Chapter M: Ritz 184 (10)

MON CHER COLONEL,--Vous me demandez pour votre nouveau livre des recettes. Méfiez-vous des recettes. Depuis la cuisinière bourgeoise et le Baron Brisse on a chanté la chanson sur tous les airs et sur tous les tons. Et qu'en reste-t-il; qui s'en souvient? Je veux dire dans le public aristocratique pour qui vous écrivez, et que vous comptez intéresser avec votre nouvelle publication, cherchez le nouveau dans les à propos de table, donnez des conseils aux maîtresses de maison, qui dépensent beaucoup d'argent pour donner des dîners fatiguants, trop longs, trop compliqués; dîtes leur qu'un bon dîner doit être court, que les convives doivent manger et non goûter, qu'elles exigent de leur cuisinier ou cuisinière de n'être pas trop savants, qu'ils respectent avant tout le goût que le bon Dieu a donné à toutes choses de ne pas les dénaturer par des combinaisons, qui à force d'être raffinées deviennent barbares.

On a beaucoup parlé du cuisinier. Si nous exposions un peu ce que doit être le Maître d'Hôtel.

LE MAÎTRE D'HÔTEL FRANÇAIS

La plus grande force du Maître d'hôtel Français, je dis Maître d'hôtel Français à dessein, car si le cuisinier Français a su tirer parti des produits de la nature avec un art infini, pour en faire des aliments aimables, agréables, et bienfaisants, le Maître d'hôtel Français seul est susceptible de les faire accepter et désirer. Or voilà pour le Maître d'hôtel le champ qu'il a à explorer. Champ vaste s'il en fût, car deviner avec tact ce qui peut plaire à celui-ci et ne pas plaire à celui-là, est un problème à résoudre selon la nature, le tempérament et la nationalité de celui qu'il doit faire manger. Il doit donc être le conseil, le tentateur, et le metteur en scène. Il faut pour être un maître d'hôtel accompli, mettre de côté, ou de moins ne pas laisser percer le but commercial, tout en étant un commerçant hors ligne (je parle ici du maître d'hôtel public de restaurant, attendu que dans la maison particulière, le commerce n'a rien à voir, ce qui simplifie énormement le rôle du maître d'hôtel. Pour cela il faut être un peu diplomate, et un peu artiste dans l'art de dire, afin de colorer le projet de repas que l'on doit soumettre à son dîneur). Il faut donc agir sur l'imagination pour fair oublier la machine que l'on va alimenter, en un mot masquer le côté matériel de manger. J'ai acquis la certitude qu'un plat savamment préparé par un cuisinier hors ligne peut passer inaperçu, ou inapprécié si le maître d'hôtel, qui devient alors metteur en scène, ne sait pas présenter l'œuvre, de façon à le faire désirer, de sorte que si ce mets est servi par un maître d'hôtel qui n'en comprend pas le caractère, il lui sera impossible de lui donner tout son relief, et alors l'œuvre de cuisinier sera anéanti et passera inaperçu.

Ce maître d'hôtel doit être aussi un observateur et un juge et doit transmettre son appréciation au chef de cuisine, mais pour apprécier il faut savoir, pour savoir il faut aimer son art, le maître d'hôtel doit être un apôtre.

Il doit transmettre les observations qu'il a pu entendre pendant le cours d'un dîner de la part des convives, observations favorables ou défavorables, il doit les transmettre au chef et aviser avec lui. Il doit aussi être en observation, car il arrive le plus souvent que les convives ne disent rien à cause de leur amphitryon mais ne mangent pas avec plaisir et entrain le mets présenté: là encore le maître d'hôtel doit chercher le pourquoi. Il y a aussi dans un déjeuner ou un dîner un rôle très important réservé au maître d'hôtel. La variété agréable des hors-d'œuvre, la salade qui accompagne le rôti, le façon de découper ce rôti avec élégance, de bien disposer ce rôti sur son plat une fois découpé, découper bien et vite, afin d'éviter le réchaud qui sèche. Savoir mettre à point une selle de mouton, avec juste ce qu'il faut de sel sur la partie grasse, qui lui donnera un goût agréable.

Pour découper le maître d'hôtel doit se placer ni trop près ni trop loin des convives, afin que ceux-ci soient intéressés, et voient que tous les détails sont observés avec goût et élégance, de façon à tenter encore les appétits qui n'en peuvent presque plus mais qui renaissent encore un peu aiguillonnés par le désir qu'a su faire naître l'artiste préposé au repas, et qui a su donner encore envie à l'imagination, quand l'estomac commençait à capituler.

Le maître d'hôtel a de plus cette partie de la fin du dîner, le choix d'un bon fromage, les fruits, les soins de température à donner aux vins, la façon de décanter ceux-ci pour leur donner le maximum de bouquet; le maître d'hôtel ne peut-il encore être un tentateur avec la fraise frappée à la Marivaux? ou avec la pêche à la cardinal, qu'accompagne si bien le doux parfum de la framboise, légèrement acidulé d'une cuillerée de jus de groseille. Notre grand Carême qualifiait certains plats le "manger des Dieux." Combien l'expression est heureuse!

Depuis que je suis à Londres j'ai trouvé un nombre incalculable d'inventeurs de ma "pêche à la Cardinal." Il me faudra leur donner la recette un jour que j'en aurai l'occasion.

N'est-ce pas de l'art chez le maître d'hôtel qui tente et charme les convives par ces raffinements, et qui comme un cavalier sur une moture essoufflée sait encore relever son courage et lui faire faire la dernière foulée qui décide de la victoire? Après un bon repas le maître d'hôtel a la grande satisfaction d'avoir donné un peu de bonheur à de pauvres gens riches, qui ne sont pas toujours des heureux.

