The Gourmet's Guide to London

by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis

[XLVI]

THE MAXIM RESTAURANT

There may not appear at first blush to be any close connection between Wardour Street, that length of it which lies between Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street, and the pleasant Austrian watering-place of Marienbad; but whenever I traverse the thoroughfare where the wax figures simper in Clarkson's, the wig-maker's, windows, and where the French library at one of the corners always keeps some passers-by in front of it looking at the illustrated papers and post cards, the china figures and the covers of the novels, there rises before me when I come to the Maxim Restaurant a vision of hills covered with pine-woods and of the Café Rubezahl, a castellated building of great red roofs and turrets and spires, high up on the green hill-side, the café at which the late King Edward often drank the good Austrian coffee of an afternoon during his annual August trip to the town of healing waters.

The Rubezahl was, in an indirect manner, the parent of the Restaurant Maxim in Wardour Street, for when the organisers of the Austro-Hungarian Exhibition at Earl's Court cast about for attractions which would be in keeping with the spirit of the exhibition it occurred very naturally to them that an Austrian restaurant where the admirable plain Austrian dishes could be eaten and where the Hungarian wines and the cool beer of Pilsen could be drunk would be a pleasant novelty; and such a restaurant was established opposite to the Welcome Club, and was eminently successful. And to manage this restaurant the son-in-law of the proprietor of the Rubezahl came from the Austrian Highlands, and when King Edward lunched at the restaurant and was given a typical Austrian meal of "cure food" he recognised M. Maximilian Lurion, the manager, and chatted with him concerning Marienbad and the Rubezahl. When Earl's Court had closed its doors for the winter M. Maxim Lurion was not unwilling to stay in London, and he, in conjunction with a British syndicate, thought that a site at the corners of Wardour and Gerrard Streets, which was then in the market, would be a suitable position for a restaurant. A small public-house carrying a licence was included in the purchase, and when everything else on the site was pulled down the business part of the old house of refreshment stood, looking like a saloon of the Wild West, amidst the ruins. When a name had to be found for the new restaurant, the shortened form of M. Lurion's Christian name was chosen, and the building became the Restaurant Maxim. No doubt Maxim's, in Paris, came by its name in a like manner, for Maximilian is a very usual name in central and eastern Europe.

Maxim's has always kept a clean face in a street not remarkable for smartness, and its white exterior, the touches of gilding on the wreaths that embellish its outer walls, its rows of mauresque white-curtained narrow windows on the first floor, its turret domed with silver, the flowers in its green and gold balconies, and the commissionaire in a well-fitting coat who stands by the front door, near the two large menus which set forth what is the dinner of the day, make it a pleasant feature of the street.

When the Maxim was first opened M. Lurion took me over the establishment from garret to basement, and showed me how the coffee is made in Austria, though Austrian coffee never tastes so well in London surroundings as it does under the little trees of the hill-side cafés in Carlsbad or Marienbad, or in one of the open-air restaurants in the Prater of Vienna. The Maxim, however, did not at first fulfil the hopes of its promoters. Whether its name frightened people or whether it was too ambitious in its aims I do not know, but it soon changed hands.

When one evening last summer I went to the Maxim to dine before going to one of the theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, I found M. Ducker, the present manager, in the entrance hall near the cloak-room where hats and coats are left, and he told me all about the varying fortunes of the restaurant, who are its present proprietors, and of the struggle that was necessary to bring it to its present state of prosperity, for prosperous it now is, there being not a vacant table either on the ground floor or the first floor when I came in. While I talked to M. Ducker a couple, who had finished their dinner, rose from a table by the brass ornamental rail surrounding the oval opening which makes the restaurant on the first floor a balcony to the room below, a waiter slipped a clean cloth on to the table, and in a few seconds it was ready for my occupation. M. Ducker hoped I would have a good dinner, and left me to the care of the maître d'hôtel, and as the waiter covered the table with little dishes containing hors d'œuvres I looked at the menu, at my surroundings, and at the company. This was the menu of the half-crown dinner of the house, the arms of the establishment, three stags' heads on a shield, with a boar's head as a crest, and two stags as supporters, being at the top of the menu card:

Hors d'œuvre à la Russe.
Consommé Chiffonnette.
Crème Gentilhomme.
Suprême de Barbue Niçoise.
Carré de Pré-Salé Bourguignonne.
Pommes fondantes.
Poulet en Casserole.
Salade.
Glacé Chantilly.
Dessert.

In the upper restaurant of the Maxim, where I sat, the walls are papered deep red, with white woodwork and white classic ornamentation. There are mirrors on the walls, and on a large panel the arms of the house are displayed in proper heraldic colours. The cut glass electroliers, some hanging, some fixed to the ceiling, give light both to the upper and lower restaurants. The lower restaurant is panelled and is all white, red-shaded lamps on the tables and some palms making a contrast of colour. Down in the basement is a grill-room. The chairs are of white wood upholstered in green leather, and the carpets are a deep rose in colour. The little string band of the establishment plays in the upper restaurant, its leader, who is a talented violinist, standing close by the brazen railing so that his music shall be as well heard below as it is above.