Part 15
The melon, delightfully cold, struck the right note in a dinner for a hot evening; the Madrilène soup, beautiful in colour and flavoured with tomato and capsicum, carried on the summer symphony; the Romanoff sole was quite admirable, served with small slices of apple and artichokes and with mussels, the apple giving a suspicion of bitter sweetness as a contrast to the flesh of the fish. M. Charles happened to be near our table at this period, not, I think, quite by chance. I assured him that if there was such a thing as a gastronomic nerve M. Malley's creation had found it. The quails formed part of a little pie brought to table in a pie-dish of old blue willow pattern, and with them were coxcombs and truffles and other good things. The _poulet en chaudfroid_ was a noble bird, all white, and in it and with it was a pink _mousse_ delicately perfumed with curry powder, a quite admirable combination. The Ritz salad is of _cœurs de romaine_, with almonds and portions of tiny oranges with it. Last of the dishes in the dinner came the _pêche Belle Dijonnaise_, which is one of the creations which have made the fame of M. Malley, and which will become historical. It is a delightful combination of peaches and black currant ice with some cassis, a liqueur of black currants, added to it, and it is called _Belle Dijonnaise_ because of the old Burgundian proverb: _A Dijon, il y a du bon vin et des jolies filles_.
I do not doubt that many people dined well in London on that hot June evening, but this I will warrant, that no two people, however important they might be, or whatever they paid for their dinner (my bill came to £2, 10s.), dined better than did Lady Amalthea and I at the Ritz, and I make all my compliments to M. Malley.
I should not do the Ritz full justice if I did not refer to the banquets which are served in the Marie Antoinette room and in the great white suite below the restaurant. As typical of the Ritz banquets I give you the menu of one that Lord Haldane gave to the foreign officers visiting London in June 1912, and I also give the accompanying wines:
Caviar d'Esturgeon. Kroupnick Polonaise. Consommé Viveur Glacé en Tasse. Timbale de Homards à l'Américaine. Suprême de Truite Saumonée à la Gelée de Chambertin. Aiguillette de Jeune Caneton à l'Ambassade. Courgettes à la Serbe. Selle de Veau Braisée à l'Orloff. Petits Pois. Carottes à la Crème. Pommes Mignonette Persillées. Soufflé de Jambon Norvégienne. Ortolans Doubles au Bacon. Cœurs de Laitues. Asperges Géantes de Paris, Sauce Hollandaise. Pêches des Gourmets. Friandises. Mousse Romaine. Tartelettes Florentine. Corbeille de Fruits.
VINS. Gonzalez Coronation Sherry. Berncastler Doctor, 1893. Château Duhart Milon, 1875. Heidsieck Dry Monopole, 1898. G. H. Mumm, 1899. Croft's Port, 1890. La Grande Marque Fine, 1848.
The dinner looks at first glance to be an exceedingly long one, but it is also an exceedingly light one, the saddle of veal being the only substantial dish of the feast. The _aiguillettes_ of duckling from one of the special dishes at the Ritz, and the _soufflés_ and the _mousses_ that come from the Ritz kitchens are always ethereal. This banquet is an excellent example of a feast which is important without being heavy.
XXIX
SOME OUTLYING RESTAURANTS
In calling the restaurants about which I write in this chapter "outlying" ones, I do not mean that they are in the far suburbs, but only that they are some little distance from Nelson's Column, which I take to be the centre of restaurant land, and that each of them is in a part of London having its own entity--Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Sloane Square and Bloomsbury.
* * * * *
Rinaldo, in the days when he was at the Savoy, used to stand at the desk by the door and tell us all as we came in what tables had been reserved for us. Of course, as _maître d'hôtel_, he had other duties, but as he knew my whims concerning the position of my table, and as he always sent me just where I wanted to be, I have him in grateful remembrance for doing this. When he left the Savoy he set up on his own account at No. 15 Wilton Road, which is just opposite Victoria Station, and there, I am glad to say, he still flourishes. He is no longer quite the slim Spanish don with a peaked black beard that he used to be, but proprietorship has a waistcoat-filling effect on restaurateurs, and time softens black hair with streaks of grey.
Rinaldo's restaurant is quite spacious, a high and airy room with plenty of light. Its walls are of pleasant grey with decorations in high relief in the upper part, and on the stained glass of the sky-light are paintings of game and fruit. Baskets of ferns in the shape of boats hang from the roof, and there are always bunches of roses on the tables. Behind a screen at the far end is the service bar where the wines are served out, and in the centre of the room is a very appetising table of cold meats and fruit; the melons and other things that should be kept cold being on a long box of broken ice; the mushrooms reposing in big wooden baskets; the crayfish and the egg-fruit and the other delicacies, according to seasons, all being set out with exceptional taste and looking very tempting.