Et comme l'a dit Brillat Savarin "Le plaisir de la table ne nuit pas aux autres plaisirs." Au contraire, qui sait si _indirectement_ je ne suis pas le papa de bien des Bébés rieurs, ou la cause au moins de certaines aventures que mes jolies clientes n'évoquent qu'en souriant derrière leur éventail?

JOSEPH

_Directeur du Savoy Restaurant, Londres, et du Restaurant de Marivaux, Paris._

XLIV

THE SAVOY TO-DAY

After the Houses of Parliament, the Law Courts, the National Gallery, St Paul's and Westminster Abbey, the Savoy Hotel is probably the building that the well-to-do Londoner knows best. He cannot walk or drive down the Strand without his eye being caught by its milk-white frontage on that tumultuous street, and by the stern-faced gilded warrior above the courtyard entrance who leans on a shield that bears an heraldic bird, which I have no doubt is a very noble eagle, but which looks as though it had been plucked. When he comes home from abroad he, if he is looking to the right as he crosses the railway bridge to Charing Cross, sees the garden front of the hotel, with its balconies and many windows, and its flag aflutter, and recalling many good dinners in the past, looks forward to many others in the immediate future.

All the preliminaries to a dinner at the Savoy are pleasantly dignified. The drive into the courtyard, the cessation of noise as the wheels of car or carriage come upon the india-rubber paving under the glazed roof, the cream and dark green marbles of the entrance front, the trellis and flowers outside the Café, all contribute to pleasant anticipation; and once inside the doors, the hall panelled with dark woods, the glimpse through a long window of the light-coloured reading-room, and the progress down a flight of crimson-carpeted stairs, with walls of buff and brown marble on either side, form the first stage of the diner's progress to the restaurant.

Servants in the handsome state livery they wear in the evening--French grey and dark blue--take one's coat and hat, and it always gives me a moment of gratification that I am such an old habitué that it is not considered necessary to give me a ticket. Then if one is a host there is nothing to do except to sit in one of the comfortable chairs in this ante-chamber and to look alternately up the crimson stairs to see whether one's guests are arriving and down another flight of stairs across the great lounge to the crystal screen of great panes framed in gilt metal which is the transparent barrier between the restaurant and its approaches.

The lounge--crimson under foot, with walls light cream in colour, good copies of portraits by British old masters in panels alternating with looking-glass doorways; with pillars of buff marble, veined with brown and having gilt capitals, and bronze amorini and sculptured groups of the Graces as supports for electroliers--is a delightful room, as one realises after dinner when the hour of coffee has come. The band, wearing in the evening their uniform of dark blue, the leader distinguished by a silver sash--in the daytime they are in crimson--are in a corner of the lounge close against the crystal screen that their music may be heard in the restaurant. Arched entrances in the eastern wall lead into the Winter Garden, another great hall with a glazed ceiling, with roses climbing up trellis-work, and with a great recess, up a broad flight of stairs, with pillars of green marble and a gilded fountain against its wall. The _salon de verdure_, as it is grandiloquently called, is above the new ballroom, the two great apartments occupying the space where the courtyard used to be.

My guests of the particular night I am describing were my friend and old comrade, Pitcher, the editor of _Town Topics_, and his wife and his pretty daughter. I had determined that they should eat a typical Savoy dinner, and had been at some pains to obtain a really representative feast. Before I went away on my travels in the summer I had interviewed M. Blond, the general manager (who was brought back when he was half-way to Rome two years ago to take up the management of the Savoy), in his sanctum, telling him that when in the autumn I intended to write a couple of chapters concerning the Savoy, I should like to give a dinner including some of the specialities of the cuisine, and that I should like to have something descriptive to say as to such of the dishes of which the Savoy is proud that were not included in my little feast. We took into our conference M. Rouget, the Maître-Chef of the Savoy, who looks the genial, burly, contented person that the head of a great kitchen should be, and we chatted over new dishes and dishes with new names (which are not the same thing), and he gave me some particulars of his kitchens and of the great army of cooks employed in the Savoy, there being as many as two hundred and ten in the brigade.

When, being back again in London, I carried out my intention of asking my editor to dinner, M. Soi, the manager of the restaurant, came into counsel. When I had made up my mind on the important matter whether my dinner should cost twelve-and-six or fifteen-and-six a head, and had stated that I should like the more expensive feast, I added that I hoped that no beef would be included in the menu, for Pitcher had been complaining of preliminary symptoms of gout. M. Soi on the day we were to dine--a Sunday--submitted to me a menu which I duly initialled as approved.

My guest and his wife, looking as young as her pretty daughter, duly arrived to the moment. M. Soi, young and good-looking, with a light moustache--he was under Ritz in various restaurants, and has been at the Grand Hotel in Rome as restaurant manager, going in the summer to the Palace Hotel at St Moritz, before three years ago he came to the Savoy--received us at the entrance, and we were piloted to a table a comfortable distance away from the band, from which the ladies had a full view of the room, full, as it always is, with good-looking people, the softer sex all being in frocks that gave my lady guests plenty to talk about. I gave my guests the menu, which, of course, I had previously seen, to look at, as soon as they had settled down, and I used my eyes to take in my surroundings.

Though I regret the disappearance of the mahogany panelling, which is stowed away somewhere in the hotel, as one regrets the loss of an old friend, the pleasant buff colouring of the present restaurant, with its frieze of raised decoration and the electric light thrown up on to the ceiling and reflected down, which is most comfortable to the eye, make for lightness; and light as distinguished from glare is an aid to good spirits in a restaurant. The balcony of to-day, twice the width of the old balcony, and fitted with a long awning for use on sunshiny days--an awning which cost an almost incredible sum of money--is in request both at lunch and dinner and supper-time; and at lunch it has the supreme advantage of commanding the one great view in Central London, the river and the gardens and the Houses of Parliament grouping into a splendid picture, only spoiled by the blot of the unlovely railway bridge.

