Ah, mesdames et messieurs, how many of your little troubles have been settled by the doctor with the cordon bleu and the shining saucepans!
The Taverne Pousset is famous for its beer, its écrevisses (crawfish boiled scarlet and served steaming), and its soupe à l’ognon, a bouillon redolent with onions and smothered beneath a coverlet of brown cheese.
Parisians flock to Pousset after the theater. At night its richly decorated interior is ablaze with light and crowded with those who have stopped for supper after the play.
There are dozens of just such tavernes and brasseries. These German institutions have oddly enough become most popular with the French, who have grown in recent years critically fond of good beer. I might add, however, that it is the only thing German that has become popular. That little affair of Sedan is still in the gorge.
The Coq d’Or, on the rue Montmartre, is one of the oldest taverns in Paris. Its clientèle during dinner is composed of commerçants and a mixture of bourgeoisie and Bohemia, but after midnight, as happens in scores of other such places, the Coq d’Or is filled by a veritable avalanche of demi-mondaines of the surrounding quarter.
If you dine at Marguery’s, order a sole au vin blanc and let Étienne bring it to you.
If it is summer you will find a table in the covered portico brilliant with hanging flowers, or you may choose a snug corner behind the cool green hedge that skirts the entrance of this famous rendezvous of rich bourgeois and commerçants.
The restaurant Marguery is unique. It is a magnificent establishment, perfect in its cooking, its wines, and its service. I know of no restaurant where for this perfect ensemble one pays so moderate and just a price; the proof of this is that here you will see the true Parisian; neither is there any supplementary charge for any of the cabinets particuliers or the private dining-rooms. It is the only maison de premier ordre I know of which does not tax one more or less heavily for the right of seclusion.
You will have hardly finished your sole before a distinguished old gentleman with a decoration in his lapel and a crumpled napkin in one hand, will pass your table, bowing graciously to you if you are a stranger and stopping to say a few pleasant words if you are a friend. He is slightly bent with age, massive of frame, with silvery locks combed back from a broad forehead, and his face is illumined with kindliness and intelligence.
