The Gourmet\'s Guide to Europe
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GUIDE TO EUROPE
Publisher's Announcement
DINNERS AND DINERS:
Where and how to Dine in London
By Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis
_New and Revised Edition
Small Crown 8vo. Cloth._ 3/6
WHERE AND HOW TO DINE
IN PARIS
By Rowland Strong
_Fcap. 8vo. Cover designed cloth._ 2/6
* * * * *
London: GRANT RICHARDS
The
Gourmet's Guide
To Europe
BY
LIEUT.-COL. NEWNHAM-DAVIS
AND
ALGERNON BASTARD
EDITED BY THE FORMER
[Illustration]
London
GRANT RICHARDS
48 LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.
1903
The pleasures of the table are common to all ages and ranks, to all
countries and times; they not only harmonise with all the other
pleasures, but remain to console us for their loss.
Brillat Savarin.
PREFACE
Often enough, staying in a hotel in a foreign town, I have wished to
sally forth and to dine or breakfast at the typical restaurant of the
place, should there be one. Almost invariably I have found great
difficulty in obtaining any information regarding any such restaurant.
The proprietor of the caravanserai at which one is staying may admit
vaguely that there are eating-houses in the town, but asks why one
should be anxious to seek for second-class establishments when the best
restaurant in the country is to be found under his roof. The hall-porter
has even less scruples, and stigmatises every feeding-place outside the
hotel as a den of thieves, where the stranger foolishly venturing is
certain to be poisoned and then robbed. This book is an attempt to help
the man who finds himself in such a position. His guide-book may
possibly give him the names of the restaurants, but it does no more. My
co-author and myself attempt to give him some details--what his
surroundings will be, what dishes are the specialities of the house,
what wine a wise man will order, and what bill he is likely to be asked
to pay.
Our ambition was to deal fully with the capitals of all the countries of
Europe, the great seaports, the pleasure resorts, and the "show places."
The most acute critic will not be more fully aware how far we have
fallen short of our ideal than we are, and no critic can have any idea
of the difficulty of making such a book as we hope this will some day be
when complete. At all events we have always gone to the best authorities
where we had not the knowledge ourselves. Our publisher, Mr. Grant
Richards, quite entered into the idea that no advertisements of any kind
from hotels or restaurants should be allowed within the covers of the
book; and though we have asked for information from all classes of
gourmets--from ambassadors to the simple globe-trotter--we have not
listened to any man interested directly or indirectly in any hotel or
restaurant.
Hotels as places to live in we have not considered critically, and have
only mentioned them when the restaurants attached to them are the
dining-places patronised by the _bon-vivants_ of the town.
Over England we have not thrown our net, for _Dinners and Diners_ leaves
me nothing new to write of London restaurants.
In conclusion I beg, on behalf of my co-author and myself, to return
thanks to all the good fellows who have given us information; and I
would earnestly beg any travelling gourmet, who finds any change in the
restaurants we have mentioned, or who comes on treasure-trove in the
shape of some delightful dining-place we know nothing of, to take pen
and ink and write word of it to me, his humble servant, to the care of
Mr. Grant Richards, Leicester Square. So shall he benefit, in future
editions, all his own kind. We hear much of the kindness of the poor to
the poor. This is an opportunity, if not for the rich to be kind to the
rich, at least for those who deserve to be rich to benefit their
fellows.
N. Newnham-Davis.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PARIS
PAGE
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 1
CHAPTER II
FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS
The northern ports--Norman and Breton towns--The
west coast and Bordeaux--Marseilles and the Riviera--The
Pyrenees--Provence--Aix-les-Bains and other "cure" places 35
CHAPTER III
BELGIAN TOWNS
The food of the country--Antwerp--Spa--Bruges--Ostende 79
CHAPTER IV
BRUSSELS
The Savoy--The Epaule de Mouton--The Faille Dechiree--The
Lion d'Or--The Regina--The Helder--The Filet de
Sole--Wiltcher's--Justine's--The Etoile--The
Belveder--The Cafe Riche--Duranton's--The
Laiterie--Miscellaneous 90
CHAPTER V
HOLLAND
Restaurants at the Hague--Amsterdam--Scheveningen--
Rotterdam--The food of the people 105
CHAPTER VI
GERMAN TOWNS
The cookery of the country--Rathskeller and
beer-cellars--Dresden--Muenich--Nueremburg--Hanover--
Leipsic--Frankfurt--Duesseldorf--The Rhine valley--"Cure"
places--Kiel--Hamburg 110
CHAPTER VII
BERLIN
Up-to-date restaurants--Supping-places--Military
cafes--Night restaurants 144
CHAPTER VIII
SWITZERLAND
Lucerne--Basle--Bern--Geneva--Davos Platz 151
CHAPTER IX
ITALY
Italian cookery and wines--Turin--Milan--Genoa--
Venice--Bologna--Spezzia--Florence--Pisa--Leghorn--
Rome--Naples--Palermo 157
CHAPTER X
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
Food and wines of the country--Barcelona--San
Sebastian--Bilbao--Madrid--Seville--Bobadilla--
Grenada--Jerez--Algeciras--Lisbon--Estoril 178
CHAPTER XI
AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY
Viennese restaurants and cafes--Baden--Carlsbad--
Marienbad--Prague--Bad Gastein--Budapesth 196
CHAPTER XII
ROUMANIA
The dishes of the country--The restaurants of Bucarest 207
CHAPTER XIII
SWEDEN. NORWAY. DENMARK
Stockholm restaurants--Malmoe--Storvik--Gothenburg--
Christiana--Copenhagen--Elsinore 210
CHAPTER XIV
RUSSIA
Food of the country--Restaurants in Moscow--The
dining-places of St. Petersburg--Odessa--Warsaw 217
CHAPTER XV
TURKEY
Turkish dishes--Constantinople restaurants 226
CHAPTER XVI
GREECE
Grecian dishes--Athens 230
INDEX 233
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 _consommes_ 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 Duglere 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 entrees 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 a la Financiere_ 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 a 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'hote_ 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 Cafe 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 Cafe de Paris, at the corner of the Rue
Taitbout, the house which M. Martin Guepet brought to such fame, and
where the _Veau a 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 Cafe 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 Cafe 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 Cafe 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 Freres Provenceaux, the Cafe 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 Duglere 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 a la Gelee_ 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 Arene 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 _habitues_ 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 _clientele_, 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-Honore. The Cafe
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. Duglere 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 Duglere is the cookery still of the Anglais. _Potage Germiny_ is
claimed by the Cafe 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 _a la Duglere_ there can be no question
concerning, the _Barbue Duglere_ 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 Rotie_, _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-Honore, 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 _habitues_.
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-Honore 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 Elysees 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 attaches of the British Embassy used to breakfast there every day.
Nowadays, the _clientele_ 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 _habitues_, 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 _maitre-d'hotel_ 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
Desir 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 _maitre-d'hotel_ 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 a la Russe_, _Sole Paillard_, _Filet
de Sole Kotchoubey_, _Timbale de queues d'Ecrevisses Mantua_, _Cote de
Boeuf braise Empire_, _Pommes Macaire_, _Filet Paillard_, _Supreme de
Volaille Grand Duc_, _Rouennais Paillard_, _Baron d'agneau Henri IV._,
_Poularde Archiduc_, _Poularde a la Derby_, _Poularde Wladimir_, _Filet
de Selle Czarine_, _Becasse au Fumet_, _Rouennais a la Presse_,
_Terrine de Foie Gras a la gelee 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
_Creme Germiny_, _Barbue Paillard_, _Ortolans en surprise_, _Salade
Ideale_, 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:--