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Table of Contents

The "Cuisine de Paris"—A little ancient history—Restaurants with a "past"—The restaurants of to-day—Over the river—Open-air restaurants—Supping-places—Miscellaneous.

Paris is the culinary centre of the world. All the great missionaries of good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts in the world. Most of the good cooks come from the south of France, most of the good food comes from the north. They meet at Paris, and thus the Paris cuisine, which is that of the nation and that of the civilised world, is created.

When the Channel has been crossed you are in the country of good soups, of good fowl, of good vegetables, of good sweets, of good wine. The hors-d'œuvre are a Russian innovation; but since the days when Henry IV. vowed that every peasant should have a fowl in his pot, soup from the simplest bouillon to the most lordly consommés and splendid bisques has been better made in France than anywhere else in the world. Every great cook of France has invented some particularly delicate variety of the boiled fillet of sole, and Dugleré achieved a place amongst the immortals, by his manipulation of the brill. The soles of the north are as good as any that ever came out of British waters; and Paris—sending tentacles west to the waters where the sardines swim, and south to the home of the lamprey, and tapping a thousand streams for trout and the tiny gudgeon and crayfish—can show as noble a list of fishes as any city in the world. The chef de cuisine who could not enumerate an hundred and fifty entrées all distinctively French, would be no proficient in his noble profession. The British beef stands against all the world as the meat noblest for the spit, though the French ox which has worked its time in the fields gives the best material for the soup-pot; and though the Welsh lamb and the English sheep are the perfection of mutton young and mutton old, the lamb nurtured on milk till the hour of its death, and the sheep reared on the salt-marshes of the north, make splendid contribution to the Paris kitchens. Veal is practically an unknown meat in London; and the calf which has been fed on milk and yolk of egg, and which has flesh as soft as a kiss and as white as snow, is only to be found in the Parisian restaurants. Most of the good restaurants in London import all their winged creatures, except game, from France; and the Surrey fowl and the Aylesbury duck, the representatives of Great Britain, make no great show against the champions of Gaul, though the Norfolk turkey holds his own. A vegetable dish, served by itself and not flung into the gravy of a joint, forms part of every French dinner, large or small; and in the battle of the kitchen gardens the foreigners beat us nearly all along the line, though I think that English asparagus is better than the white monsters of Argenteuil. A truffled partridge, or the homely Perdrix au choux, or the splendid Faisan à la Financière show that there are many more ways of treating a game bird than plain roasting him; and the peasants of the south of France had crushed the bones of their ducks for a century before we in London ever heard of Canard à la Presse. The Parisian eats a score of little birds we are too proud to mention in our cookery books, and he knows the difference between a mauviette and an alouette. Perhaps the greatest abasement of the Briton, whose ancestors called the French "Froggies" in scorn, comes when his first morning in Paris he orders for breakfast with joyful expectation a dish of the thighs of the little frogs from the vineyards. An Austrian pastry-cook has a lighter hand than a French one, but the 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 was owned by a M. Chevereuil. The ownerships of MM. Chellet and de L'Homme marked successive steps in its upward career, and when the restaurant came into the market in '79 or '80 it was bought by a syndicate of bankers and other rich business men who parted with it to its present proprietor. The Comte de Grammont Caderousse and his companions in what used to be known as the "Loge Infernale" at the old Opera, were the best-known patrons of the Anglais; and until the Opera House, replaced by the present building, was burnt down, the Anglais was a great supping-place, the little rabbit-hutches of the entresol being the scene of some of the wildest and most interesting parties given by the great men of the Second Empire. The history of the Anglais has never been written because, as the proprietor will tell you, it never could be written without telling tales anent great men which should not be put into print; but if you ask to see the book of menus, chiefly of dinners given in the "Grand Seize," the room on the first floor, the curve of the windows of which look up the long line of the boulevards, and if you are shown the treasure you will find in it records of dinners given by King Edward when he was Prince of Wales, by the Duc de Morny and by D'Orsay, by all the Grand Dukes who ever came out of Russia, by "Citron" and Le Roi Milan, by the lights of the French jockey club, and many other celebrities. There is one especially interesting menu of a dinner at which Bismarck was a guest—before the terrible year of course. While I am gossiping as to the curiosities of the Anglais I must not forget a little collection of glass and silver in a cabinet in the passage of the entresol. Every piece has a history, and most of them have had royal owners. The great sight of the restaurant, however, is its cellars. Electric light is used to light them, luminous grapes hang from the arches, and an orange tree at the end of a vista glows with transparent fruit. In these cellars, beside the wine on the wine-list of the restaurant, are to be found some bottles of all the great vintage years of claret, an object-lesson in Bordeaux; and there are little stores of brandies of wondrous age, most of which were already in the cellars when the battle of Waterloo was fought.

