[XLV]
THE RESTAURANT DES GOURMETS
Dining one wet night in September at the Restaurant des Gourmets in Lisle Street I told the young manager, with whom I chatted, that it must be ten years since I dined there, and that at that time M. Brice was the proprietor. The manager's reply was that fourteen years ago M. Brice sold the restaurant to its present proprietors. I looked up the date of my last visit to the Gourmets when I got home, and found that it was in 1898. It was a queer little place of very eatable food at extraordinarily cheap prices when first I made its acquaintance. It then occupied the ground floor of one of the little houses in Lisle Street, the street in which is the stage door of the Empire Theatre, and Mr George Edwardes' offices at the back of Daly's Theatre. The outside of the restaurant in those days did not look inviting. The woodwork was painted leaden grey, and a yellow curtain hung inside the window to screen the interior from the view of the public. The glass of the door was whitened and "Entrée" written across it in black paint. There were as many little tables, to hold two or four, as could be crammed into the little room; the benches by the wall were covered with black leather, the walls were grey, with wooden pegs all round on which to hang hats and coats, and, here and there, notices on boards "La Pipe est interdite." By the window was a long counter, on which were bowls of salad and stacks of French loaves, and a metal coffee-making machine. By this counter stood a plump Frenchwoman in black with an apron, who shouted orders down a lift, and up the lift came presently in response the dish called for. M. Brice, a little Frenchman with a slight beard and wearing a grey cap, came and sat on a chair by the table and told me who the star guests were amongst the people of all nationalities who filled all the space on the chairs and benches. The chef d'orchestre of the Moore and Burgess Minstrels at St James's Hall was one of the celebrities; another, a gentleman wearing a red tie, was a journalist who contributed articles on Anarchists to the newspapers; there were some Frenchmen who were big men in the greengrocery line, and came over occasionally to Covent Garden; and the greatest celebrity of all was a clean-shaven, prosperous-looking person, the coachman of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild. My bill that evening totalled 2s. 7d., and for this I obtained hors d'œuvre, 2d.; pain, 1d.; potage, pâté d'Italie, 2d.; poisson, 8d. (the expensive dish of my dinner, turbot and caper sauce); gigot haricot, 6d.; an omelette, 4d.; cheese, 2d.; and a pint of claret, of which M. Brice had purchased a supply at the sale of the surplus wines of the Café Royal, which cost me no more than 6d.
The front of the Restaurant des Gourmets to-day stretches across three of the houses in Lisle Street, and it has, besides the ground-floor rooms, quite a spacious restaurant on the first floor, made by throwing the three rooms of the houses into one. Its ground-floor front is painted chocolate colour, and its principal entrance, between two of the houses, is quite imposing, has little Noah's Ark trees and a chasseur in buttons, stationed there to direct visitors to the different rooms and to call taxis. The staircase, with brass edges to the steps and a brass rail, and with walls of white panelling, leads to the restaurant upstairs, and a little pay-desk, with an opening like those in a railway ticket office, faces one at the entrance, and it is here that every visitor pays his bill as he goes out. I looked in at all three downstairs rooms, which are bright with coloured papers on their walls, and found all the tables occupied, before I went upstairs into the larger restaurant. There I found a little table vacant, and sat down at it with grim apprehension that I might have what scanty hair I possess on the top of my head blown off, for just above it was a large electric fan. It was, however, not necessary, the night being cool, to set this going, and I ate my dinner in a calm atmosphere.
The Gourmets has become quite smart since Madame H. Cosson and her son succeeded M. Brice in the proprietorship. The upstairs restaurant is panelled with white woodwork above a green skirting, there are mirrors in the panelling, and the range of windows looking out on to Lisle Street have white lace curtains. There is a table in the middle of the room, and upon it fruits and big-leaved plants and a basket with bunches of grapes hung invitingly along the handle. Two big stands of Austrian bent-wood for hats and coats are placed as sentinels on either side of this table. There is a round-faced clock on the wall to tell the time, and at intervals notices to say that all drinks must be paid for in advance, which means, I suppose, that the Gourmets has not yet obtained a wine and spirit licence. No notice forbidding pipes is now necessary. The waiters in dress clothes and black ties bustle about, and when I had given my order for crème de laitue, cabillaud frit, poulet au riz, sauce suprême, and pudding Gourmets, I looked round at my fellow-guests to see if I could pick out any celebrities. There was no M. Brice this time to act as a "Who's Who in Lisle Street," and most of the people who were dining seemed to me to be young couples. Indeed from the tables in my vicinity a painter could have limned a series of pictures of the various stages of matrimony. At the table next to mine sat a young couple who were still in the holding hands state of love, who were thinking a great deal about each other and very little about their dinner, and who ordered anything that the waiter suggested to them; further on was a couple, each of whom was reading a newspaper, and next to them again a young husband and wife, who had brought out to dinner a pig-tailed little girl of six or seven, whose manners were most admirable, for she bade the waiter "Good-night" when she went away with all the grace of a duchess. Beyond these again was an elderly couple, who sat together at one side of a table, an affectionate Darby and Joan.
My soup when it came tasted rather too strongly of pepper, but the fried cod was excellent. The poulet au riz was all that it should be, and the pudding Gourmets was a simple version of the well-known pudding Diplomate.
Prices have gone up a little at the Gourmets since my first visit there, owing, of course, to the general rise in the price of material. I was charged 3d. for the soup, 6d. for the cod; I had rushed into wild extravagance in ordering chicken, for that cost me 1s. 3d., and the price of the pudding Gourmets was 4d.