The Gourmets Guide to Europe | Page 3

Parisian open
tarts and cakes and the _friandises_ and the ice, or _coupe-jacque_ at

the end of the Gallic repast are excellent.
Paris is strewn with the wrecks of restaurants, and many of the
establishments with great names of our grandfathers' and fathers' days
are now only _tavernes_ or cheap _table-d'hôte_ restaurants. The Grand
Vefour in the Palais Royal--where the patrons of the establishment in
Louis Philippe's time used to eat off royal crockery, bought from the
surplus stock of the palaces by M. Hamel, cook to the king, and
proprietor of the restaurant--has lost its vogue in the world of fashion.
The present Café de Paris has an excellent cook, and is the supper
restaurant where the most shimmering lights of the _demi-monde_ may
be seen; but the old Café de Paris, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the
house which M. Martin Guépet brought to such fame, and where the
_Veau à la Casserole_ drew the warmest praise from our grandfathers,
has vanished. Bignon's, which was a name known throughout the world,
has fallen from its high estate; the Café Riche, though it retains a good
restaurant, is not the old famous dining-place any longer; and the
Marivaux, where Joseph flourished, has been transformed into a
_brasserie_. The Café Hardi, at one time a very celebrated restaurant,
made place for the Maison d'Or, and the gilded glory of the latter has
now passed in its turn. The Café Veron, Philippe's, of the Rue Mont
Orgueil, and the Rocher de Cancale in the Rue Mandar, where Borel,
one of the cooks of Napoleon I., made gastronomic history,
Beauvilliers's, the proprietor of which was a friend of all the
field-marshals of Europe, and made and lost half-a-dozen fortunes, the
Trois Frères Provençeaux, the Café Very, and D'Hortesio's are but
memories.
The saddest disappearance of all, because the latest, is the Maison d'Or,
which is to be converted, so it is said, into a _brasserie_. The retirement
of Casimir, one of the Verdier family, who was to the D'Or what
Dugleré was to the Anglais, precipitated the catastrophe, and in the
autumn of 1902 the house gave its farewell luncheon, and closed with
all the honours of war. Alas for the _Carpe à la Gelée_ and the _Sole au
vin Rouge_ and the _Poularde Maison d'Or_! I shall never, I fear, eat
their like again. There was much history attached to the little golden
house; more, perhaps, than to any other restaurant in the world. From

its doors Rigolboche, in the costume of Mother Eve, started for her run
across the road to the Anglais. At the table by one of the windows
looking out on to the boulevard Nestor Roqueplan, Fould, Salamanca,
and Delahante used always to dine. Upstairs in "Le Grand 6," which
was to the Maison d'Or what "Le Grand 16" is to the Anglais,
Salamanca, who drew a vast revenue from a Spanish banking-house,
used to give extraordinary suppers at which the lights of the
_demi-monde_ of that day, Cora Pearl, Anna Deslions, Deveria, and
others used to be present. The amusement of the Spaniard used to be to
spill the wax from a candle over the dresses, and then to pay royally for
the damage. One evening he asked one of the MM. Verdier whether a
very big bill would be presented to him if he burned the whole house
down, and on being told that it was only a matter of two or three
million francs he would have set light to the curtains if M. Verdier had
not interfered to prevent him. The "beau Demidoff," the duelling Baron
Espeleta, Princes Galitzin and Murat, Tolstoy, and the Duc de Rivoli
gave their parties in the "Grand 6"; and down the narrow, steep flight of
steps which led into the side street the Duke of Hamilton fell and broke
his neck. The Maison d'Or was the meeting-place, in the sixty odd
years of its existence, of many celebrities of literature. Dumas, Meilhac,
Emmanuel Arène used to dine there before they went across the road
for a game of cards at the Cercle des Deux Mondes, and later Oncle
Sarcey was one of the _habitués_ of the house.
Two restaurants in particular seem to me to head the list of the classic,
quiet establishments, proud of having a long history, satisfied with their
usual _clientèle_, non-advertising, content to rest on their laurels.
Those two are the Anglais and Voisin's, the former on the Boulevard
des Italiens, the latter in the Rue St-Honoré. The Café Anglais, the
white-faced house at the corner of the Rue Marivaux, is the senior of
the two, for it has a history of more than a hundred years. It was
originally a little wine-merchant's shop, with its door leading into the
Rue Marivaux, and