Arcachon
Of cooking at Arcachon there is nothing in particular to be said. The place has a celebrity for its oyster-beds, and a great number of the oysters we eat in England have been transplanted from the bay at Arcachon to the beds in British waters.
Biarritz
The average of cookery in the hotels at Biarritz is very good, for the competition is very keen, and as money is spent by the handful in this town on the bay where the Atlantic rolls in its breakers, any hotel which did not provide two excellent table-d'hôte meals would very soon be out of the running. In the basement of the building in which is the big Casino, "Mons. Boulant's Casino," as the natives call it, is a restaurant where a table-d'hôte lunch and dinner are served; but the restaurant of Biarritz is the one which Ritz has established on the first floor of the little Casino, the Casino Municipal, where one breakfasts in a glazed-in verandah overlooking the Plage and the favourite bathing-spot, and at dinner one looks across to the illuminated terrace of the other Casino. The decoration of this restaurant is of the simplest but at the same time of the most effective kind, being of growing bamboos which form green canopies above the tables. Biarritz depends but little on the surrounding country for its food, as the Pays Basque gives few good things to the kitchen. Fish is the one excellent thing that Biarritz itself contributes to all the menus, and the Friture du Pays is always excellent. Here is a menu of a little dinner for three at the Ritz. The Minestrone is an excellent Italian soup (which, by the way, Oddenino of the Imperial in London makes better than I have tasted it anywhere else out of Italy); the veal, I fancy, came from Paris, the ortolans from the far south:—
Melon.
Minestron Milanaise.
Friture du Pays.
Carré de Veau braisé aux Cèpes.
Ortolans à la broche.
Salade de Romaine.
Coupes d'Entigny.
I have not kept any bill for this, but I know that I regarded the total as moderate in a town where all things in September are at gambler's prices. The Royalty, in the main street at Biarritz, is the afternoon gathering place for the young bloods, who there drink cooling liquids through straws out of long tumblers, while the ladies hold their parliament at tea-time in Miremont the confectioner's.
Marseilles
Once more I step down from the platform to give place to my colleague A.B.
Two of the best hotels in Marseilles, with restaurants attached to them, are the Noailles and the Hôtel du Louvre; the latter is owned and supervised by Mons. Echénard, who with Mons. Ritz helped to create the popularity of the Savoy Restaurant in London, and is also his coadjutor in the management of the Carlton Restaurant; it is needless to remark that any cuisine that Mons. Echénard takes in hand is worthy of attention. Mons. Echénard has lately acquired the Réserve at Marseilles—a very pretty café and garden about half-an-hour's drive from the Cannebière, along the Corniche Road; it stands in a commanding position, with a lovely view of the bay and the surrounding mountains. It has furnished apartments attached to it, and for any one having to stay at Marseilles, either while waiting for the Messageries Maritimes liner or for the arrival of a yacht, it is infinitely preferable to the hot, stuffy town, and would be an excellent winter quarter. Like many similar seaside cafés abroad, it has its own parc au coquillages or shell-fish tanks, and you here get the world-renowned Bouillabaisse in perfection.
The best shell-fish are the praires and the clovisses, about the same size as walnuts or little neck clams; the clovisses are the largest, and rather take the place of oysters when the latter are not in season, in the same way the clam does in America; others are mussels, oysters, and langoustes. Langoustes differ as much as a skinny fowl from a Poularde de Mans. Mons. Echénard gets his from Corsica, and you then learn how they can vary. He has also a Poularde Réservé en Cocotte Raviolis, which is a dish to be remembered; and a small fat sole caught between Hyères and Toulon is not to be despised.