There are other restaurants not so expensive as the ones I have written of, and further up the hill, which can give one a most admirable dinner. The Helder is one of the restaurants where the men who have to live all their life at Monte Carlo often breakfast and dine, and Aubanel's Restaurant, the Princess', which one of the great stars of the Opera has very regularly patronised, deserves a special good word. The Restaurant Ré, which was originally a fish and oyster shop, but which is now a restaurant with fish as its speciality, is also an excellent place for men of moderate means. Madame Ré learned the art of the kitchen at the Reserve at Marseilles, and she knows as much about the cooking of fish as any woman in the world. When it came to my turn in the interchange of dinners for six to provide a feast, I went to Madame Ré and asked her to give me a fish dinner, and to keep it as distinctive as possible of the principality, and she at once saw what I wanted and entered into the spirit of it. She met me on the evening of the feast with a sorrowful expression on her handsome face, for she had sent a fisherman out very early in the morning into the bay to catch some of the little sea hedgehogs which were to form one course, but he had come back empty-handed. The menu stood as under, and we none of us missed the hedgehogs:—
Canapé de Nonnats.
Soupe de poisson Monégasque.
Supions en Buisson.
Dorade Bonne Femme.
Volaille Rôtie.
Langouste Parisienne.
Asperges Vinaigrette.
Dessert.
The Soupe Monégasque had a reminiscence in it of Bouillabaisse, but it was not too insistent; the supions were octopi, but delicate little gelatinous fellows, not leathery, as the Italian ones sometimes are; the dorade was a splendid fish, and though I fancy the langouste had come from northern waters and not from the bay, it was beautifully fresh and a monster of its kind.
The Riviera Palace has a restaurant to which many people come to breakfast, high above Monte Carlo and its heat, and the cook is a very good one.
Any mad Englishman who like myself takes long walks in the morning, will find the restaurant at the La Turbie terminus of the mountain railway a pleasant place at which to eat early breakfast; and the view from the terrace, where one munches one's petit pain and drinks one's coffee and milk, with an orange tree on either side of the table, is a superb one.
After the tables are closed the big room at the Café de Paris in Monte Carlo fills up with those who require supper or a "night cap" before going home; and though a sprinkling of ladies may be seen there, the half-world much preponderates. The night-birds finish the evening at the Festa, some distance up the hill, where two bands play, and there is some dancing, and where the lights are not put out until the small hours are growing into big ones.
Mentone
Mentone has a splendid tea-shop at Rumpelmayer's, and a pleasant restaurant at which to lunch is that of the Winter Palace. Many people drive from Monte Carlo to lunch or take tea at the Cap Martin Hôtel, and it is a pleasant place with a splendid view from the great terrace, though sometimes people not staying in the hotel complain of the slowness of the attendance there.
The Pyrenees
As a gastronomic guide to the Pyrenees I cannot do better than introduce to you my very good friend C.P., who knows that part of the world as well as any native, and whose taste is unimpeachable. I therefore stand down and let him speak for himself:—