Part 3
There is a little restaurant in Old Compton Street, the Au Petit Riche, with the outside of which I was acquainted for some years before I put foot inside it. It so evidently kept itself to itself that I felt that my presence might be resented. It has little casemented windows in white frames, and inside the windows are muslin curtains, on a rail, hung sufficiently high to prevent anyone from looking over them. Below the windows are green tiles, and above it a stretch of little panes of bottle-glass in white frames to give additional light to the rooms inside. A little ground-glass lantern hung outside the door, and the name of the restaurant was painted over the window, but there was no bill of fare put up outside, no attempt to draw in a diner unless he had made up his mind to dine at the Au Petit Riche and nowhere else. I had been told all about the restaurant by those gallant souls who experiment at every new eating-place that springs up between Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street, and though all I heard about the little place was pleasant and interested me, I felt that the Petit Riche was not anxious to make my acquaintance. But when the Petit Riche put up outside its windows an illuminated sign and its number, 44, in big figures, I felt that it had abandoned its haughty reserve and was beckoning to me, and the rest of London, to come in. And in I went, and have been going in at intervals ever since, for the little restaurant is artistic and French and amusing.
When you open the glazed door and go in you are faced by the question: "On the level or down below?" A door to the right leads into the little series of rooms on the ground floor, and a flight of stairs plunges down into the basement. Come, first of all, through the door to the right. We are in the first of three little rooms, with light-coloured walls. A row of small tables is on either side of each room, and in the first room a white desk, with palms on it, faces towards the door. A score of pretty little French waitresses, Bretonnes all, in white and black, are bustling about, and Mademoiselle, if she is not sitting at the white desk, will probably receive you at the door and smile and pilot you to a table. And I should, before going any further, explain to you who Mademoiselle is, and tell you the story of the Au Petit Riche. A good Breton and his wife came to London and established a little restaurant in Old Compton Street, and with them came their two very pretty daughters. And they made the Au Petit Riche a corner of Brittany in London. The chef, who had graduated at the Escargot d'Or, a big bourgeois house near the Halles in Paris, is a Breton by birth, and all the merry little waitresses are from Brittany. The elder of the two daughters married a young journalist and for a while left the restaurant, but when her father and mother thought that the time had come for them to retire, she and her husband took up the management of the restaurant, with her sister to help them. And Mademoiselle, fresh and smiling, with a bunch of roses pinned to her blouse, is in command in the upper rooms, while Madame, as gracious as she is handsome, sits at her desk in one of the lower rooms with a great bowl of flowers before her, and laughs with the young artists, who form a large portion of the clientele of the Au Petit Riche, and controls the waitresses, and sends the waiters, of whom there are two, out to fetch the wine, which comes from a wineshop a few paces away.
Established at a table in the first of the upstairs rooms, a glance at the walls will tell anyone that the place is a haunt of artists, for the pictures are just the omnium gatherum of artistic trifles that an artist generally puts on the walls of his den. Pencil drawings, rough things in charcoal, etchings, mezzotints, caricatures, sketches in colour, Japanese coloured prints--a gallery of scraps at which a Philistine would turn up his nose, but which look comfortable and homelike to the eye artistic. And at the head of the _carte du jour_, which a little waitress holds out to you, there is a good black and white of the exterior of the little restaurant--there is the atmosphere of art about the place.
Let us look down the list of dishes and order our dinner. The little waitress, on chance, has addressed us in French, but if she is answered in English can carry on a conversation in that language. There are two soups on the list, _consommé Colbert_, which costs sixpence, no doubt because of the egg, and _crème Cressonière_, which costs only threepence, and we will choose the cheaper of the two. Amongst the fish dishes, the salmon and the sole cost a shilling, but we will choose the _vol au vent de Turbot Joinville_, which costs ninepence. Amongst the entrées is an item, two _quails en Cocotte_, for a shilling. Curiosity prompts me to suggest that we should order this, having in mind what the price of a single quail is on a club bill of fare, but we shall be on safer ground in ordering one of the dishes of the house, the _filet mignon Petit Riche_, which costs a shilling, and with it some peas, fourpence, and some new potatoes, also fourpence. Amongst the _entremets_ is a _Pêche Petit Riche_, which the little waitress strongly recommends, but _beignets de pommes_ at threepence seems to me a more fitting ending for our repast.
