SOME OUTLYING RESTAURANTS
In calling the restaurants about which I write in this chapter "outlying" ones, I do not mean that they are in the far suburbs, but only that they are some little distance from Nelson's Column, which I take to be the centre of restaurant land, and that each of them is in a part of London having its own entity—Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Sloane Square and Bloomsbury.
Rinaldo, in the days when he was at the Savoy, used to stand at the desk by the door and tell us all as we came in what tables had been reserved for us. Of course, as maître d'hôtel, he had other duties, but as he knew my whims concerning the position of my table, and as he always sent me just where I wanted to be, I have him in grateful remembrance for doing this. When he left the Savoy he set up on his own account at No. 15 Wilton Road, which is just opposite Victoria Station, and there, I am glad to say, he still flourishes. He is no longer quite the slim Spanish don with a peaked black beard that he used to be, but proprietorship has a waistcoat-filling effect on restaurateurs, and time softens black hair with streaks of grey.
Rinaldo's restaurant is quite spacious, a high and airy room with plenty of light. Its walls are of pleasant grey with decorations in high relief in the upper part, and on the stained glass of the sky-light are paintings of game and fruit. Baskets of ferns in the shape of boats hang from the roof, and there are always bunches of roses on the tables. Behind a screen at the far end is the service bar where the wines are served out, and in the centre of the room is a very appetising table of cold meats and fruit; the melons and other things that should be kept cold being on a long box of broken ice; the mushrooms reposing in big wooden baskets; the crayfish and the egg-fruit and the other delicacies, according to seasons, all being set out with exceptional taste and looking very tempting.
Quite an aristocratic clientele lunches and dines at Rinaldo's restaurant. Many of the great people of Belgravia like to lunch in a restaurant which is no great distance from their homes; the Monsignori from the neighbouring Roman Catholic Cathedral often go there, and quite a number of gourmets who like the Italian dishes—for Rinaldo, though he looks like a Spaniard, is an Italian—of which there are always some on the bill of fare, are very constant patrons.
The restaurant has an extensive carte du jour, and most people who lunch there prefer to order that meal from the card, though there is a two-shilling lunch for those who are in a hurry. On the carte du jour which I took away with me on the last occasion I lunched in Wilton Road I found amongst the entrées ris de veau financière, Vienna schnitzel, côte de veau Napolitaine, bitock à la Russe, entrecôte Tyrolienne and fritto misto à la Romaine, which shows that the restaurant caters for many nationalities and many tastes. My lunch on this occasion—it was a warm summer day—consisted of a slice of cantaloup melon, 9d.; fritto misto, 1s. 6d.; a cut of cheese; an iced zabajone Milanaise, 1s., and a cup of coffee, which is always excellent at Rinaldo's, and which, disregarding his early bringing-up—for Italians never allow metals to touch coffee—Rinaldo pours out of a fascinating little metal pot. A three-and-six dinner is the dinner of the house, and Rinaldo explained to me that this rarely contains Italian dishes; for Englishmen in the evening find them rather difficult to digest. This is a menu, taken by chance in the autumn, of the dinner of the restaurant:
Hors d'œuvre.
Consommé Tosca.
Crème Portugaise.
Turbot Bouilli. Sce. Homard.
Filet d'Hareng Meunière.
Mignonette d'Agneau Marigny.
Grenadine de Veau Clamart.
Grouse rôti.
Salade.
Choufleur au Gratin.
Glacé Napolitaine.
Mignardises.
Gretener, who is the proprietor of the New Albert Restaurant, 77 Knightsbridge, also, in the past, scored good marks in my memory, for he was manager of that very difficult proposition, the restaurant of the Gare Maritime at Boulogne, and during his reign there it was always possible, by giving him warning beforehand, to get an excellent luncheon excellently served. As most of the business of that restaurant is to put the greatest amount of food in the shortest possible time into travellers who keep one anxious eye on the train outside, or to cater for big parties of excursionists at the cheapest possible rate, a manager must have a soul for the gastronomic art to keep his restaurant under these conditions a place of delicate cookery. When M. Gretener and his pretty wife came to England they established themselves at a restaurant in Knightsbridge, which has a tessellated pavement and walls of ornamented glazed tiles with mirrors at intervals, and a ceiling on which cupids in high relief gambol on medallions with a blue ground. A stained glass window is at the far end of the restaurant, a wide staircase leads to the first floor, and under the staircase is a little glassed-in serving-room. M. Gretener has collected a very faithful clientele, and he also sends out meals to the dwellers in the houses of flats which abound in Knightsbridge. In the summer-time many people who go out of a morning to Hyde Park, strangers in the land, French, Germans, and Italians amongst them, see Gretener's as they go through the Albert Gate and make it their lunching place. A three-shilling dinner is the dinner of the house, but whenever I have been there I have ordered my meal à la carte from the very moderately priced card of the day, and this is a typical bill. Crème Lentils, 8d. Mayonnaise of Salmon, 2s. Noisette d'agneau Doria, 1s. 6d. Haricots verts sautés, 6d., and Bavarois chocolat, 4d.