We did return and go to the Grunewald. But comfortable as we were made there, we had to own to each other that we missed Antoine's. We missed our curious old rooms. I even missed my chaufbain, and was bored at the commonplace matutinal performance of turning on hot water without preliminary experiments in marine engineering. We thought wistfully of 'Génie's patient smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went out, that "when she had made the apartments she would render the key to the bureau, alors,"—which is to say, leave the key at the office. We yearned for the café, for good François, for the deliciously flavored oysters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot rock-salt which kept them warm; for the cold tomatoes à la Jules César; for the bisque of crayfish à la Cardinal; for the bouillibasse (which Thackeray admitted was as good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and which Otis Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gombo à la Créole, and pompano en Papillotte, and pressed duck à la Tour d'Argent, and orange Brulôt, and the wonderful Café Brulôt Diabolique—that spiced coffee made in a silver bowl from which emerge the blue flames of burning cognac, and in honor of which the lights of the café are always temporarily dimmed.
The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Café Boulot Diabolique is served
Nor least of all was it that we wished to see again the mother of Jules, who sits back of the caisse and takes in the money, like many another good French wife and mother—a tiny little old lady more than ninety-five years old, who came to New Orleans in 1840 as the bride of the then young Antoine Alciatore.
The little lady who sits behind the desk is more than ninety-five years old, and came to New Orleans as the bride of Antoine
So we put on our hats and coats when evening came, and went back to Antoine's for dinner, and as long as we were in New Orleans we kept on going back.
That is not to say, of course, that we did not go also to the Louisiane and Galatoire's, or that we did not drop in for luncheon, sometimes, at Brasco's, in Gravier Street, or at Kolb's, a more or less conventional German restaurant in St. Charles Street; or that we failed to go out to Tranchina's at Spanish Fort, on Lake Pontchartrain, or to the quainter little place called Noy's where, we learned, Ernest Peixotto had been but a short time before, gathering material for indigestion and an article in "Scribner's Magazine." But when all is said and done there remain the three restaurants of the old quarter.