This was the menu of the Savoy dinner that M. Soi considered typical:

Délices de Sterlet.
Blinis de Sarrasin.
Consommé de Terrapine en Tasse. Kapusniack.
Suprême de Sole Divine.
Diablotin Cancalaise.
Filet de Perdreau Bonne Bouche.
Croquettes de Marrons.
Noisette d'Agneau de Galles Eldorado.
Fond d'Artichaut Clamart.
Poularde soufflée Savoy.
Salade Cornelia.
Poire de Paris Tosca.
Frivolités.
Canapé Esperanza.

--and as the accompanying wine I had ordered some sherry with the _caviar_, a magnum of Pommery and some Mattoni water.

A most admirable dinner it was, rather long, perhaps, to my taste, but it would have been difficult to get enough distinctive dishes into a shorter menu. The _sterlet caviar_ on the little Russian pancakes made an admirable _hors d'œuvre_; the _consommé_ was of turtle, but much lighter than the usual turtle soup; the _kapusniack_ is a Russian soup, in which leeks, celery, turnips, onions, mushrooms, pig's ear, crushed tomatoes and cabbage seasoned with vinegar play a part, and it is served with cream stirred into it, and with those little _pâtés_ of which the Russians are so fond when broken into the soup. The sole was garnished with fried oysters covered with bread-crumbs, and the _filet de perdreau_, which was the supreme triumph of the dinner, consisted of grilled _suprêmes_ of partridges and grilled rashers of bacon dipped in _poivrade_ sauce. The _noisettes_ were the one plain dish of the dinner, but the asparagus ends tucked away in the hearts of artichokes gave it its cachet. The cold chicken filled with a _mousse_ of _foie gras_ was a very noble dish, and tiny mushrooms, formed from some kind of _mousse_, which apparently grew amidst the truffles, and slices of chicken breast which surrounded the white bird adorned with Pompeiian drawings, were a very happy idea. The nuts soaked in Kummel which we found in the interior of the pears, which were served with a red currant ice, was another happy idea much appreciated by the ladies, and the _canapé esperanza_ proved to be soft roes on toast.

This dinner takes a very high place amongst the many good dinners I have eaten in my time in the Savoy Restaurant. My bill came to £5, 2s.

Some of the Savoy specialities for which there were not room in one dinner menu are _huîtres Baltimore_, which are oysters grilled with bacon; _bortsch Polonaise, homard Miramar, sylphide Savoy,_ which is a very attractive way of serving lamb sweetbreads; _mignonettes d'agneau à la Delhi, soufflés belle de nuit,_ which is a variant of the _soufflé surprise_, peaches and strawberry and vanilla ice being used in it; and the noble _bécasse à la Soi_, an invention of M. Soi, which is the breast of a woodcock served with a most delightful sauce on toast covered with _foie gras_.

I have mentioned the ballroom which has taken the place of the old courtyard and its fountain, and in which many of the great banquets given at the Savoy are held. It is a fine room, light grey in colour, splendidly spacious, and when lighted up its colour shows off the ladies' dresses to perfection. My only objection to it as a banqueting-room was that the white light, which is admirable for a ballroom, was rather too glary for a dining-room. This has now been obviated by lessening the light when dinners are given in the room. If the Savoy could find some means of shading the lamps with pink or putting on pink glasses to the lamps on the occasion of banquets, it would, I think, please those like myself who think that the best light for a dining-room is a pink one.

I asked M. Blond to give me the menu of any recent Savoy banquet of which the management was especially proud, not that I have not preserved many menus of many great dinners, but that I wished to shift the responsibility of selection on to his shoulders. This is the menu of the banquet and wines he has sent me as being typical of great Savoy feasts:

Caviar de Bélouga.
Blinis à la Gouriew.
Queue de Bœuf à la Française.
Crème Germiny.
Filets de Sole à l'Aiglon.
Suprême de Volaille à l'Aurore.
Côte d'Agneau de Lait au Beurre Noisette.
Pommes Lorette.
Velouté Forestière.
Délice de Strasbourg à la Gelée de Vin du Rhin.
Bécassine Double Flambée à l'Armagnac.
Perles du Perigord.
Cœurs de Laitues Suzette.
Asperges Vertes de Paris.
Comices Toscane.
Soufflé Pont l'Évêque.
Corbeilles de Fruits.

WINES.
Schloss Johannisberg Cabinet, 1893.
Veuve Clicquot, 1904.
Magnums Pommery and Greno (Nature), 1904.
Chât. Haut Brion "Cachet du Château," 1888.
Cockburn's 1890 (Bottled 1893).
Croft's 1881 (Bottled 1884).
Hennessey's 70 year old Cognac.

Many of the dishes included in this great dinner I hope I may meet at a future time at Savoy banquets.