From a gourmet's point of view the great interest in the restaurant will lie, if he wishes to give a large dinner, in the Grand Seize or one of the other private rooms; if he is going to dine alone, or is going to take his wife out to dinner, in the triangular room on the ground floor with its curtains of lace, its white walls, its mirrors and its little gilt tripod in the centre of the floor. Dugleré was the chef who, above all others, made history at the Anglais, and the present proprietor, M. Burdel, was one of his pupils; and therefore the cookery of Dugleré is the cookery still of the Anglais. Potage Germiny is claimed by the Café Anglais as a dish invented by the house, but the Maison d'Or across the way also laid claim to it, and told an anecdote of its creation—how it was invented by Casimir for the Marquis de St-George. The various fish à la Dugleré there can be no question concerning, the Barbue Dugleré being the most celebrated; and the Poularde Albufera and the Filet de Sole Mornay (which was also claimed by the Grand Vefour) are both specialities of the house. You can order as expensive a dinner as you will for a great feast at the Anglais, and you can eat rich dishes if you desire it; but there is no reason that you should not dine there very well, and as cheaply as you can expect to get good material, good cooking, and good attendance anywhere in the world. The "dishes of the day" are always excellent, and I have dined off a plate of soup, a pint of Bordeaux, and some slices of a gigot de sept heures—one of the greatest achievements of cookery—for a very few francs. I always find that I can dine amply, and on food that even a German doctor could not object to, for less than a louis. For instance, a dinner at the Anglais of half-a-dozen Ostende Oysters, Potage Laitues et Quenelles, Merlans Frits, Cuisse de Poularde de Rôtie, Salade Romaine, cheese, half a bottle of Graves 1^e Cru, and a bottle of St-Galmier costs 18 francs.

Voisin's, in the Rue St-Honoré, the corner house whose windows, curtained with lace, promise 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 and bas-reliefs of cupids and flowers, its green Travertine panels let into the white pilasters, its chandeliers of cut glass, is very handsome. M. Paillard, hair parted in the middle and with a small moustache, irreproachably attired, wearing a grey frock-coat by day, and a "smoking" and black tie in the evening, is generally to be seen superintending all arrangements, and there is a maître-d'hôtel who speaks excellent English, and a head waiter with whiskers who deserted to Henri, but subsequently returned, who is also an accomplished linguist.

Amongst the specialities of the house are Pomme Otero and Pomme Georgette, both created, I fancy, by Joseph when he was at Paillard's, Homard Cardinal, Filet de Sole à la Russe, Sole Paillard, Filet de Sole Kotchoubey, Timbale de queues d'Ecrevisses Mantua, Côte de Bœuf braisé Empire, Pommes Macaire, Filet Paillard, Suprême de Volaille Grand Duc, Rouennais Paillard, Baron d'agneau Henri IV., Poularde Archiduc, Poularde à la Derby, Poularde Wladimir, Filet de Selle Czarine, Bécasse au Fumet, Rouennais à la Presse, Terrine de Foie Gras à la gelée au Porto, Perdreau et Caille Paillard.

