Homburg
The "Homburg Dinner" has become a household word, meaning that a certain number of men and women agree to dine together at one of the hotels, each one paying his or her own share in the expenses. During the past two years, owing to the desire to spend money shown by some millionaires, British and American, who are not happy unless they are giving expensive dinners every night with a score of guests, this pretty old custom seems likely now to die out. In no German town are there better hotels than at Homburg, and one dines on a warm day in very pleasant surroundings, for Ritter's has its world-famous terrace, and some of the other hotels have very delightful open-air restaurants in their gardens. Simplicity, good plain food well cooked, is insisted on by the doctors at Homburg, and therefore a typical Homburg dinner is a very small affair compared to German feasts over which the doctors do not have control. This is a dinner of the day at Ritter's, taken haphazard from a little pile of menus, and it may be accepted as a typical Homburg dinner:—
Potage Crécy au Riz.
Truite de Lac. Sce. Genevoise. Pommes Natures.
Longe de Veau à la Hongroise.
Petits pois au Jambon.
Chapons de Châlons rôtis.
Salade and Compots. Pêches à la Cardinal.
Fruits. Dessert.
The hotels at Homburg are always quite full in the season. No hotel-keeper puts any pressure on his guests to dine at his hotel, and you may have your bedroom in one hotel and dine at another every night of your life so far as the proprietors care. All those who have the luck to be made members of the Golf Club take tea there, and eat cake such as is only to be found at school-treats in England. The restaurant at the Kurhaus goes up and down in public favour. Everybody goes to its terrace in the evening, and fashion at the present time has, I believe, ordained that on one particular day of the week it is "smart" to dine there. If the restaurant remains as excellently catered for as it was when I last visited Homburg, it is well worth including in the round of dinners.
Wiesbaden
At Wiesbaden you generally dine where you sleep, in your hotel. I myself have generally stayed at the Kaiser Hof, because I like to eat my supper on its creeper-hung terrace and look across the broad valley to the Taunus hill; but there are half-a-dozen hotels in the town, the Nassauer Hof in particular, which many people consider the best hotel in Germany, having capital restaurants, serving table-d'hôte meals, attached to them. The Rose has a little terrace, looking on to the gardens, which is a pleasant supping-place. The old Kurhaus, a tumble-down building, is disappearing or has disappeared, and a new and gorgeous building is to take its place. The restaurant at the old Kurhaus always had a good reputation, and to eat one's evening meal, for every one sups and does not dine, at one of its little tables under the trees, looking at the lake beneath the moonshine and listening to the band, was one of the pleasures of Wiesbaden. It was fairly cheap, and I thought the food well cooked, and served as hot as one could expect it in the open air. I have little doubt that the new restaurant will carry on the pleasant ways of the old one. The proprietor is Herr Ruthe, who is caterer to several crowned heads, and who is always on the spot and delighted to be consulted as to the dishes to be ordered for a dinner.
The wine-house, the Rathskeller, is one of the sights of the place. Therein are quaint frescoes and furniture, there the usual German food is obtainable, and you have a choice of German wines such as is obtainable in few other wine-drinking places in Germany.
Any one who likes the open tarts of apple and other fruits—a rather sticky delicacy it always seems to me—can eat them at ease of an afternoon looking at the beautiful view from the Neroberg or watching the Rhine from under the trees of the hotel gardens at Biebrich.
Baden-Baden
The first-class hotels in Baden-Baden are so well catered for that few people wander abroad to take their food, but the restaurant of the Conversation Haus is a good one. The little restaurant, with a shady terrace on the Alte-Schloss Hohenbaden, has achieved celebrity for its trout au bleu and good cookery, and the marvellous view over the Rhine valley makes it a notable little place. There are many refreshment-places on the roads along which the patients take their walks, but as milk is the staple nourishment sold, they hardly find a place in a guide for gourmets. The wines of the Duchy, both red and white, are excellent.