The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Part 4

Cherbourg

This calling-place for Atlantic steamers is a very likely place for the earnest gourmet to find himself stranded in for a day, and I regret that there is no gastronomic find to report there. A most competent authority writes thus to me on the capabilities of the place:--

"There are no restaurants, in the true sense of the word, in Cherbourg.

"The leading hotel, where most of the people go, and which is the largest, with the best cuisine and service, is the Hotel du Casino. This hotel is managed by Monsieur Marius, and though partially shut during the winter season, travellers can always get a good plain dinner there.

During the summer season, that is from May till October, the hotel is fully open, and has a _pet.i.ts chevaux_ room, entry free of course, and also good military music in the gardens, twice a week. The gardens are also very prettily illuminated very often, whilst from time to time firework displays help to pa.s.s away the evenings. The dining-hall faces the only nice portion of beach in the town, and being entirely covered in with gla.s.s, is warm in winter and cool in summer, when it can all be open. The meals are usually _table-d'hote_, but it is possible also to order a dinner if one prefers to do so. Here also the traveller will find a little English spoken among the waiters and management, which may be useful to him. The wines are pretty good, but there is no very special brand for which the place is known; also good Scotch and Irish whisky can be obtained at a reasonable price; the hotel does not boast of any special _plat_ either.

"The Hotel de France, another fair-sized hotel, is the one patronised mostly by the naval and military authorities of the town, but is not so amusing a place for the traveller to stay at or dine at; though I understand that the dinner to be obtained there is in every way satisfactory.

"Finally, I might mention two other hotels at which one can dine comfortably; these are the Hotel d'Amiraute and the Hotel d'Angleterre, at both of which a good plain dinner is served.

"The chief joint obtainable here to be recommended is of course the mutton, as Cherbourg is noted for its _pre-sale_ all over France; but beyond this the food is of the usual ordinary kind to be obtained in most French towns of this size."

M. Roche, who made a little fortune in London in Old Compton Street, has taken a little hotel near Granville, and as he learned cooking under Frederic of the Tour d'Argent, he may be depended upon for an excellent meal.

Breton Resorts

Of the land of b.u.t.ter and eggs I have not much to write. Correspondents at St-Malo say a good word of the feeding both at the Hotel de l'Univers and the Hotel du Centre et de la Paix; but I cannot speak of either of these from personal knowledge, nor do I know anything of Dinard, though it is said that the best cookery in the province is found there. Cancale of course has its oyster-beds, and the esculent bivalve can be eaten within sight of the mud-flat on which it erstwhile reposed. The one restaurant in this part of the world for which every one has a good word is that of Poulard Aine at Mont St-Michel, where there is a cheap _table-d'hote_ and where a good meal _a la carte_ is also to be obtained.

Artichokes, prawns, potatoes, _langouste_, eggs, lobsters, crabs, are good all along the Breton coast; and at Quimper, at the Hotel de l'Epee, you can--if you are in luck--get fresh sardines.

Here is a typical Breton menu, one of the meals at the Hotel des Bains de Mer, Roscoff:--

Artichauts a l'Huile.

Pommes de terre a l'Huile.

Porc frais froid aux Cornichons.

Langouste Mayonnaise.

Canards aux Navets.

Omelette fines Herbes.

Filet aux Pommes.

Fromage a la Creme.

Fruits, biscuits, etc.

Cidre a discretion.

This is rather a terrible ma.s.s of food ranged in the strangest order, but I insert it to show the traveller in Brittany that he need never think his meal ended when he reaches the omelette, and that he had better take a gargantuan appet.i.te with him.

Apart from being a good homely place to stay at, La Villa Julia at Pont Aven is worth a visit, for it has been the temporary home of many of the greatest French painters, notably poor Bastien Lepage. They are welcome, and are provided with studios, only being charged 5 francs a day "pension." "The country is charming" writes an enthusiastic correspondent "and one lingers there, and the food is excellent. Even were it not, dear old Mlle. Julia is worth a journey. She is one of the most delightful of French landladies. In the old inn the walls of one large room are covered with pictures and sketches given her by her _chers artistes_."