XLV

THE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS

Dining one wet night in September at the Restaurant des Gourmets in Lisle Street I told the young manager, with whom I chatted, that it must be ten years since I dined there, and that at that time M. Brice was the proprietor. The manager's reply was that fourteen years ago M. Brice sold the restaurant to its present proprietors. I looked up the date of my last visit to the Gourmets when I got home, and found that it was in 1898. It was a queer little place of very eatable food at extraordinarily cheap prices when first I made its acquaintance. It then occupied the ground floor of one of the little houses in Lisle Street, the street in which is the stage door of the Empire Theatre, and Mr George Edwardes' offices at the back of Daly's Theatre. The outside of the restaurant in those days did not look inviting. The woodwork was painted leaden grey, and a yellow curtain hung inside the window to screen the interior from the view of the public. The glass of the door was whitened and "Entrée" written across it in black paint. There were as many little tables, to hold two or four, as could be crammed into the little room; the benches by the wall were covered with black leather, the walls were grey, with wooden pegs all round on which to hang hats and coats, and, here and there, notices on boards "La Pipe est interdite." By the window was a long counter, on which were bowls of salad and stacks of French loaves, and a metal coffee-making machine. By this counter stood a plump Frenchwoman in black with an apron, who shouted orders down a lift, and up the lift came presently in response the dish called for. M. Brice, a little Frenchman with a slight beard and wearing a grey cap, came and sat on a chair by the table and told me who the star guests were amongst the people of all nationalities who filled all the space on the chairs and benches. The _chef d'orchestre_ of the Moore and Burgess Minstrels at St James's Hall was one of the celebrities; another, a gentleman wearing a red tie, was a journalist who contributed articles on Anarchists to the newspapers; there were some Frenchmen who were big men in the greengrocery line, and came over occasionally to Covent Garden; and the greatest celebrity of all was a clean-shaven, prosperous-looking person, the coachman of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild. My bill that evening totalled 2s. 7d., and for this I obtained _hors d'œuvre_, 2d.; _pain_, 1d.; _potage, pâté d'Italie_, 2d.; _poisson_, 8d. (the expensive dish of my dinner, turbot and caper sauce); _gigot haricot_, 6d.; an _omelette_, 4d.; cheese, 2d.; and a pint of claret, of which M. Brice had purchased a supply at the sale of the surplus wines of the Café Royal, which cost me no more than 6d.

The front of the Restaurant des Gourmets to-day stretches across three of the houses in Lisle Street, and it has, besides the ground-floor rooms, quite a spacious restaurant on the first floor, made by throwing the three rooms of the houses into one. Its ground-floor front is painted chocolate colour, and its principal entrance, between two of the houses, is quite imposing, has little Noah's Ark trees and a _chasseur_ in buttons, stationed there to direct visitors to the different rooms and to call taxis. The staircase, with brass edges to the steps and a brass rail, and with walls of white panelling, leads to the restaurant upstairs, and a little pay-desk, with an opening like those in a railway ticket office, faces one at the entrance, and it is here that every visitor pays his bill as he goes out. I looked in at all three downstairs rooms, which are bright with coloured papers on their walls, and found all the tables occupied, before I went upstairs into the larger restaurant. There I found a little table vacant, and sat down at it with grim apprehension that I might have what scanty hair I possess on the top of my head blown off, for just above it was a large electric fan. It was, however, not necessary, the night being cool, to set this going, and I ate my dinner in a calm atmosphere.

The Gourmets has become quite smart since Madame H. Cosson and her son succeeded M. Brice in the proprietorship. The upstairs restaurant is panelled with white woodwork above a green skirting, there are mirrors in the panelling, and the range of windows looking out on to Lisle Street have white lace curtains. There is a table in the middle of the room, and upon it fruits and big-leaved plants and a basket with bunches of grapes hung invitingly along the handle. Two big stands of Austrian bent-wood for hats and coats are placed as sentinels on either side of this table. There is a round-faced clock on the wall to tell the time, and at intervals notices to say that all drinks must be paid for in advance, which means, I suppose, that the Gourmets has not yet obtained a wine and spirit licence. No notice forbidding pipes is now necessary. The waiters in dress clothes and black ties bustle about, and when I had given my order for _crème de laitue, cabillaud frit, poulet au riz, sauce suprême,_ and pudding Gourmets, I looked round at my fellow-guests to see if I could pick out any celebrities. There was no M. Brice this time to act as a "Who's Who in Lisle Street," and most of the people who were dining seemed to me to be young couples. Indeed from the tables in my vicinity a painter could have limned a series of pictures of the various stages of matrimony. At the table next to mine sat a young couple who were still in the holding hands state of love, who were thinking a great deal about each other and very little about their dinner, and who ordered anything that the waiter suggested to them; further on was a couple, each of whom was reading a newspaper, and next to them again a young husband and wife, who had brought out to dinner a pig-tailed little girl of six or seven, whose manners were most admirable, for she bade the waiter "Good-night" when she went away with all the grace of a duchess. Beyond these again was an elderly couple, who sat together at one side of a table, an affectionate Darby and Joan.

My soup when it came tasted rather too strongly of pepper, but the fried cod was excellent. The _poulet au riz_ was all that it should be, and the pudding Gourmets was a simple version of the well-known pudding Diplomate.

Prices have gone up a little at the Gourmets since my first visit there, owing, of course, to the general rise in the price of material. I was charged 3d. for the soup, 6d. for the cod; I had rushed into wild extravagance in ordering chicken, for that cost me 1s. 3d., and the price of the pudding Gourmets was 4d.

XLVI

THE MAXIM RESTAURANT

There may not appear at first blush to be any close connection between Wardour Street, that length of it which lies between Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street, and the pleasant Austrian watering-place of Marienbad; but whenever I traverse the thoroughfare where the wax figures simper in Clarkson's, the wig-maker's, windows, and where the French library at one of the corners always keeps some passers-by in front of it looking at the illustrated papers and post cards, the china figures and the covers of the novels, there rises before me when I come to the Maxim Restaurant a vision of hills covered with pine-woods and of the Café Rubezahl, a castellated building of great red roofs and turrets and spires, high up on the green hill-side, the café at which the late King Edward often drank the good Austrian coffee of an afternoon during his annual August trip to the town of healing waters.