There is no long waiting for one's food at the Au Petit Riche; the soup arrives almost immediately and is wonderful value for threepence. The _vol au vent_ is an admirable little fish pie, and the _filet mignon_ a most toothsome morsel of meat, while the _beignets_ are all that they should be. The little waitress, when we have arrived at the _filet mignon_ stage of the dinner, asks with the utmost solicitude: "Do you like eet?" and I have replied for both of us "Very much indeed." At the table to one side of us are a young couple whose dinner has consisted of curried chicken and plum pudding au Rhum, and at the table to our other side, two ladies are eating a typical woman's dinner of _hors d'œuvre_, poached eggs and spinach, and a vanilla ice. The Au Petit Riche finds room on its small _carte du jour_ for dishes to suit all tastes.
The little waitress brings the total of the bill on a bit of green paper; and having finished our dinner, and having paid for it, we will go down into the lower rooms before leaving the restaurant. In the lower rooms every table is always occupied, and I fancy that the habitués of the restaurant prefer them to the upper ones. One of them is decorated with golden fleurs-de-lis on a blue ground, and another is an admirable representation of the kitchen of a Breton farmhouse, crockery and all complete. There is a great buzz of talk in these lower rooms, and Madame la Patronne, sitting at her desk amidst the tables, takes her share in the conversation and attends to the making out of the bills at one and the same time.
If you go to the Au Petit Riche in the right frame mind you will be abundantly amused and interested, and you will get wonderful value for the very small sum your dinner will cost you.
And now for my other little restaurant in Soho. It is the Moulin d'Or at 27 Church Street. When Karl Thiele, who was in the employ of Peter Gallina at the Rendez-Vous Restaurant, married the pretty book-keeper at the Richelieu Restaurant, they determined to set up in business on their own account, and took a ground-floor room in Church Street, gave it a good-looking window, put a row of little trees outside, hung baskets of ferns within, and christened it Le Moulin d'Or, hoping that their mill would grind golden grist. It was a doll's house restaurant when I first discovered it two years ago, and the great ambition then of its proprietor and proprietress was that they might in time become sufficiently prosperous to add the first-floor room to their establishment. They have prospered, and when I lately went to dine there I found that the lower room with a restful green paper had been increased in size by taking in the passage, and that upstairs is a new restaurant room also with green walls and a large window, the dream realised of the young couple. And not only have these improvements and additions been made, but quite close to the Moulin d'Or there has been put up a wonderful windmill with electrically lighted sails which revolve, and below it a hand pointing in the direction of the restaurant and a transparency whereon see inscribed the prices of the _table d'hôte_ meals, luncheon, and dinner, and supper, for the Moulin d'Or has both its _carte du jour_ and its _table d'hôte_ meals. For half-a-crown, on the occasion of my last visit, I could have eaten _hors d'œuvre_, made my choice between a _consommé_ and a _crème soup_ and partaken of salmon, _filet de bœuf_, roast chicken and caramel cream, but I preferred to turn my attention to the _carte du jour_, and ordered _crème Suzette_, 6d.; _truite au bleu_, 1s. 3d.; _escalope de veau Viennoise_, 10d.; _haricots verts_, 6d.; and an _omelette au Rhum_, 10d., all very well cooked and served piping hot. The restaurant has not yet a wine licence, but for all that a special wine is reserved for it at a neighbouring wineshop, an excellent light burgundy, _Château Villy_, at 4s. 6d. a quart, and 2s. 6d. a pint, and, besides, there is a quite comprehensive wine list. Karl Thiele and his wife, looking for new kingdoms to conquer, have moved to Brighton, where they are established in St James's Street, and the new host at the Moulin d'Or is M. Combes, a very young man, assisted by a very young wife. They are, in spite of their youth, maintaining the reputation of the house for good cookery.
VI
A RAG-TIME DINNER
AT THE IMPERIAL RESTAURANT
My little French cousin who has married the Comte de St Solidor (if that is not his exact title it is, literally, next door to it) has brought her Breton husband across the Channel to make the acquaintance of his English relatives, and is desperately anxious that he shall not be depressed by London. He is a jolly, round-faced Frenchman, with a rather straggly light beard and a great head of intractable light hair, and, were it not that he cannot speak a word of our language, might pass for a young Yorkshire squire. My little French cousin was particularly afraid that Robert, that is his first name, would suffer all the tortures of ennui on Sunday, for her mother, who was English-born, had told her that the English in England spend their Sunday afternoons, when they are grown-up, in singing hymns, and when they are children in repeating aloud the catechism. I told my little cousin to have no fear, that London Sundays are no longer what they were when her mother was a child, and I offered to take charge of Robert and herself on their first Sunday in London, from after lunch-time till bed-time, and to try and keep them amused.