Brest

This great naval town has better cafes than it has dining or lunching places; the Cafe Brestois in the Rue de Siam, and the Grand Cafe in the same street being both good. Besides the restaurants attached to the Hotels des Voyageurs, Rue de Siam, Continentale, and de France in the Rue de la Mairie, there are the Restaurant Aury and the Bra.s.serie de la Marine, both on the Champ de Bataille, but I have no details concerning them.

Skipping Nantes as being out of the route of the Anglo-Saxon abroad, though in the Place Gra.s.selin the Francais and the Cambronne both deserve a word, and the Plages d'Ocean which lie between Nantes and Bordeaux as being purely French, though Rochefort has a European reputation for its cheese, and Marennes for its oysters, I step down from the platform to make room for my co-author A.B., who will take up the parable as to

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is, of course, the home of claret, and good feeding goes with good liquor, the combination being essential. The result is that here you can procure a good dinner with the best of wines, which being consumed, so to say, on the spot where they have matured, are in perfection both as to flavour and condition.

The Hotel Restaurant du Chapon Fin, under the management of MM. Dubois and Mendionde, is perhaps the best in the town. Here an excellent dinner _a la carte_ is to be had and the service is _tres soignee_. The cellar comprises the finest wines of the Gironde, Lafite, Haut Brion, Latour, Margaux Leoville, etc., with Pommery, Mumm, Cliquot as champagnes. But to my idea, any one asking for champagne at Bordeaux would order a pork pie at Strasbourg. The Chapon Fin is fairly expensive, but good food and good Lafite are not given away. The appointments of the hotel are excellent.

The Cafe de Bordeaux is a more popular establishment with brilliant decorations, and if you do not wish for an _a la carte_ dinner, you are provided with a very good "set" _dejeuner_ for 4 francs. Dinner can be had for 5 francs, with a concert thrown in.

Another good hotel and restaurant with fairly moderate terms is the Bayonne, also boasting of a fine cellar of wine and service _a la carte_. In fact many people aver that at the Bayonne one can get as good if not a better dinner than at any other restaurant in Bordeaux.

The Hotel des Princes et de la Paix has the Restaurant Sansot attached to it, which is quite good.

The Restaurant de Paris, situated on the lovely Promenade des Allees de Tourny, is a first-cla.s.s establishment with very moderate prices, where a capital _dejeuner_ can be obtained for 2 francs 50 centimes, or a dinner for 3 francs. The proprietor, Mons. Debreuil, was _chef_ at some of the best cafes in Paris, and he has a _clientele_ of many well-known epicures in Bordeaux.

All these restaurants have saloons for private parties in case you require them.

The princ.i.p.al _specialite_ of Bordeaux, besides claret, is lampreys, which, when cooked _a la Bordelaise_, are about as rich and luscious a dish as a most ardent candidate for a bilious attack can desire. If you are there in the autumn, don't forget to order _Cepes a la Bordelaise_.

To the above of my worthy _confrere_, I would only add that the Chapon Fin is a winter garden, somewhat resembling the Champeaux Restaurant in Paris; there are rockeries and ferns, and a great tree-trunk runs up to the roof, the foliage and branches being no doubt outside. A speciality is the _Potage Chapon Fin_, a vegetable soup which is excellent. The restaurant of the Bayonne is in a great conservatory. Judging from the few meals I have eaten at each, I should cla.s.s the Chapon Fin and the Bayonne as being equal in cookery. The first floor of the Cafe de Bordeaux is now decorated with mirrors and white walls, after the manner of the _chic_ Parisian restaurants, but the Englishman who wishes to drink whisky and soda there--an unholy taste in a wine country--and who demands a special brand and Schweppe's soda, should ask how much he is going to be charged for it before he commits himself.

