Caen
Tripes à la mode de Caen may be a homely dish but it is not to be despised, and it can be eaten quite at its best in the town where it was invented. I have eaten it with great content at a bourgeois restaurant, opposite to the Church of St-Pierre, the Restaurant Pépin, if my memory serves me rightly, and a Sole Bordeaux to precede it. The proprietor, M. Chandivert, was very anxious that I should add a Caneton Rouennaise to the feast, but I told him that "to every town its dish." He gave me a capital pint of red wine, and impressed on me the fact that he had obtained a gold medal at some exhibition for his andouillettes. Caen is the town of the charcutiers, and you may see more good cold viands shown in windows, in a walk through its streets, than you will find anywhere else outside a cookery exhibition. Caen is an oasis in the midst of the bad cookery of Western Normandy; and the restaurant at the Hôtel d'Angleterre and the Restaurant de Madrid are very much above the average of the restaurant of a French country town. In both restaurants you can dine and breakfast in the shade in the open air, the Madrid having a good garden, the Angleterre a great tent in the courtyard,—a welcome change from the stuffy rooms, full of flies, of most Normandy hotels. I have a most pleasant memory of a Homard Américaine, cooked at the Hôtel d'Angleterre, which was the very best lobster I ever ate in my life. The old chef who made the fame of the Angleterre has retired, but his successor is said to show no falling off in the art of preparing a good dinner. I would suggest to the wayfarer to breakfast in the garden of the Madrid and dine at the Angleterre. There is a little restaurant, A la Tour des Gens d'Armes, on the left bank of the canal which is much frequented by students, and where an al fresco lunch is served at a very small price. The food is good for the money, and there is always a chance of finding some merry gathering there. A note of warning should be sounded as to the cider and vin ordinaire supplied as part of the table-d'hôte dinners in Caen, and indeed everywhere in Normandy. There is almost invariably good cider to be had and good wine on payment, but the cider and wine usually put on the table rival each other as throat-cutting beverages. Vieux Calvados is an excellent pousse café. It reads almost like a fairy-tale to be able to recount that the delicious oysters from the coast-villages of Ouistreham and Courseulles can be bought at 50 centimes the dozen or very little more.
Cherbourg
This calling-place for Atlantic steamers is a very likely place for the earnest gourmet to find himself stranded in for a day, and I regret that there is no gastronomic find to report there. A most competent authority writes thus to me on the capabilities of the place:—
"There are no restaurants, in the true sense of the word, in Cherbourg.
"The leading hotel, where most of the people go, and which is the largest, with the best cuisine and service, is the Hôtel du Casino. This hotel is managed by Monsieur Marius, and though partially shut during the winter season, travellers can always get a good plain dinner there. During the summer season, that is from May till October, the hotel is fully open, and has a petits chevaux room, entry free of course, and also good military music in the gardens, twice a week. The gardens are also very prettily illuminated very often, whilst from time to time firework displays help to pass away the evenings. The dining-hall faces the only nice portion of beach in the town, and being entirely covered in with glass, is warm in winter and cool in summer, when it can all be open. The meals are usually table-d'hôte, but it is possible also to order a dinner if one prefers to do so. Here also the traveller will find a little English spoken among the waiters and management, which may be useful to him. The wines are pretty good, but there is no very special brand for which the place is known; also good Scotch and Irish whisky can be obtained at a reasonable price; the hotel does not boast of any special plat either.
"The Hôtel de France, another fair-sized hotel, is the one patronised mostly by the naval and military authorities of the town, but is not so amusing a place for the traveller to stay at or dine at; though I understand that the dinner to be obtained there is in every way satisfactory.
"Finally, I might mention two other hotels at which one can dine comfortably; these are the Hôtel d'Amirauté and the Hôtel d'Angleterre, at both of which a good plain dinner is served.
"The chief joint obtainable here to be recommended is of course the mutton, as Cherbourg is noted for its pré-salé all over France; but beyond this the food is of the usual ordinary kind to be obtained in most French towns of this size."
M. Roche, who made a little fortune in London in Old Compton Street, has taken a little hotel near Granville, and as he learned cooking under Frederic of the Tour d'Argent, he may be depended upon for an excellent meal.