I asked my little French cousin whether rag-time had penetrated to Brittany, and she, pitying my ignorance, told me that at Dinard, last summer, they had talked to rag-time music, and bathed to it, and had even played syncopated _chemin de fer_ to it, as well as danced to it. But, when I asked her if at Dinard she had ever eaten to it, she said, "But no," and gave a mimetic sketch of eating food to the air of "Everybody's doing it now," which was very funny. That settled where we should dine on Sunday, and I wrote off at once to the Imperial Restaurant to secure a dinner-table for four, and asked another cousin, a British one, to complete the _partie carrée_.
The afternoon of Sunday caused me no anxiety. Robert is devoted to music, so I took him and the Comtesse to the Queen's Hall to one of Sir Henry Wood's concerts, and on to the Royal Automobile Club to tea, and neither of them showed any sign of being oppressed by Sabbath gloom.
At ten minutes past eight I was waiting in the vestibule between the street entrance and the restaurant, where a marble bust of the late King Edward smiles at each customer who enters. I had ordered my dinner, a very simple one--_potage Germiny, truites au bleu, noisettes de mouton,_ new peas and potatoes, ham and spinach, asparagus, and a _bombe_, and a magnum of Goulet, 1900, to drink therewith. For ten minutes I sat in the window-seat watching pretty ladies and men of all ages and types pass through the vestibule, give up their coats and cloaks, shake hands, and go in little coveys into the restaurant. The orchestra in the distance was sawing away at an operatic overture, the ante-room was comfortably warmed, and as dinner was the only event of the evening I did not fidget because my little cousin delayed in her coming. I was not the only solitary man waiting. In front of the fireplace stood a beautiful young man, with sleeve-links and studs and buttons to his white waistcoat that must have cost a fortune. Now and again he glanced at the clock, a work of art, in which a gilded cupid points with a finger to the revolving girdle of hours on a vase, and when he had ascertained how late _she_ was already he surveyed the other human creatures about him with tolerant pride and slight hauteur. I have no gift of telepathy, but I was quite sure that he was waiting for some very beautiful lady of the stage, and pitied those of us who had no such divinity to be our guest.
The British cousin arrived to time, and not very long afterwards my French cousins appeared. She looked at the clock and declared that they were late because Robert could not find his evening studs, and Robert laughed, as men do when called upon to substantiate a white fib told by their wives. She had asked me whether she ought to dine in her hair, or in a hat, and I had answered that either way would be quite correct. She had decided not to wear a hat in order to be quite English, and she looked entirely charming. I could not help glancing at the beautiful young man who monopolised the fire to see what he thought of my star guest. He was slightly interested, but he answered my glance by one which meant "Wait and see."
I had secured a corner table at a reasonable distance from the band, which occupies a platform about half-way down the room, and we enthroned the little cousin on the chair in the angle, so that she could see everybody and everything in the room. Every table but one was occupied, and that I knew was reserved for the beautiful young man whom we had left looking with a frown at cupid's finger. My little French cousin was in high spirits, and Robert acted as an amiable chorus. She recognised that the room was French--it is a copy of one of the salons at Fontainebleau, and perceived that the pictures of cupids, which are between the round windows and the tall casemented glasses, were inspired by Boucher. She liked the carved marble mantelpiece and the crystal and gold electroliers. I was called upon to tell her who everybody was at the other tables, and I launched out recklessly into fiction. I knew by sight a dozen of our fellow-diners, and the rest I described as M.P.'s and ladies of title, officers of the Household Brigade, and divettes of the Gaiety, Daly's, the Lyric, and the Shaftesbury, which they probably are, celebrated painters and prima donnas, according to their appearance. My British cousin choked over a bone of the trout, so he said, but my little French cousin and her spouse were much impressed by my exhaustive acquaintance with all the celebrities of my native city, which was just the effect I wished to produce.
