I must pass quickly over the fire which burned down the old Romano's and its rebuilding on the site of the old restaurant and on that of another house next door. The panelled hall and, in the restaurant, the Moorish arches with the pictures of the Bosphorus seen through them were features of the new building, and remain to-day as they then were. In the nineties Romano died of pneumonia, contracted by standing one cold winter day outside the restaurant door with no great-coat on, and the restaurant came under the Court of Chancery.
The Court of Chancery was not at all sorry to hand over its duties to a company, with Mr Walter Pallant, the then chairman of the Gaiety Company, as its chairman, which was formed to purchase the restaurant. Mr "Teddy" Bayly, who as a patron of the restaurant had helped materially in making the fortune of the Roman, became manager, and Luigi was appointed as second in command. When Mr Bayly left Romano's for a restaurant of his very own M. Luigi mounted one rung more of the ladder of promotion and was appointed manager.
The first business of the company, after giving the building "a wash and brush up," was to find a chef of celebrity and experience to take charge of the kitchens. They found in M. Ferrario exactly the man for whom they were looking. M. Ferrario had learned his art under M. Coste in the kitchens of the Cecil, and when he himself became the commander of the kitchens of a restaurant of the first class he showed that he had used his powers of observation, that not only did he know all that there was to be learned concerning the haute cuisine française, but that he had an open mind with regard to the cookery of all other nations. The mouzakkas that M. Ferrario sends from his kitchen are the best I have eaten outside Bucharest. He makes a ground-nut soup, the one delicacy that Nigeria has added to the cookery book, quite admirably, and Romano's is the only restaurant that I know of in Europe where one can eat a Malay curry cooked as it is cooked in Malaya and served in the Malay fashion, with sambals and with shining Malayan shell spoons for the rice. What substitute M. Ferrario has found for the fresh cocoa-nut pulp which is the foundation of all Malay curries I do not know, but he has found something which replaces it admirably. In the winter at lunch-time north countrymen say that Romano's Lancashire hot-pot is the real thing, and there is another British luncheon dish, gipsy-pot, which I eat at Romano's, a savoury stew of chicken and cabbage and other vegetables and other meats, which I find exceptionally good.
But perhaps I had better give you in detail what are the specialities of Romano's kitchen. They are, for lunch: Malay curry of chicken, Lancashire hot-pot and gipsy-pot. For dinner: poule au pot, bortch à la Russe, potage Normande, potage Nigérienne, filets de sole Romano, filets de sole Sportive, sole au plat aux courgettes, sole à la crème, truite George V., poulet nouveau Valencienne, perdreau Romano, mousse de volaille au curry, the last being an admirable mousse with just a far-away reminiscence of India, a sort of dream of all the good curries of the East, in it.
If I gave you the menus of all the nice little dinners for two of which I have been one of the participators at Romano's I should fill a fat volume. But here is a little spring dinner which will serve my purpose very well:
Crevettes Roses.
Fumet de Volaille aux œufs Filés.
Filets de Sole Sportive.
Epaule de Pauillac Bergère.
Petits Pois Nouveaux à la Crème.
Asperges d'Argenteuil.
Sauce Divine.
Fraises Diva.
And the wine I drank with this was a bottle of 1900 St Marceaux, which was the choice of the lady who honoured me with her company. The filets de sole Sportive are soles which bring to table with them just a dream of Chablis, and which are nobly backed up by crayfish.
The old Romano's in its first period was very clannish. The new Romano's, though it is a comparatively small restaurant, finds room for all men and all ladies who love good food and who like the slightly Bohemian, pleasantly Parisian, atmosphere of the "Paradise in the Strand." I have seen a duchess dining at one of the corner tables, and I do not suppose that there is a man about town, from dukes to the latest emancipated Oxonian, who does not know Romano's and its ways. The clientele varies with the different meals. At lunch-time, particularly, if there are rehearsals in progress at the Adelphi or the Gaiety or any of the other light opera or revue theatres, a host of pretty little ladies go to Romano's and very probably the "Governor" and the librettists and composers, and a stage director or two, will be lunching at a corner table. Half-a-dozen other managers are sure to be somewhere in the restaurant, and there will be ladies not of the stage, and solicitors, and barristers from the Law Courts and a plaintiff or two, and a journalist or two, a very interesting salmis of the stage world and the business world and the world of Law, with a good seasoning of men from the far parts of the world, and men about town and soldiers and sailors. At dinner little parties going on to the theatre finish their feasts about the time that the habitués of the restaurant, who are going on nowhere or to a variety theatre, make their appearance. At supper-time the stage is once again the most strongly represented element, and there is no restaurant in Paris which can show at this hour prettier faces or more unforced gaiety. The bright young spirits from the 'varsities all love Romano's, but Luigi has a wholesome fear of the "Twenty-firsters," as the boys call their coming-of-age feasts, and the numbers at these gatherings at Romano's are kept within very strict limits.
There is one happy young Oxonian who absolutely defeated Luigi at a birthday feast. He had been solemnly warned that the spirits of his party must not rise too high, and he and they had all behaved with quite suspicious decorum during supper. The band had finished playing, and the bandmaster, on departing, had locked the door of the pulpit-like Moorish bandstand that projects high up into the room. When closing hour came and all the guests were moving out except the party of young Oxonians Luigi told them that they also must take their departure. But their leader begged to be allowed to sit on for a few seconds longer, even though the lights were turned out. Out went the lights, and then here and there a single light was put up again that the waiters might see to pile the chairs on the tables and put the restaurant into its night attire. Luigi, looking at the supper-party, thought that their numbers had diminished, and from the bandstand came the sound of someone playing the piano. In the two seconds of darkness the giver of the feast had performed a really wonderful gymnastic feat. Jumping off from the back of one of his guests, he had climbed up into the bandstand and had taken his seat at the piano. The door was locked and the key gone home with the bandmaster; his fortress was unstormable, and he was in complete possession. For a quarter of an hour or so he played little selections at the piano, inquiring of Luigi, who stood below, what were his favourite airs, and it was only when his musical repertoire ran out that he climbed out of his aerie and dropped to the floor.
On occasions, generally on the evening of first nights at the theatres, when an extension has been obtained, suppers at Romano's sometimes end in little dances. But the great dance of the year at Romano's is the "Twelfth Night," one which is not so much a party given by the restaurant as a party given to themselves by the habitués of the restaurant. All the tables for this night are secured weeks in advance, each host pays for his own party, but Romano's supplies all the toys and the presents, the masks and tambourines, and anything new in trifles that is to be bought in any city of the world. The shops of Paris and Vienna are ransacked to provide novelties for this evening. The spirit of Paris always hovers above Romano's, but this particular night in its fun without rowdiness is the most Parisian night of the year.