At length we come to the restaurants proper, the restaurants where one dines in the true sense of the term. It is commonly believed that the first-class restaurants in Paris are very dear. The Café Anglais, you will be told, charges twelve francs for a beefsteak for two, and fifteen francs for a Rouen duck. Yes, but the beefsteak in question is a Chateaubriand, a kernel of delicate meat cut in the heart of the filet,—meat that is sold at two and a half francs a pound by the butcher—and the duck costs eight or nine francs at the poulterer’s. Good provisions in Paris are dear, and when one considers the heavy expenses of the first-class restaurants, one cannot complain of their charges.
As regards perfection of cooking, the Café Anglais heads the list. Its soups and sauces are exquisite; a sole “à l’Orly,” “Colbert,” “normande,” “à la Join-ville,” or “au vin blanc,” may be eaten there in perfection, and there is no restaurant in Paris where you can get a more delicate “sauce diable” served to a grilled fowl. The two great tests of a French kitchen are soups and sauces; if these are good, you may rest assured that everything else will be good.
In the same category with the Café Anglais, both as regards quality of food and price, may be placed Durand’s, opposite the Madeleine, and Adolphe and Pellé behind the Opéra. Next come the Maison d’Or, the Café de la Paix, Bignon, and the Café de Paris, in the Avenue de l’Opéra, Voisin in the rue Cambon, the old Véfour in the Palais Royal, the Père Lathuile, in the Avenue de Clichy, and Fayot, opposite the Luxembourg Palace. At all these restaurants you can dine delicately and drink as good wines as are still to be had in France. Voisin and Foyot, especially, have choice Burgundies of incomparable fineness.
The third category of restaurants includes the Café Riche, which years ago belonged to the first category; Brébant’s, now a general Bouillon, at the corner of Boulevard Montmartre; Chevilliard, at the Rond-Point des Champs Élysées; Laurent, and Ledoyen, in the Champs Élysées; Champeaux, Place de la Bourse, where you dine in a perpetual winter garden; Edouard, Place Boieldieu, opposite the Opéra Comique; Wepler, Place Clichy; La Pérouse, on the Quai des Grands Augustins; Maire, at the corner of the Boulevard de Strasbourg and the Boulevard St. Denis; Marguery, next door to the Gymnase theatre; Perroncel, rue du Havre, opposite the Gare Saint Lazare. In the Bois du Boulogne the restaurants of Madrid, and of the Pavilion d’Armenonville are much frequented in the summer by gay and smart people: the prices are about the same as at the restaurants in town of the second category, that is to say, two can dine there modestly with ordinary wine for a louis.
I presume that the traveller comes to Paris to taste Parisian cooking, and therefore I shall not recommend him to try the pseudo-English cuisine of Weber or Lucas in the rue Royale and Place de la Madeleine, or the Russian restaurant in the rue Marivaux, or the Hungarian restaurant in the rue Rougemont. There remain then to be mentioned only a few special establishments, such as the Pied de Mouton near the Central Market, and the famous tripe restaurant in the rue Montorgueil. There are several restaurants in Paris which make a specialty of Bouillabaisse; but I do not recommend that dish in Paris, for the simple reason that it is not the real article. In the Parisian Bouillabaisse several of the fish elements are wanting because they cannot bear transportation from the seaside. The traveller gourmet will prefer to wait until chance leads him to Marseilles, where the reigning chief of the great dynasty of Roubion will serve him this savoury dish on a balcony overlooking the blue Mediterranean. The café concerts in the Champs Élysées are also much frequented by open air diners in the summer. The spectacle is curious and amusing, but the gourmet will flee the promiscuity and bustle of their dear and mediocre cuisine.
To give precise details as to price is difficult. One may say generally that at the Café Anglais two persons can dine delicately and well without stint as to good wines or choice of dishes, for about two louis (forty francs). On the other hand, the single man who is prepared to spend not less than seven francs on his dinner may enter boldly any restaurant in Paris, from the Café Anglais downward, and dine for that sum on soup, one dish, cheese, and half a bottle of wine. For ten or twelve francs one may dine simply but abundantly almost anywhere, except at the very tip-top houses, such as the Café Anglais, Durand’s, and Adolphe and Pellé’s. By way of practical hints I will subjoin a few observations.
Beware of hors d’œuvres and baskets of fruit, for their influence on the total of your bill is alarming. If you are alone, resolutely refuse radishes and butter, or rather leave them untouched on the table before you; if you have invited a friend to dinner, offer him hors d’œuvres and hope that he will refuse; if you are with a lady, both hors d’œuvres and the basket of fruit are obligatory. Eve offered fruit to Adam; the least we sons of Adam can do is to return the politeness.
The real gourmet eats by candle-light, because, as Nestor Roqueplan said, “rein n’est laid comme une sauce vue au soleil.”
When you enter a restaurant refuse as a rule the place that is offered you. Choose your own table, and if it is breakfast-time secure a view through the window and a view of the whole restaurant, and if possible let the light strike on the table from your left hand.
Preserve your freedom of will, but do not try to impose it. You are the master, it is true, and yet to a certain extent you must obey. Consult, therefore, with the maître d’hôtel, consider what he recommends, and accept it if it be to your taste, for in the good restaurants there is no question of passing off stale food. The maître d’hôtel is flattered when you ask his advice, and it is his business to be acquainted with the special and daily resources of the larder. At places like the Café Anglais the written menu mentions only a few very ordinary dishes, and you will inspire respect by not asking for the carte. At Bignon’s do not trouble yourself about the carte; ask advice of the portly Louis, and do not disdain his counsel. In cookery as in love much confidence is necessary.