The Rubezahl was, in an indirect manner, the parent of the Restaurant Maxim in Wardour Street, for when the organisers of the Austro-Hungarian Exhibition at Earl's Court cast about for attractions which would be in keeping with the spirit of the exhibition it occurred very naturally to them that an Austrian restaurant where the admirable plain Austrian dishes could be eaten and where the Hungarian wines and the cool beer of Pilsen could be drunk would be a pleasant novelty; and such a restaurant was established opposite to the Welcome Club, and was eminently successful. And to manage this restaurant the son-in-law of the proprietor of the Rubezahl came from the Austrian Highlands, and when King Edward lunched at the restaurant and was given a typical Austrian meal of "cure food" he recognised M. Maximilian Lurion, the manager, and chatted with him concerning Marienbad and the Rubezahl. When Earl's Court had closed its doors for the winter M. Maxim Lurion was not unwilling to stay in London, and he, in conjunction with a British syndicate, thought that a site at the corners of Wardour and Gerrard Streets, which was then in the market, would be a suitable position for a restaurant. A small public-house carrying a licence was included in the purchase, and when everything else on the site was pulled down the business part of the old house of refreshment stood, looking like a saloon of the Wild West, amidst the ruins. When a name had to be found for the new restaurant, the shortened form of M. Lurion's Christian name was chosen, and the building became the Restaurant Maxim. No doubt Maxim's, in Paris, came by its name in a like manner, for Maximilian is a very usual name in central and eastern Europe.

Maxim's has always kept a clean face in a street not remarkable for smartness, and its white exterior, the touches of gilding on the wreaths that embellish its outer walls, its rows of mauresque white-curtained narrow windows on the first floor, its turret domed with silver, the flowers in its green and gold balconies, and the commissionaire in a well-fitting coat who stands by the front door, near the two large menus which set forth what is the dinner of the day, make it a pleasant feature of the street.

When the Maxim was first opened M. Lurion took me over the establishment from garret to basement, and showed me how the coffee is made in Austria, though Austrian coffee never tastes so well in London surroundings as it does under the little trees of the hill-side cafés in Carlsbad or Marienbad, or in one of the open-air restaurants in the Prater of Vienna. The Maxim, however, did not at first fulfil the hopes of its promoters. Whether its name frightened people or whether it was too ambitious in its aims I do not know, but it soon changed hands.

When one evening last summer I went to the Maxim to dine before going to one of the theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, I found M. Ducker, the present manager, in the entrance hall near the cloak-room where hats and coats are left, and he told me all about the varying fortunes of the restaurant, who are its present proprietors, and of the struggle that was necessary to bring it to its present state of prosperity, for prosperous it now is, there being not a vacant table either on the ground floor or the first floor when I came in. While I talked to M. Ducker a couple, who had finished their dinner, rose from a table by the brass ornamental rail surrounding the oval opening which makes the restaurant on the first floor a balcony to the room below, a waiter slipped a clean cloth on to the table, and in a few seconds it was ready for my occupation. M. Ducker hoped I would have a good dinner, and left me to the care of the _maître d'hôtel_, and as the waiter covered the table with little dishes containing _hors d'œuvres_ I looked at the menu, at my surroundings, and at the company. This was the menu of the half-crown dinner of the house, the arms of the establishment, three stags' heads on a shield, with a boar's head as a crest, and two stags as supporters, being at the top of the menu card:

Hors d'œuvre à la Russe.
Consommé Chiffonnette.
Crème Gentilhomme.
Suprême de Barbue Niçoise.
Carré de Pré-Salé Bourguignonne.
Pommes fondantes.
Poulet en Casserole.
Salade.
Glacé Chantilly.
Dessert.

In the upper restaurant of the Maxim, where I sat, the walls are papered deep red, with white woodwork and white classic ornamentation. There are mirrors on the walls, and on a large panel the arms of the house are displayed in proper heraldic colours. The cut glass electroliers, some hanging, some fixed to the ceiling, give light both to the upper and lower restaurants. The lower restaurant is panelled and is all white, red-shaded lamps on the tables and some palms making a contrast of colour. Down in the basement is a grill-room. The chairs are of white wood upholstered in green leather, and the carpets are a deep rose in colour. The little string band of the establishment plays in the upper restaurant, its leader, who is a talented violinist, standing close by the brazen railing so that his music shall be as well heard below as it is above.

Every table, as I have written, was occupied this evening in both the stages of the restaurant. There are two circular lines of tables above, one close to the railings, one against the walls, and the people who sat at them belonged to all the various grades of respectable London. At the table by the wall level with mine were a young man and a pretty girl. He was smoking a cigarette, she was drinking a cup of coffee, and they were evidently obtaining their evening's entertainment in listening to the music. At the table beyond them were a little lady whom I include amongst my pleasant acquaintances, her husband and a friend. Four men, in dinner jackets and black ties, were at the table beyond them, and then other couples, young and old, and other little parties of three and four. Here and there were people, like myself, dressed to go to a theatre; but the Maxim is in the land of Bohemia, where there are no customs as to wearing clothes of ceremony. What chiefly struck me as to the diners at the Maxim was that they were all enjoying to the uttermost their half-crown's worth of dinner and music. There were smiling faces at all the tables, and the applause at the conclusion of each item of the band programme was very enthusiastic. The eating of satisfactory food and the drinking of sound wine are not the only dining pleasures that make glad the heart of an epicure, and to be amongst people who are enjoying themselves thoroughly is a delight that cannot be written down on a menu or contained between the covers of a wine list.

