[LIII]
VERREY'S
If I compare Verrey's in Regent Street to Borchardt's in the Französischerstrasse of Berlin, I am paying Verrey's a high compliment, for Borchardt's is the classic restaurant of the German capital, run on good French lines by a German proprietor.
Mr George Krehl the First, founder of Verrey's as a restaurant, was born near Stuttgart, and came over from Germany in 1850; and the recent manager of the restaurant, Mr Stadelmaier, is also German born, for he, like Mr Krehl, came from near Stuttgart, and he, before he went to Egypt, to Paris, to Düsseldorf and elsewhere, to become a cosmopolitan, served his apprenticeship in gastronomy under old Mr George Krehl at Verrey's.
But French—French of the second empire—Verrey's is, particularly at dinner-time. At lunch-time the restaurant is always quite full of ladies who shop in Regent Street, and of their escorts, and the rooms on the first floor are also given over to lunchers—and even then, sometimes, would-be customers have to wait a little while to obtain tables. Therefore the luncheon menu is adapted to the wants of ladies who are probably in a hurry, for though there is a very full list at lunch-time of delicacies that can be ordered, there are also several entrées and several joints always ready.
It is, however, at dinner-time that Verrey's enjoys the peaceful, unhurrying atmosphere that always should surround a classic restaurant, and which is so thoroughly in keeping with the old bow-windows with small panes of the café, which look out on to Regent Street. A little corridor leads from the street to a tiny waiting-room—a comparatively recent addition, for it used to be the old still-room, a room which is so small that the round table of ormolu with a china plaque in its centre, on which is a portrait of Louis XV., and smaller oval plaques all about it, almost fills all the available space.
The restaurant, lighted from above, used in old Mr Krehl's days to be known as the Cameo Room, for on the centre of each of its panels was a medallion in the style of Wedgwood. I rather wish that this old decoration had been retained, but I remember the pride with which Mr George Krehl the Second showed me the new Oriental decorations—decorations which still remain—the silvered roof with mirrors reflecting it, the electric lights on the cornice with great shells to act as reflectors, an electric clock shaped like a star, and the panels of old gold Oriental silk. Time has mellowed the gorgeousness of this Eastern setting, which in its first bloom I thought a little too voyant, and the dark carpet and the dark wood and upholstery of the chairs, all keep the scheme of colouring a restful one. The napery at Verrey's is the good thick napery of the classic restaurant. Its glass is thin; its silver is heavy—all trifles which are important as adding to the delight of a good dinner. The lights at the tables are wax candles, with pink shades, in old silver candlesticks, and there is a Japanese simplicity in the two great bunches of flowers in glass vases, one of which is on a dark wooden stand in the centre of the room, and the other on the sideboard. There are flowers also, in glasses, on all the tables.
It adds to the pleasure of dining at Verrey's to be known and to be recognised by the old servants who have been in the restaurant as long as I can remember it. There is an old head waiter, a fine specimen of a Briton—portly, with little side whiskers, dignified and unhurrying, who might have stood as a model for that Robert whose wit and wisdom used to enliven the pages of Punch, who always remembers my name and all my gastronomic history. And the head waiter in the café, who now has a full head of grey hair, I remember when he first came to Verrey's a youth with the blackest of black hair. Mr Stadelmaier, though he looks on the right side of forty, remembers how young Mr George Krehl, in the days of his father's rule, one day took me out into the yard at the back of the house to show me his dogs and the kitchen which looks out on to this open space, and the last time I dined at Verrey's brought me in from the yard, to look at a delightful little Samoyede puppy, looking like one of the woolly toy dogs in the shops, for he too, like Mr George Krehl the younger, is a breeder of prize dogs, and has established a club for the owners of sleigh dogs.