Two menus of dinners M. Paillard has given me, one a very noble feast, to the length of which I am a conscientious objector but which I print, presently, in full, and the other a banquet of lesser grandeur with Crème Germiny, Barbue Paillard, Ortolans en surprise, Salade Idéale, and many other good things in it from which I select the following dishes as making a typical little Paillard feast for two, the price of which would not be a king's ransom:—

Caviar frais.

Consommé Viveur.

Filets de Sole Joinville.

Cœurs de Filet Rachel.

Pommes Anna.

Haricots Verts à la Touranquelle.

An Ice or some iced Fruits and some Coffee.

And this repast might well be washed down by a bottle of Montrachet 1885, with a glass of Fine Champagne Palais de St-Cloud to follow.

This is the menu of the banquet:—

	Le Caviar Impérial. Les Huîtres de Burnham.
	Le Consommé Paillard. Pailles Parmesan. La Crème d'Arétin.
	Les Croustades à la Victoria.
Eau-de-vie Russe.	La Carpe à la Chambord.
Chablis Moutonne.	Le Turbot à l'Amiral.
Johannisberg 1893.	Le Baron de Pauillac persillé. Les pommes Macaire.
Mouton Rothschild 1875.	Le Velouté Favorite.
	Le Désir de Roi.
Clos Vougeot 1858.	Les Bécasses au fumet.
Moët brut 1884.	La Salade Espérance.
Fine Champagne des Tuileries 1800.	Les Asperges d'Argenteuil Sce Mousseline.
	La Pyramide à l'Ananas. Le Soufflé aux Mandarines. Macarons et Gaufrettes Chantilly.
	La Corbeille de Fruits. Café.

What the cost of this feast would be it is difficult to estimate, and I will not even hazard a guess.

I asked, last spring, an Englishman who knows his Paris better than most Parisians, what he would consider a typical breakfast, dinner, and supper in Paris, and he answered, "Breakfast chez Henri at the Gaillon, dine at the Ritz, and sup at Durand's."

There are two Henri's in Paris, one is the little hotel and English bar, and the other is in the Place Gaillon. Henri's Restaurant Gaillon had its days of celebrity in the Second Empire, and then sank, as the Maison Grossetête, from grace until Henri Drouet, leaving Paillard's, established himself there. When I first knew the restaurant it had Paillard's cookery, but not Paillard's prices; but now that the whole of the monde qui dîne has found it out, I fancy that the scale of prices has risen to a level with that of the parent restaurant. The first room is the best one to breakfast or dine in, for the others on hot days are apt to be very stuffy; and it is well to order a table by telephone in advance. Henri's, it always seems to me, has a more tempting table of cold viands, patés, and tarts and friandises set out than any other restaurateur's, and many of the habitués at lunch-time order eggs or fish, and then turn their attention to the cold buffet.

When dining at Henri's the Consommé Fortunato, the filets de sole of the restaurant, the Noisettes de Veau Port Mahon, the Crêpes des Gourmets should be remembered. If you want a dinner for twelve, you cannot do better than order the following, or rather select dishes from it, for it is unreasonably lengthy as it stands:—

Hors-d'œuvre à la Russe.

Potages.

Consommé Viveur.

Pailles et Parmesan.

Poisson.

Timbale de Homard à l'Américaine.

Entrées.

Baron de Pauillac à la Boulangère.

Endives Pochées au jus.

Escalopes de Foies grand Opéra.

Rôti.

Bécasses Flambées au fumet.

Salade Port Mahon.

Mousse Bohémienne glacée.

Truffes au Champagne à la gelée.

Légumes.

Asperges fraîches. S^ce Mousseline. Entremets. Soufflé Valenciennes. Poires Gaillon.