To come to the important matter of the dinner I ate at the Maxim, the _crème gentilhomme_, a thick green soup, flavoured, I fancy, with spinach, was excellent, and there was no fault to find with the fish and its pink accompaniment of tomatoes and shrimps. When I came to the next course a strange thing happened. I had noticed, and appreciated as a special personal compliment, the presence of a jar of caviare amongst the _hors d'œuvres_; but when, instead of _pré-salé_ mutton, a tender _tournedos_ of beef was put before me, a great fear came upon me that I was eating somebody else's specially ordered dinner, perhaps that of the manager himself. On consideration, when a plump roast chicken was brought me instead of a portion of the bird _en casserole_, I came to the conclusion that the manager had conspired with the cook to give me more than my half-crown's worth of food, and when a noble bowl of _fraises Melba_ was placed before me instead of the small _glacé Chantilly_ I felt sure that I had been put on the "most-favoured nation" basis. But this overkindness was not needed, for, watching my neighbours, I saw that the mutton they ate looked toothsome; I would just as soon have been served my wing of a chicken from a white-metal _casserole_ as from a plate, and I am quite sure that the temptation to eat too many strawberries and ice brought me near the deadly sin of greediness.

To anyone making a dining tour of the restaurants of London, I commend the Maxim Restaurant as a bright and cheerful place, in a neighbourhood where brightness is not the rule, where good-tempered, pleasant diners appreciate the food and the music they get for their half-crowns.

XLVII

BIRCH'S

No. 15 Cornhill, which dates back to about 1700, is a little slip of a building, old-fashioned in appearance and tall in comparison to its breadth, its ground area being just fifteen feet by thirty. This is Birch's, the famous little pastry-cook's shop, which for years almost unnumbered has supplied the Lord Mayor's Mansion House banquets and the great feasts at the Guildhall.

Its ground floor has an old-fashioned carved front with three windows with little panes, one of ground glass in the centre of each window setting forth that soups, ices and wine are to be obtained within. The woodwork of the front is curiously carved, the carving having reappeared in recent years, when coat after coat of paint was taken off, a section of the various layers being of as many colours as a Neapolitan ice. The double door of the little shop, unusual in shape, also has glass panels. There used to be on the woodwork of the door an old brass plate on which, in letters almost worn out by constant rubbing, the name of the proprietor was given as Birch, late Hornton. But some young bloods one night screwed this off and it has disappeared. Through the glass windows can be seen many wedding cakes, biscuits in tall glass cylinders and a royal crown which was probably part of the table decorations at some great feast.

The little shop has an atmosphere of its own. Directly one goes into it one smells the good scent of turtle soup and Old Madeira, with an added aroma of puff pastry. The shop is divided into two parts by an open screen, and a counter runs its full length. There are old black bottles in glass cupboards, and decanters on shelves, and an old clock. The floor is saw-dusted, and men in white aprons bustle about attending to the wants of the customers. Tray after tray of pastry of all kinds is put on the counter and cleared within a few minutes of their appearance. Dignified City men, plate in hand, jostle each other to get a first chance at the macaroons, to obtain a still smoking bun, or a three-cornered puff fresh from the oven. Plates of sandwiches are put before customers to disappear with great rapidity. Whiskies and sodas, glasses of Old Madeira or Port or East Indian Sherry seem to be the favourite drinks. When a customer has eaten all he wants and drunk all he wants, he tells an amiable lady in black what he has taken, and she, being a lightning calculator, tells him in reply what he has to pay.

The soup-room on the first floor, to which a flight of narrow little steps ascends, has a calmer atmosphere. Here, in a room with walls the paper of which has been turned to a deep amber tint by the London atmosphere, gentlemen sup, sitting down, their plates of turtle soup or oxtail, and drink their wine with dignified composure. There are tall white wedding cakes under glasses in this room also. The servitors in white aprons are busy in the soup-room, though not quite as busy as downstairs amongst the jam puffs.

Up yet another Jacob's ladder of stairs is the ladies' room, which I fancy is used as a chapel of ease for the soup-room, though it is said that rich old widow ladies going quarterly to draw their income from the Bank of England always go into Birch's for a plate of turtle soup and a glass of sherry. Yet one flight of stairs higher is the office of the firm of Messrs Ring and Brymer, who have owned Birch's since 1836. In this room, in old leather-covered books, are wonderful records of hecatombs of baked meats and roasted fowl served at City banquets without end. The two oldest members of the firm have died of late years. These two old gentlemen, Mr Ring and Mr Brymer, who looked like archdeacons in mufti, and had exactly the right dignity for men who provide and control the Lord Mayor's feasts, had both a wonderful memory for banquets that the firm had provided. I happened to mention one day in their presence that a forbear of mine, a banker and brewer, Alderman Newnham, had been Lord Mayor of London, and at once they said that in their books were the details of a feast given by the worthy old gentleman when he was sheriff, and taking down an old volume they showed me how many gallons of turtle soup, the number of sirloins of beef, and the quantity of fair white chickens, orange jellies and plum puddings that the old alderman paid for. It is a very cosy little room in which to lunch, this office of the firm, and the turtle soup, with its great squares of turtle flesh in it, a sole Colbert, a grouse pie, angels on horseback, and a big helping of that wonderful orange jelly, a clouded delicacy that has the flavour of the orange stronger than any other jelly made by any other pastry-cook, and which is a speciality of the house, taste all the better for being eaten in the little room on the walls of which are old Guildhall menus and old pictures of City feasts and portraits of city celebrities, and many letters from the great panjandrums of City companies, giving praise to Messrs Ring and Brymer for the excellence of the banquets supplied by them.

All the preparations for a Guildhall or a Company banquet, except the cooking that goes on in the kitchens of the halls, used to be made in the kitchens below No. 15 Cornhill, and the houses on either side of it, and it used to be one of the free afternoon sights of the City to see the kitchen-men carrying out through the little entrance door the soup and the pastry, the jellies and the cakes for a City banquet. When two great insurance offices squeezed in on either side of the pastry-cook's shop, Messrs Ring and Brymer had to look for other kitchens, and they now have a house in Bunhill Row, where on the top storey there is a great kitchen for the cooking of the soup and other delicacies, and where in the basement the turtles spend their last sad days before being butchered to make a Lord Mayor's holiday. At Bunhill Row there is also a cosy little office with the arms of many of the City companies as its wall ornaments.