Arcachon

Of cooking at Arcachon there is nothing in particular to be said. The place has a celebrity for its oyster-beds, and a great number of the oysters we eat in England have been transplanted from the bay at Arcachon to the beds in British waters.

Biarritz

The average of cookery in the hotels at Biarritz is very good, for the compet.i.tion is very keen, and as money is spent by the handful in this town on the bay where the Atlantic rolls in its breakers, any hotel which did not provide two excellent _table-d'hote_ meals would very soon be out of the running. In the bas.e.m.e.nt of the building in which is the big Casino, "Mons. Boulant's Casino," as the natives call it, is a restaurant where a _table-d'hote_ lunch and dinner are served; but _the_ restaurant of Biarritz is the one which Ritz has established on the first floor of the little Casino, the Casino Munic.i.p.al, where one breakfasts in a glazed-in verandah overlooking the Plage and the favourite bathing-spot, and at dinner one looks across to the illuminated terrace of the other Casino. The decoration of this restaurant is of the simplest but at the same time of the most effective kind, being of growing bamboos which form green canopies above the tables. Biarritz depends but little on the surrounding country for its food, as the Pays Basque gives few good things to the kitchen. Fish is the one excellent thing that Biarritz itself contributes to all the menus, and the _Friture du Pays_ is always excellent. Here is a menu of a little dinner for three at the Ritz. The _Minestrone_ is an excellent Italian soup (which, by the way, Oddenino of the Imperial in London makes better than I have tasted it anywhere else out of Italy); the veal, I fancy, came from Paris, the _ortolans_ from the far south:--

Melon.

Minestron Milanaise.

Friture du Pays.

Carre de Veau braise aux Cepes.

Ortolans a la broche.

Salade de Romaine.

Coupes d'Entigny.

I have not kept any bill for this, but I know that I regarded the total as moderate in a town where all things in September are at gambler's prices. The Royalty, in the main street at Biarritz, is the afternoon gathering place for the young bloods, who there drink cooling liquids through straws out of long tumblers, while the ladies hold their parliament at tea-time in Miremont the confectioner's.

Ma.r.s.eilles

Once more I step down from the platform to give place to my colleague A.B.

Two of the best hotels in Ma.r.s.eilles, with restaurants attached to them, are the Noailles and the Hotel du Louvre; the latter is owned and supervised by Mons. Echenard, who with Mons. Ritz helped to create the popularity of the Savoy Restaurant in London, and is also his coadjutor in the management of the Carlton Restaurant; it is needless to remark that any cuisine that Mons. Echenard takes in hand is worthy of attention. Mons. Echenard has lately acquired the Reserve at Ma.r.s.eilles--a very pretty cafe and garden about half-an-hour's drive from the Cannebiere, along the Corniche Road; it stands in a commanding position, with a lovely view of the bay and the surrounding mountains.

It has furnished apartments attached to it, and for any one having to stay at Ma.r.s.eilles, either while waiting for the _Messageries Maritimes_ liner or for the arrival of a yacht, it is infinitely preferable to the hot, stuffy town, and would be an excellent winter quarter. Like many similar seaside cafes abroad, it has its own _parc au coquillages_ or sh.e.l.l-fish tanks, and you here get the world-renowned _Bouillabaisse_ in perfection.

The best sh.e.l.l-fish are the _praires_ and the _clovisses_, about the same size as walnuts or little neck clams; the _clovisses_ are the largest, and rather take the place of oysters when the latter are not in season, in the same way the clam does in America; others are mussels, oysters, and _langoustes_. _Langoustes_ differ as much as a skinny fowl from a _Poularde de Mans_. Mons. Echenard gets his from Corsica, and you then learn how they can vary. He has also a _Poularde Reserve en Cocotte Raviolis_, which is a dish to be remembered; and a small fat sole caught between Hyeres and Toulon is not to be despised.