The Gourmets Guide to Europe | Page 5

dignified quiet, is a restaurant which has a
history, and has, and has had, great names amongst its _habitués_.
Many of these have been diplomats, and Voisin's knows that
ambassadors do not care to have their doings, when free from the cares
of office, gossiped about. When I first saw Voisin's, it looked as unlike
the house of to-day as can be imagined. I was in Paris immediately
after the days of the Commune and followed, with an old General, the
line the troops had taken in the fight for the city. In the Rue St-Honoré
were some of the fiercest combats, for the regulars fought their way
from house to house down this street to turn the positions the
Communists took up in the Champs Elysées and the gardens of the
Tuileries. The British Embassy had become a hospital, and all the
houses which had not been burned looked as though they had stood a
bombardment. There were bullet splashes on all the walls, and I

remember that Voisin's looked even more battered and hopeless than
did most of its neighbours.
The diplomats have always had an affection for Voisin's, perhaps
because of its nearness to the street of the Embassies; and in the
"eighties" the attachés of the British Embassy used to breakfast there
every day. Nowadays, the _clientèle_ seems to me to be a mixture of
the best type of the English and Americans passing through Paris, and
the more elderly amongst the statesmen, who were no doubt the
dashing young blades of twenty-five years ago. The two comfortable
ladies who sit near the door at the desk, and the little show-table of the
finest fruit seem to me never to have changed, and there is still the
same quiet-footed, unhurrying service which impressed me when first I
made the acquaintance of the restaurant. It is one of the dining-places
where one feels that to dine well and unhurriedly is the first great
business of life, and that everything else must wait at the dinner-hour.
The proprietor, grey-headed and distinguished-looking, goes from table
to table saying a word or two to the _habitués_, and there is a sense of
peace in the place--a reflection of the sunshine and calm of Provence,
whence the founder of the restaurant came.
The great glory of Voisin's is its cellar of red wines, its Burgundies and
Bordeaux. The Bordeaux are arranged in their proper precedence, the
wines from the great vineyards first, and the rest in their correct order
down to mere bourgeois tipple. Against each brand is the price of the
vintage of all the years within a drinkable period, and the man who
knew the wine-list of Voisin's thoroughly would be the greatest
authority in the world on claret.
Mr. Rowland Strong, in his book on Paris, tells how, one Christmas
Eve, he took an Englishman to dine at Voisin's, and how that
Englishman demanded plum-pudding. The _maître-d'hôtel_ was equal
to the occasion. He was polite but firm, and his assertion that "The
House of Voisin does not serve, has never served, and will never serve,
plum-pudding" settled the matter.
If the Anglais and Voisin's may be said to have much of their interest in
their "past," Paillard's should be taken as a restaurant which is the type

and parent of the present up-to-date restaurant. The white restaurant on
the Boulevard des Italiens has kept at the top of the tree for many years,
and has sent out more culinary missionaries to improve the taste of
dining man than any other establishment in Paris. Joseph, who brought
the Marivaux to such a high pitch of fame before he emigrated to
London, came from Paillard's and so did Frederic of the Tour d'Argent,
of whom I shall have something to say later on. Henri of the Gaillon,
Notta, Charles of Foyot's--all were trained at Paillard's.
The restaurant has its history, and its long list of great patrons. _Le
Désir de Roi_, which generally appears in the menu of any important
dinner at Paillard's, and which has _foie gras_ as its principal
component, has been eaten by a score of kings at one time or another,
our own gracious Majesty heading the list. The restaurant at first was
contained in one small room. Then the shop of Isabelle, the Jockey
Club flower-girl, which was next door, was acquired, and lastly another
little shop was taken in, the entrance changed from the front to its
present position at the side, the accountant's desk put out of sight, and
the little musicians' gallery built--for Paillard's has moved with the time
and now has a band of Tziganes, much to the grief of men like myself
who prefer conversation to music as the accompaniment of a meal. The
restaurant as it is with its white walls