There were humbler retreats at which the French manner of dining might be enjoyed. Soho was full of these small eating-houses at which the customers might either dine à la carte at a moderate cost, or eat a dinner of the table d’hôte order for eighteen pence, with half a bottle of wine thrown in. For this you would get a soup maigre, a sole au vin blanc, an entrée, a bit of chicken, a morsel of Brie or Camembert, and the smallest possible collection of nuts and raisins on a Tom Thumb plate, which was written down “dessert” on the menu. As a rule the dinner was not half bad, and the wonder was how it could be done at the price. Of the wine one cannot talk so enthusiastically. Charles Lever once described a vintage which he tasted in Italy. He spoke of it as “a pyroligneous wine, distilled from vine-stalks, and agreeable in summer—with one’s salad.” This admirably sets forth the virtues of the sour but ruddy products of Bordeaux which were “thrown in” by the enterprising exiles who catered in Soho. The best of these smaller restaurants was Kettner’s, in Church Street, close to where the Palace Theatre now stands. It is difficult, when one enters the elegant rooms which are now known as Kettner’s, to call up its small beginnings. Many of its old customers cursed the day when it was “discovered” by Mr. E. S. Dallas, of the Times. Dallas was a man who could not keep a secret. Having found out what a wonderfully well-cooked dinner the little restaurant in Church Street could supply to the customer for a very trifling cost, he must needs go and proclaim the fact from the house-tops of Printing House Square. All London began to flock to Church Street, and all London was delighted to see Madame Kettner presiding as dame du comptoir, and to learn that the dainty dishes provided were prepared by Monsieur Kettner in the basement below. This influx of visitors brought about increased accommodation, improved service, a greater luxury in the surroundings, until Kettner’s became what it is to-day—a West End resort with some considerable support from fashionable society.
Prices went up, too. Dallas, who had very appropriately signed his letter to the leading journal “A Beast at Feeding-time,” could no longer get a portion of sole au vin blanc for sixpence, and the poor French exiles who were wont to forgather in Kettner’s little dining-room in Church Street were driven forth to seek sustenance elsewhere in the fastnesses of Soho. I wonder what those patient old émigrés would have said concerning an incident which happened to me some few years since at this famous restaurant? I was dining in a private room as the guest of a man who was wanting to “do business” with me. Beside myself there was one other guest. After dinner our host, who was a non-smoker, asked us to have a cigar. He called the waiter. Cigars were ordered.
“Wat price, sare?” inquired the servant.
“The best you have will not be too good for my friends,” declared our host in an expansive mood.
The cigars came—big things swathed in gold-foil. We took a cigar each, and St. Georgi, who had married the widow Kettner and was now running the show, came in to see how we were getting on. Him also our host asked to have a cigar. St. Georgi complied. That made three cigars in all. At last the time came for paying. The bill was brought in. The founder of the feast ran his eye over it. The document was quite in order—save for one item.
“Here, waiter, what the doose is the meaning of this fifteen shillings?” he asked.
“Three cigars, sare,” he replied sweetly.
“Fifteen shillings!” exclaimed our non-smoking host.
“I am sorry, sare,” replied the waiter, looking very sad indeed; “but we have none better!”
It was a palpable hit. Our friend joined in the laugh—and paid.