Quite an aristocratic clientele lunches and dines at Rinaldo's restaurant. Many of the great people of Belgravia like to lunch in a restaurant which is no great distance from their homes; the Monsignori from the neighbouring Roman Catholic Cathedral often go there, and quite a number of gourmets who like the Italian dishes--for Rinaldo, though he looks like a Spaniard, is an Italian--of which there are always some on the bill of fare, are very constant patrons.
The restaurant has an extensive _carte du jour_, and most people who lunch there prefer to order that meal from the card, though there is a two-shilling lunch for those who are in a hurry. On the _carte du jour_ which I took away with me on the last occasion I lunched in Wilton Road I found amongst the entrées _ris de veau financière, Vienna schnitzel, côte de veau Napolitaine, bitock à la Russe, entrecôte Tyrolienne_ and _fritto misto à la Romaine_, which shows that the restaurant caters for many nationalities and many tastes. My lunch on this occasion--it was a warm summer day--consisted of a slice of cantaloup melon, 9d.; _fritto misto_, 1s. 6d.; a cut of cheese; an iced _zabajone Milanaise_, 1s., and a cup of coffee, which is always excellent at Rinaldo's, and which, disregarding his early bringing-up--for Italians never allow metals to touch coffee--Rinaldo pours out of a fascinating little metal pot. A three-and-six dinner is the dinner of the house, and Rinaldo explained to me that this rarely contains Italian dishes; for Englishmen in the evening find them rather difficult to digest. This is a menu, taken by chance in the autumn, of the dinner of the restaurant:
Hors d'œuvre. Consommé Tosca. Crème Portugaise. Turbot Bouilli. Sce. Homard. Filet d'Hareng Meunière. Mignonette d'Agneau Marigny. Grenadine de Veau Clamart. Grouse rôti. Salade. Choufleur au Gratin. Glacé Napolitaine. Mignardises.
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Gretener, who is the proprietor of the New Albert Restaurant, 77 Knightsbridge, also, in the past, scored good marks in my memory, for he was manager of that very difficult proposition, the restaurant of the Gare Maritime at Boulogne, and during his reign there it was always possible, by giving him warning beforehand, to get an excellent luncheon excellently served. As most of the business of that restaurant is to put the greatest amount of food in the shortest possible time into travellers who keep one anxious eye on the train outside, or to cater for big parties of excursionists at the cheapest possible rate, a manager must have a soul for the gastronomic art to keep his restaurant under these conditions a place of delicate cookery. When M. Gretener and his pretty wife came to England they established themselves at a restaurant in Knightsbridge, which has a tessellated pavement and walls of ornamented glazed tiles with mirrors at intervals, and a ceiling on which cupids in high relief gambol on medallions with a blue ground. A stained glass window is at the far end of the restaurant, a wide staircase leads to the first floor, and under the staircase is a little glassed-in serving-room. M. Gretener has collected a very faithful clientele, and he also sends out meals to the dwellers in the houses of flats which abound in Knightsbridge. In the summer-time many people who go out of a morning to Hyde Park, strangers in the land, French, Germans, and Italians amongst them, see Gretener's as they go through the Albert Gate and make it their lunching place. A three-shilling dinner is the dinner of the house, but whenever I have been there I have ordered my meal _à la carte_ from the very moderately priced card of the day, and this is a typical bill. _Crème Lentils_, 8d. Mayonnaise of Salmon, 2s. _Noisette d'agneau Doria_, 1s. 6d. _Haricots verts sautés_, 6d., and _Bavarois chocolat_, 4d.
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The Queen's Restaurant, No. 4 Sloane Square, is one to which I often go when there is a first night at the Court Theatre, for it is only just across the road from that house. Its proprietor, M. Coppo, who learned his business at the Café Royal, bustles about his restaurant with a napkin under his arm doing the work of _maître d'hôtel_. The restaurant, with cream-coloured walls and mirrors in white frames, consists of several rooms thrown into one, the part by the entrance door being narrow and just holding two rows of tables, while at the back there is plenty of space. The clientele, on the occasions that I have been there, has been a mixture of all the comfortable classes--Guards' officers from the neighbouring barracks, fashionable people of both sexes from Sloane Street and its neighbourhood, dramatic critics making a hurried meal before going to the theatre, business men, and an artist or two from the Chelsea studios. M. Coppo gives his patrons a set dinner, the price of which, I fancy, is 3s. 6d.; but I have always ordered my dinner from the _carte du jour_, and I have found the food to be quite reasonably cheap and good.