Old Tom Birch, who was the second of his line, the son of Lucas Birch who succeeded the Hornton dynasty, was a man of many interests and a great celebrity of the City. His Christian name was Samuel, but he was "Tom" in the mouths of all City men. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1814, the only pastry-cook who has ever attained to that high dignity. He was a great orator, and an enthusiastic supporter of Pitt; he was Lieut.-Colonel of the first regiment of Loyal London Volunteers raised at the time of the French Revolution, and he wrote several comedies which were performed at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. There is still extant a song of the day, which no doubt in its time had a great success in City circles, in which a Frenchman coming to London, and being taken round the sights, is surprised to learn that the colonel of a regiment he sees on parade is old Tom Birch, the pastry-cook; that a governor holding forth to the boys at St Paul's School; that an orator in the Guildhall; and that the author of a comedy at Covent Garden, are all one and the same estimable old Tom.

A Lord Mayor's Guildhall banquet to-day has all the same outward pomp and gorgeousness that it had eighty or a hundred years ago. But a Lord Mayor's banquet, so far as good things to eat and to drink are concerned, is absolutely different to-day from what it was half-a-century ago. This is the menu of the feast that Messrs Ring and Brymer provided on Lord Mayor's day 1913 for the Guildhall banquet. The baron of beef is, of course, just as much a civic dish as is the turtle soup, but the dinner is, on the whole, quite a light one:

Turtle. Clear Turtle.
Fillets of Turbot Duglère.
Lobster Mousse.
Turban of Sweetbread and Truffles.
Baron of Beef.
Salad.
Casserole of Partridge.
Cutlets Royale.
Tongues.
Orange Jelly.
Italian Creams. Strawberry Creams.
Maids of Honour.
Princess Pastry.
Ices. Dessert.

The wines for this occasion were: Punch. Sherry--Gonzalez. Hock--Rüdesheim. Champagne--Clicquot, 1904; Bollinger, 1904. Moselle--Scharzberger. Claret--La Rose, 1899. Port--Dow's, 1896. Bénédictine. Grande Chartreuse. Perrier. The cost of the dinner, including wine, came to about two guineas a head.

And now as a contrast I give you the menu of the banquet given in the Guildhall on Lord Mayor's Day, 1837. This was a Royal entertainment. The menu is a yard in length, and it comprises the dishes at the Royal table and the general bill of fare as well. I only give you the dishes served at the Royal table, which form an extraordinary mass of flesh, of fish, fruit, fowl, in season and out of season. The buffet, no doubt, held the dishes for which there was not room on the table. The wines served at this banquet are put down simply as Champagne, Hock, Claret, Burgundy, Madeira, Port, Sherry:

THREE POTAGES.
Potage de Tortue à l'Anglaise.
Consommé de Volaille.
Potage à la Brunoise.

THREE PLATS DE POISSON.
Turbot bouilli garni aux Merlans frits.
Rougets farcis à la Villeroi.
Saumon bouilli garni aux Eperlans.

THREE RELEVÉS.
Poulets bouillis, aux Langues de Veau Glacés, garnis de
Croustade à la Macédoine.
Noix de Veau en Daube décorée à la Bohémienne.
Filet de Bœuf à la Sanglier en Chasse.

EIGHT ENTREMETS.
Ris d'Agneau piqués à la Turque aux petits Pois.
Sauté de filets de Faisans aux Truffes.
Pâté chaud aux Bécassines à l'Italienne.
Casserole de pieds d'Agneau aux Champignons.
Sultanne de filets de Soles à la Hollandaise, garnis aux Ecrevisses.
Timbale de Volaille à la Dauphine.
Filets de Lièvre confis aux Tomates.
Côtelettes de Perdreaux au Suprême.

BUFFET.
Potage à la Turque.
Hochepot de Faisan.
Tranches de Cabillaud.
Eperlans frits.
Langue de Bœuf.
Jambon à la Jardinière.
Bœuf rôti. Mouton rôti.
Agneau rôti. Agneau bouilli.
Hanche de Venaison.
Pierre grillé au Vin de Champagne,
Petit Pâtés aux Huîtres.
Croquettes.
Côtelettes d'Agneau aux Concombres.
Dindon rôti aux Truffes à l'Espagnole.

SECOND SERVICE.

THREE PLATS DE RÔTI.
Faisans.
Bécasses.
Cercelles.

THREE RELEVÉS.
Souflet de Vanille.
Pommes à la Portugaise.
Gaufres à la Flamande.

FOUR PÂTISSERIES MONTÉES.
Vase en Croquante garni de Pâtisserie aux Confitures.
Fontaine Grecque, garnie aux petit-choux.
Vase de Beurre frais aux Crevettes.
Fontaine Royale garnie de Pâtisserie à la Genévoise.

TWELVE ENTREMETS.
Crème d'Ananas garnie.
Gelée au Vin de Champagne garnie aux fruits.
Homards à la Rémoulade.
Mayonnaise de Poulet à l'Aspic.
Fanchonettes d'Orange, garnies aux Pistaches.
Compôte des Pêches, en petits Panniers.
Tartelettes aux Cerises, en Nougat.
Petites Coupes d'Amarids à la Chantilly.
Culs d'Artichauts en Mayonnaise.
Anguille au Beurre de Montpellier.
Gelée au Marasquin, décorée.
Gâteaux de Pommes en Mosaïque, à la Crème d'Abricot.

BUFFET.
Poulets rôtis.
Bécassines rôties.
Canards Sauvages rôtis.
Tourte aux Pommes.
Tourte aux Cerises.
Beignets de Pommes.
Fondu de Parmesan.
Trifle à la Crème.
Plum Pudding.
Mince Pies.