There are several other restaurants which claim to be quite first class, and which are smart and amusing. Two such are the restaurants facing the Madeleine, Durand's, and La Rue's. It was in one of the little rooms on the first floor of Durand's that the Brav' General sat debating in his mind whether he should initiate a coup d'état, and the crowd outside waited and watched, expecting something to happen. Nothing did happen. General Boulanger thought so long, that the decisive moment passed, and he went home to bed. Boulanger has gone, but his friends, grey-headed now, breakfast daily at Durand's. La Rue's was also a restaurant in favour with General Boulanger, and I fancy that the little dinner-parties he gave there helped much to bring the place into celebrity. Both these restaurants have lately been enlarged and redecorated, and La Rue's advertises a great deal, which no doubt has increased its clientèle, but which has not decreased its prices. Parisian Society has decreed that it is "smart" to sup at Durand's, and I always find it an excellent place at which to breakfast. The last time that I took my morning meal there I found all the younger members of the British Embassy breakfasting there, a sure sign that the place is just now on the crest of the wave.

Some of the specialities of Durand's are Potage Henri IV., Consommé Baigneuse, petits diables, Barbue Durand, Poulet Sauté Grand Duc, Salade Georgette, Soufflé Pôle Nord, and of course a variation of the inevitable canard à la presse and the woodcock subjected to an auto-da-fé.

This is the supper that the Restaurant Durand gave its clients on the greatest supping night of the year, Christmas Eve, 1902. The boudin of course all Paris has for supper on the night before the great Christmas feast:—

Consommé de Volaille au fumet de Céleris.

Boudin grillé à la Parisienne.

Ailerons de Volaille à la Tzar.

Cailles à la Lucullus.

Salade Durand.

Ecrevisses de la Meuse à la nage.

Crêpes Suzette.

Dessert.

Champagnes.

Clicquot Brut, Pommery Drapeau Américain.

Gde Fine Napoléon.

At La Rue's I have felt inclined sometimes to protest when I have been charged 2 francs for half-a-dozen prawns, and to think that the vermillion-coloured seats are being paid for too quickly out of profits; but I rarely pass through Paris without breakfasting there, and eating the cold poached eggs in jelly, the Grenouilles à la Marinière, or one of the dishes of cold fish which are excellently served. Some of the specialities of the house are Potage Reine, Barbue à la Russe, Caille à la Souvaroff, Tournedos à la Rossini, Caneton de Rouen au Sang, Bécasse Flambée, Salade Gauloise, Crêpes Suzette, Glace Gismonda, Pêches Flambées and from this list any one could choose either a little dinner or a big one.

Of restaurants attached to hotels I do not propose to write in this article, with one exception, for there are few of the hundreds of hotels at which one cannot get a very fair dinner; and at some, such as the Elysée Palace, over which Caesario presides, one can get an excellent one; but the purpose of this book is to give information to the man who wishes to dine away from hotels. The one exception is the Ritz, in the Place Vendôme, and I include this in my list because the Ritz is a restaurant firstly, and an hotel secondly, and because as a dining place it holds an exceptional position in Paris. It is the restaurant of the smartest foreign society in Paris, and the English, Americans, Russians, Spaniards, dining there always outnumber greatly the French. It is a place of great feasts, but it is also a restaurant at which the maîtres-d'hôtel are instructed not to suggest long dinners to the patrons of the establishment. In M. Elles' hands or that of the maître-d'hôtel there is no fear of being "rushed" into ordering an over-lengthy repast. This is a typical little dinner for three I once ate at the Ritz, and as a feast in the autumn it is worth recording and repeating:—

Caviar.

Consommé Viveni.

Mousseline de Soles au vin du Rhin.

Queues d'Ecrevisses à l'Américaine.

Escalopes de Riz de veau Favorite.

Perdreaux Truffés.

Salade.

Asperges vertes en branches.

Coupes aux Marrons.

Friandises.

In the afternoon the long passage with its chairs, carpets, and hangings all of crushed strawberry colour is filled with tea-drinkers, for the "5 o'clock" is very popular in Paris, and the Ritz is one of the smartest if not the smartest place at which to drink tea. In the evening the big restaurant, with its ceiling painted to represent the sky and its mirrors latticed to represent windows, is always full, the contrast to a smart English restaurant being that three-quarters of the ladies dine in their hats. Sometimes very elaborate entertainments are given in the Ritz, and I can recall one occasion on a hot summer night, when the garden was tented over and turned into a gorge apparently somewhere near the North Pole, there being blocks and pillars of ice everywhere. The anteroom was a mass of palms, and the idea of the assemblage of the guests in the tropics and their sudden transference to the land of ice was excellently carried out. I give the menu of another great dinner at the Ritz because, not only has it some of the specialities of the house embodied in it, but that it is a good specimen of what a great dinner should be, being important but not heavy:—

Caviar frais. Hors-d'œuvre.