Little Oddenino, going the round of the tables, saying a word or two to all his clientele, came to our corner, asked if all was as it should be, took up the menu, and lifted his eyebrows. Of course I know that to follow the _noisettes_ by ham was inartistic, but being in the vein of romance I said that my little French cousin was passionately fond of ham, and demanded it at all her meals, and not that I prefer ham to mutton, which would have been the truth. The little man bowed and smiled and passed on; My cousin asked who he was, and when I replied, "Oddy," she inquired if it was he who would presently make the rag-time. Pleased to be on bed-rock truth at last I gave her a shorthand sketch of Oddenino's career; how Turin is his native town; how he opened one of the great hotels at Cimiez, and earned the thanks of the late Queen Victoria and a fine tie-pin when she stayed there; how he was manager of the East Room at the Criterion, and of the Café Royal, and from the latter restaurant stepped two doors farther down Regent Street and built the Imperial Restaurant. I described story upon story of banqueting-rooms that are to be found on the Glasshouse Street side, and how Freemasons--good, charitable British Freemasons, not troublesome political French Freemasons--feast in them in great numbers every night in the year. I sketched out the little man's other ventures, and I ended by telling her that Oddenino is a man of much consideration in the Italian colony in London, and has been decorated by his king. Surely she did not expect a Cavaliere to make rag-time music? And my little French cousin said "assuredly not."
When we had come to the _noisettes'_ stage of our dinner the beautiful young man whom we had left waiting in the vestibule came in--alone. He looked as gloomy as Hamlet, and held in his hand a letter, which he tore into small pieces and thrust into the ice pail beside his table. "The poor animal!" said my little cousin pityingly. "He is dining with an excuse." He drank two glasses of champagne in quick succession, and then felt strong enough to sup his soup.
About this period a change came over the music of the band, which had conscientiously worked off the barcarole from "Hoffman," a Viennese waltz and a minuet. A clean-shaven young man, Mr Gideon, the clever composer of the rag-time successes who had been eating his dinner like the rest of us, took his place at the piano, and the orchestra subordinated itself to his leadership. Mr Gideon can make the piano speak as few men can, and my little French cousin and Robert both pricked up their ears and even let the asparagus get cold in their new-found interest. When Mr Gideon, dispensing with orchestral aid, sang "Honolulu," and here and there a girl's voice joined in the refrain, my little cousin turned sharply to me. "Ought one to sing?" she asked, and I told her that it was as she pleased. She listened with all her ears to catch the words, and at last trilled out with the rest: "Ma onaleuleu oné leu," and then laughed at her own boldness.
A quarter of an hour later my little French cousin, with both elbows on the table, a cigarette between her fingers, and sipping at intervals some _crème de menthe_, was singing "Hitchy Koo" with the best of them, and Robert was booming away harmonising a bass _bouche-fermeé_ accompaniment. It was curious how this general singing brought together those who dined. We had been separate little parties before, but the humanity of song made us into one big friendly audience. Even the beautiful young man recovered his spirits sufficiently to try to start an eye flirtation with my little cousin.
The heat in the room grew and the atmosphere thickened with tobacco smoke, but we all sat on till close on eleven o'clock, when the vestibule doors were opened to let out the smoke and let in the cold air, and the ladies put their stoles round their necks, and the men called for their bills. Mine, including cigars and liqueurs, came to exactly a guinea a head.
Before bidding me good-night my little cousin, speaking for herself and Robert, said that they had well dined and had amused themselves, and that the Britannic Sunday was not frightening. But I told her that all our Sunday entertainment was not yet at end, that Robert, when he had taken her home to their hotel, was going to drink a whisky-and-soda with me at the club, and that then I would take him on to an hospitable house, where _chemin de fer_ is played, and that if there was no police raid she would see him back about five A.M.
My little French cousin looked at me to see whether I was serious, laughed in my face, and taking Robert by the arm led him to the taxi that was waiting for them.
VII
THE CAFÉ ROYAL
One of the questions people are fond of asking and, like "jesting Pilate," do not stay to have answered, is, "Which is the best place in London at which to dine?" This is generally only a prologue to their opinion on the subject, but when it is an inquiry, and not an overture, I always reply by another question, "Whom are you going to take out to dine?" for there are so many "best places" that the selection of the right one depends entirely on what are the tastes of the person, or persons, you wish to please.--If a man were to answer _my_ question by saying that he wished to entertain some bachelors of his own ripe age and ripe tastes, and that he would like to go somewhere where the food is very good, the rooms comfortable, and where there is no band to interfere with conversation, I should diagnose his case at once as a Café Royal one.