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I wonder how many people of the tens of hundreds who take their books to Mudie's to be exchanged know that the Vienna Café just across the road is an excellent place at which to lunch. In the upstairs rooms I have eaten, in the middle of the day, Austrian and German dishes excellently cooked, and there is a Viennese cheese cake which is a speciality of the house for which I have a liking, and with a slice of which I have always ended my meal. The coffee of the house is the excellent coffee made in the Austrian manner, and at tea-time the Café down below is always crowded with people, especially ladies, who like the Viennese cakes and pastries that they obtain there.
XXX
THE KING'S GUARD
ST JAMES'S PALACE
"The best dinner in London, sir!" was what our fathers always added when, with a touch of gratification, they used to tell of having been asked to dine on the Guard at St James's; and nowadays, when the art of dinner-giving has come to be very generally understood, the man who likes good cooking and good company still feels very pleased to be asked to dinner by one of the officers of the guard, for the old renown is still justified, and there is a fascination in the surroundings that is not to be obtained by unlimited money spent in any restaurant.
Past the illuminated clock of the Palace, the hands of which mark five minutes to eight, in through an arched gate, across one of the courts, and in a narrow passage where a window gives a glimpse of long rows of burnished pots and pans, is a black-painted door with, on the door-jamb, a legend of black on white telling that this is the officers' guard.
Up some wooden stairs with leaden edges to them, stairs built for use and not for ornament: and, the guests' coats being taken by a clean-shaved butler in evening clothes, we are at once in the officers' room.
It is a long room, lighted on one side by a great bow-window, flanked by two other windows. At the farthest end of the room from the door is a mantelpiece of grey and white marble. The walls are painted a comfortable green colour, and there are warm crimson curtains to the windows. There are many pictures upon the walls; and a large sofa, leather-covered arm-chairs, and a writing-table in the bow of the window give an air of comfort to the room. A great screen, which, in its way, is a work of art, being covered with cuttings of all periods, from Rowlandson's caricatures to the modern style of military prints, is drawn out from the wall so as to divide the room into two portions. On the door side of the screen stands in one corner the regimental colour of the battalion finding the guard, and here, too, are the bearskin head-dresses of the officers.
On the fireplace side of the screen is a table ready set for dinner, the clear glass decanters at the corners being filled with champagne, a silver-gilt vase forming the centre-piece, and candles in silver candelabra giving the necessary light. By the fireplace the officers of the guard, in scarlet and gold and black, are waiting to receive their guests.
In addition to the officers of St James's guard, the adjutant and colonel of the battalion that finds the guard, the two officers of the Household Cavalry on guard at the Horse Guards and some of the military officials of the Court have a right to dine. But it is rarely that all entitled to this privilege avail themselves of it, and the captain and officers of the guard generally are able to ask some guests to fill the vacant chairs.
As, on the stroke of eight, on the evening I am writing of, we sat down to dinner my host told me that he had ordered a typical meal for me. This was the menu:
Potage croûte-au-pot. Eperlans à l'Anglaise. Bouchées à la moëlle. Côtelettes de mouton. Purée de marrons. Poularde à la Turque. Hure truffée. Sauce Cumberland. Pluviers dorés. Pommes de terre Anna. Champignons grillés. Omelette soufflée. Huîtres à la Diable.
The spatchcocked smelts, the boar's head, with its sharp-tasting sauce, and the _soufflée_, I recognised as being favourite dishes on the King's Guard.
On this evening the wearers of the black coats, as well as the red, had served his Majesty, at one time or another, in various parts of the world, and our talk drifted to the subject of the various officers' guards all over the British world. In hospitality the castle guard at Dublin probably comes next to the guard at St James's, for the officers of the guard fare excellently there at the Viceregal expense. The Bank guards, both in the City of London and at College Green, have compensating advantages, and the officers' guard at Fort William, Calcutta, has helped many an impoverished subaltern to buy a polo pony. The story goes that some rich native falling ill close to the gate of Fort William, the subaltern on guard took him up to the guardroom and treated him kindly, and in consequence, in his will, the native left provision for a daily sum of rupees to be given to the subaltern on guard. These rupees are paid to the officer minus one, retained by the _babus_ as a charge for "stationery," and though all the little tin gods both at Calcutta and Simla have exerted themselves to recover for the subaltern that rupee, the power of the _babu_ has been too strong and the imaginary stationery still represents the missing rupee. We chatted of the Malta guard, with its collection of pictures on the wall; of dreary hours at Gibraltar, with nothing to do except to construct sugar-covered fougasses to blow up flies; and of exciting moments at Peshawar, when the chance of being shot by one's own sentries made going the rounds a real affair of outposts.
