountain heights, I give the menu of one of the dinners served by Elsener at the restaurant Villa Fortuna:-- Huîtres d'Ostende. Consommé Riche. Filet de Sole au Vin Blanc. Tournedos à l'Othello. Petits Pois. Pommes paille. Vol-au-vent à la Banquier. Aspic de foie gras en belle vue. Melons Glacé Vénitienne. Petit Fours. Omelette à la Madras. Petit Soufflé au Parmesan. Dessert. N.N.-D.