No wonder our grandfathers mostly died of apoplexy!

XLVIII

A CITY BANQUET

THE MERCERS' HALL

I do not think that of all the dinners I have eaten with various hospitable City Companies in their halls I could select a more representative one than one I ate with the Mercers. That we drank 1884 Pommery at the banquet shows that it did not take place yesterday.

* * * * *

If there was one City Company that I was anxious to dine with it was the Mercers, for most of my forebears had been of the guild. My great-great-uncle, who was Lord Mayor and an M.P., and who fell into unpopularity because he advocated paying the debts of George IV., was a Mercer; my great-uncle was in his turn Master of the Company, and my grandfather, who was a very peppery and litigious old gentleman, has left many pamphlets in which he tried to make it warm for everybody all round because he was not raised to the Court of Assistants when he thought he should have been. I had looked out Mercers' Hall in the Directory, and found its position put down as 4 Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside; so a few minutes before seven o'clock, the hour at which we were bidden to the feast, I found my way from Moorgate Street Station to Ironmonger Lane, and there asked a policeman which was the Mercers' Company Hall. He looked at me a little curiously and pointed to some great gates, with a lamp above them, enshrined in a rather dingy portal. I passed a fountain, of which two cherubs held the jet and three stone cranes contemplated the water in the basin, and found myself in a great pillared space. A servant in a brown livery, of whom I asked my way, pointed to some steps and said something about hurrying up. At the top of the steps a door led me into a passage, on either side of which were sitting gentlemen in dress clothes. I looked at them and they looked at me, and I thought for a second that the Mercers' guests were rather a queer lot; and then the true inwardness of the situation burst on me. I had come in by the waiters' door.

I was soon put right, my hat and coat taken from me, and my card of invitation placed in the hands of a Master of the Ceremonies, who in due time presented me to the Master, to the Senior Warden, and to the House Warden, who stood in a line, arrayed in garments of purple velvet and fur, and received their guests.

The ceremony of introduction over, I was able to look around me and found myself in a drawing-room that took one away from the roar of Cheapside to some old Venetian Palace. The painted ceilings, the many-coloured marbles, the carved wood, the gilding and inlaying make the Mercers' drawing-room as princely a chamber as I have ever seen.

While the guests assembled my host's sons took me away into another room, which, with its long table, might have been a council chamber of some Doge, and here were hung portraits of the most distinguished of the Mercers. Dick Whittington looked down from a gilt frame, and so did Sir Thomas Gresham, and there was Roundell Palmer in his judge's robes. But, preceded by someone in robes carrying a staff of office, the Master was going into the hall, and the guests streamed after him. "It only dates from after the Fire," said my host, as I gazed in admiration at the magnificent proportions of this banqueting-house, the oak almost black with age, relieved by the colours of the banners that hang from the walls, by the portraits of worthies, by some noble painted windows, by the line of escutcheons which run round the room, bearing the arms of the Past-Masters of the Company, and by the carved panels, into all but two of which Grinling Gibbons threw his genius, while the two new ones compare not unfavourably with the old. At the far end of the hall is a musicians' gallery of carved oak. A bronze Laocoon wrestles with his snakes at one side of the hall, and on the other, on a mantel of red marble, a great clock is flanked by two bronzes. Three long tables run up the room to the high table, at the centre of which is the Master's chair, and behind this chair is piled on the sideboard the Company's plate. And some of the plate is magnificent. There are the old silver salt-cellars, there are great silver tankards, gold salvers, and the gold cup given to the Mercers by the Bank of England and the Lee cup and an ornamental tun and waggon, the first of which is valued at £7000 and the second at £10,000.

"Pray, silence for grace," came in the deep bass tones of the toast-master from behind the Master's chair, and then all of us settled down to a contemplation of the menu and to a view of our fellow-guests.

This was the dinner that Messrs Ring and Brymer, who cater for the Mercers, put upon the table:

Tortue. Tortue claire.
Consommé printanière.

Salade de filets de soles à la russe.
Saumon. Sauce homard.
Blanchaille.

Ortolans en caisse.
Mousse de foie gras aux truffes.

Ponche à la Romaine.

Hanches de venaison.
Selles de mouton.

Canetons.
Poulets de grain.
Langues de bœuf.
Jambons de Cumberland.
Crevettes en serviette.

Macédoines de fruits.
Gelées aux liqueurs.
Meringues à la crème.

Bombe glacé.

Quenelles au parmesan.

WINES.
_Madeira.
Hock. Steinberg_, 1883.
_Sauterne. Château Yquem_, 1887.
_Champagne. Pommery_, 1884.
_Burgundy. Chambertin_, 1881.
_Claret. Château Latour_, 1875.
_Port_. 1863.

I always rather dread the length of a City dinner, but in the case of the Mercers a happy compromise seems to have been arrived at, the dinner being important enough to be styled a banquet, and not so long as to be wearying. Messrs Ring and Brymer's cook is to be congratulated, too, for his _mousse de foie gras_ was admirable.

There were some distinguished guests at the high table. At the far end, where the Senior Warden sat, there were little splashes of colour from the ribbons of orders worn round the neck, and the sparkle of stars under the lapels of dress-coats.

The Master had on his right a well-known baronet, and on his left a special correspondent who had just returned from the Far East, where for a time he was a prisoner of war. Next to him was an ex-M.P. and next to him again one of the House of Commons--an Irish Q.C., with clean-shaven, powerful face.

At the long tables sat as proper a set of gentlemen as ever gathered to a feast; but with no special characteristics to distinguish them from any other great assemblage. The snow-white hair of a clergyman told out vividly against the background of old oak, and a miniature volunteer officer's decoration caught my eye as I looked down the table.