Then I asked questions about the gilt centre-piece, which is in the shape of an Egyptian vase with sphinxes on the base, and was told that the holding capacities of it were beyond the guessing of anyone who had not seen the experiment tried. Some of the other plate which is put upon the table at the close of dinner is of great interest. There is a cigar-lighter in the shape of a grenade given by his late Majesty King Edward, a silver cigar-cutter, a memento of an inter-regimental friendship made at manœuvres, and a snuff-box made from one of the hoofs of Napoleon's charger Marengo. Which hoof it was is not stated on the box, but the collective wisdom of the table decided that it must have been the near hind one. Excepting on days when the Scots Guards are on guard, the Sovereign's health is not, I believe, drunk after dinner--though I fancy that King Edward, when Prince of Wales, dining on guard, broke through this custom. The regiment from across the Border was at one time suspected of a leaning towards Jacobitism, and while the officers were ordered to drink his Majesty's health they were not allowed to use finger-glasses after dinner, lest they should drink to the King over the water.
Dinner over, the big sofa is pulled round in front of the fire and a bridge-table claims its devotees. I asked my host to be allowed to inspect the pictures which pretty well cover the walls. The most important is an excellent portrait of Queen Victoria in the early part of her reign. It is the work of "Lieut.-Col. Cadogan," and was begun on the wall of a guardroom--at Windsor, I fancy. The surface of the wall was cut off, the picture finished, and it now hangs, a fine work of art but a tremendous weight, in the place of honour. There is an admirable oil-colour of the old Duke of Wellington, showing a kindly old face looking down, a pleasant difference from the alert aquiline profile which most of his portraits show. There are prints of other celebrated generals, mostly Guardsmen, and an amusing caricature of three kings dining on guard. It is a very unfurnished guardroom, with a bare floor, in which their Majesties are being entertained, but the enthusiasm with which the officers are drinking their health makes up for the surroundings. A key to the print hangs hard by, but the names attached to the various figures are said to have been written in joke. Many of the pictures are sporting prints and hunting caricatures; but the original of _Vanity Fair's_ sketch of Dan Godfrey is in one corner; and a strange old picture of a battle, painted on a tea-tray, hangs over the door.
On either side of the looking-glass, above the mantelpiece, are the list of officers on duties and the orders for the guard, the latter with a glass over them, which is supposed to have been cracked in Marlborough's time. Some very admirably arranged caricatures, with explanatory notes, are bound into a series of red volumes and kept in a glazed set of shelves, and these, with a number of blue-bound volumes of _The Pall Mall Magazine_, form the greater portion of the library available for the officers on guard.
As the hands of the clock near eleven, the butler, who has been handing round "pegs" in long tumblers, takes up his position by the door. Military discipline is inexorable, and we (the guests) know that we must be out of the precincts of the guard by eleven o'clock. We say good-night to our hosts, and as we go downstairs we hear the clank of swords being buckled on.
Outside in the courtyard a sergeant and a drummer and a man with a lantern are waiting for the officer to go the rounds.
XXXI
THE OLD BULL AND BUSH
There is no side of London life that has died out more completely, so far as the upper classes are concerned, than the visits to the old tea-gardens which used to be the resort of the well-to-do classes from the days of King Charles II. up to the beginning of the last century. Bagginnage Wells, to which Nell Gwynne first brought the bucks, is only a name now, but Coleman, in his comedy, _Bon-ton_, defined good tone as to
"Drink tea on summer afternoons At Bagginnage Wells with china and gilt spoons."
Sadler's Wells was a tea-garden with a music-room before Rosoman pulled down the building to put up a theatre. White Conduit House used to take fifty pounds on a Sunday afternoon for sixpenny tea tickets, and its white bread was considered a great luxury. The bowling alleys of Marylebone Gardens were famous; and there were tea-gardens and a bowling-green at the Yorkshire Stingo, opposite Lisson Grove. Kilburn Wells advertised that its gardens and great room were adapted to the use of "the politest companies," and at Jenny's Whim there was a great garden, in different parts of which were recesses, and in a large piece of water facing the tea alcoves big fish and mermaids showed themselves above the surface. The Apollo Gardens in the Westminster Road, and Cuper's Gardens opposite Somerset House, were amongst these old places of amusement, most of which are now only names. There is, however, at the present time a tavern with tea-gardens of the old-fashioned kind quite close to London, which, besides its picturesqueness, has other recommendations which give it a right to inclusion in a "Gourmet's Guide."