My host asked me which sort I would prefer. "Du vin Brut, if you have any," I replied. "Ah! Vous buvez de ce poison-là?" exclaimed he, smiling. So they evidently did not agree with our taste for dry wine. But you can make a pleasant and harmless drink of the sweet champagne in summer by mixing it with an equal quantity of light Moselle, adding a liqueur glass of curaçoa, and putting some wild strawberries or a large peach cut up into the concoction with some ice.
To return to the Englischer Garten. They also keep some particularly good Pilsen beer which they serve highly iced: that of course is as it should be, but it is apt to have disastrous consequences if one is not accustomed to it. Being a wine restaurant they do not expect you to drink beer except as a supplement to your wine, but if you make a point of it you can have it throughout. An additional charge of 6d. per head is made for the set mid-day meal if wine is not ordered.
The clientèle is by way of being "smart" in the evening, and there is generally a fair sprinkling of officers of the two crack Saxon cavalry regiments,—the Dresden Horse Guards and the Oschatz Lancers. Evening clothes, or, better still, a dress jacket and a black tie are advisable, but by no means de rigueur. The-cloth-cap knickerbocker-cum-Norfolk-jacket-get-up, unfortunately so frequently affected by travelling Englishmen in continental capitals, is certainly not to be recommended.
In the middle of the day the company is more bourgeois, and on Sundays, and occasionally on Saturdays, the place is apt to be unpleasantly crowded. In the evening, except on race nights, there is always plenty of room; in fact it is usually rather empty till after the plays are over.
The other restaurants would not appeal to a gourmet but, for a change, some of them are well worth visiting according to the season. For instance:—
The Belvedere, an old-established and very popular institution, delightfully situated on the Bruhlsche Terrasse, with a charming view over the Elbe and the principal architectural features of the town. Essentially a place for the summer, when one can take one's meals out of doors on its terraces and balconies. There is a beer and a wine department, and in the former an excellent band plays; but it is difficult to secure a table within earshot as there is always a great crowd. The attendance is indifferent and the cuisine fair and wholesome, though no doubt you could get a good dinner if you took a little trouble and ordered it.
The public dinners which take place there in the large banqueting hall are quite creditable productions, and the position, view, and fresh air all combine to render it a very pleasant hot-weather resort.
The Stadt Gotha. The wine restaurant is small and quaintly decorated. Very popular with the upper and middle classes and extremely respectable, cuisine very fair, set meals, and especially supper after the play very inexpensive. But if you order à la carte, like most other places, it is rather dear. A capital beer restaurant in connection with it and good; a thoroughly plain German cooking served here.
Tiedemann and Grahl's, in the Seestrasse, is a typical German Weinstube with a large clientèle of habitués, mostly men, but ladies can go there. The owners being large wine merchants have some first-rate wine at prices averaging rather lower than the Englischer Garten. But there is a very extensive list and the quality is not altogether uniform, so if you can suborn a friendly waiter he could help you considerably. Excellent oysters and smoked salmon are to be had here, but the place is apt to be rather crowded and noisy. The appointments are of the simplest and most unpretentious kind. Prices, moderately high—about two-thirds of the Englischer Garten. Set meals are served, but à la carte is more usual. The waiters, being institutions like most of the guests, are inclined to be a little off-hand and familiar, and there is altogether a free and easy and homely tone about the place, but it is perfectly respectable.
Neues Palais de Saxe, on the Neumarket, is owned and managed by Herr Muller. Very fair cuisine; good set meals; à la carte rather more expensive; speciality made of oysters and écrevisses, which latter are served in all sorts of fascinating ways. Not at all a bad place for supper after the theatre, but perhaps a trifle dull.