Royal Tortue Claire. Crème d'Artichauts.

Mousseline d'Eperlans aux Ecrevisses à l'Américaine.

Noisettes de Ris de Veau au fumet de Champignons.

Selle de Chevreuil Grand Veneur. Purée de Marrons.

Poularde de Houdan Vendôme.

Sorbets au Kirsch.

Ortolans aux Croûtons.

Cœurs de Laitues.

Asperges vertes en branches. Sauce Mousseline.

Ananas voilé à l'Orientale.

Friandises.

Corbeilles de Fruits.

Vins.

Château Caillou 1888.

Château Léoville Lascases 1878 (Magnums).

Lanson Brut 1892 (Magnums).

Château Yquem 1869.

Grande Fine Champagne 1790 (Ritz Réservé).

There are a score of capital restaurants in Paris which may be called "bourgeois" without in any way detracting from their excellence. An excellent type of such a restaurant is Maire's, at the corner of the Bd. St-Dennis, owned by the company which controls the Paillard's Restaurant of the Champs Elysées. It is a good place to dine at for any one going to the play at the Porte St-Martin, the Renaissance, the Théâtre Antoine, or any of the music halls or theatres in the west of Paris. Mushrooms always seem to me to play a great part in the cookery at Maire's, and the Poulet Maire is a fowl cooked with mushrooms; but the restaurant has a long list of specialities of all kinds, and the mushroom only appears in some of them. Charbonnier is the especial dinner wine of the house, and it is said that the name was originally given to the wine owing to the discovery of a quantity of it stored under sticks of charcoal in the days when Maire's was only a wine-shop.

Next door to the Gymnase Theatre is Marguery's, which always seems to be full, and where the service is rather too hurried and too slap-dash to suit the contemplative gourmet; but Marguery's has its special claim to fame as the place where the Sole Marguery was invented, and though I have eaten the dish in half a hundred restaurants, there is no place where it is so perfectly cooked as in the restaurant where it was first thought of, for nowhere else is the sauce quite as good or as strong.

Notta, 2 Bd. Poissonière, and Noel Peters in the Passage des Princes, both have claims to celebrity for their cooking, and the fish dishes at the latter, the Filet de Sole Noël for instance, are a speciality. The Bœuf à la Mode, Rue de Valois, near the Palais Royale, is a place of good cookery.

There are two restaurants to which I generally go if I want good food but have not time to linger over it, having cut my time rather close when going to a theatre or to catch a train. One of these is Lucas's in the little square opposite the Madeleine, and the other is the Champeaux, Place de la Bourse. Lucas has rather an old-fashioned clientèle and his restaurant is not very bright, but the cooking is good, and if in a hurry one is served very quickly. The Hareng Lucas is an exceptionally stimulating hors-d'œuvre, and there is a selection of old brandies to choose from as liqueurs which I fancy cannot be surpassed at any restaurant in Paris. The Champeaux, with its garden and trees growing through the roof, is the restaurant of the Bourse. It has a good cook, it has its specialities of cuisine, and it has a particularly good cellar of wines. One can dine there in the leisurely manner in which a dinner should be eaten by sane men; but the maîtres-d'hôtel used to business men know that there are occasions when it is necessary to be in a hurry, and they can serve a dinner very quickly. At the Champeaux, which has much history behind it, the Chateaubriand was invented which gives eternal honour to the restaurant.

I am told that Sylvain's remains a good dining place, but I have not been within its doors since the days when it attained celebrity as a supper place in favour with the butterfly ladies of Paris.