The gourmet's guide to Europe

The cookery of Belgrade is the cookery of Vienna, or rather a ’ rough imitation of it. The power of France in the kitchen ceases directly the Balkans The Grand come into sight. [illustration: At the Grand Hotel Restaurant, there is a restaurant which is the best on Michael street in Servia.] Brown velvet couches and zinc palms convey an idea of luxury, and the cookery Senna 353 is that of provincial Austria, the veal cutlets being a perfectly safe dish to ask for. I tried the Servian wines, the Jupsko and Negotine, and found that they had a twang which was not altogether agreeable. During the time I spent in Servia I drank the Hungarian wines which are to be obtained at all the hotels. The Servian beer and the Servian cheese are both excellent. A correspondent mentions the Hotel Moskau as having the restaurant next in merit to that of the Grand. I was anxious to sample some real Servian dishes, but the smell of garlic which came from the open doors of the one-storied, brown-roofed eating-houses of the people told me that the national stew would be too highly scented for my palate. I went to the Servian Crown, the restaurant which is supposed to be next in merit to the Grand, in the Kalimegdan Gardens, and found it a not very cleanly-looking cafe with an inner room partitioned off by painted-glass doors. The food when it came was the usual fried veal. In the Topchilder Park, which is the Hyde Park and Richmond and Kew of Belgrade all rolled into one, there is an open-air brasserie, where Restaurant I can answer for the native beer being Topchilder refreshing and icy cold, and where the manager told me that he could give me a beautiful lunch ; and just outside the park and across the railway there is on the side of a hill another of these beer-house cafes with comfortable cane chairs in which to sit and look at the view. Kijievo The only place outside Belgrade where the cookery is not positively atrocious is Kijievo, a little summer resort which is within driving distance of the capital, 354 ^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe but to which the Servians generally go by rail. There is a little hotel there which has a glassed-in verandah, and some villas which are taken by the month by the merchants of Belgrade, and tree-clad hills with paths made on them, and a little lake with a punt on it, a fountain and a rose-garden. The host of the hotel, bidden to do his best, gave the little party of picnickers, of whom I was one, some vegetable soup, veal cutlets, rice and potatoes, and pancakes and blackberries. Servia is not a country in which a gourmet should call a halt to enjoy good things to eat and good things to drink. At Belgrade I found at the theatre the usual patriotic drama, in which the Servians are the victors over the Turks, and after seeing one act shirked the rest. There was no alternative amusement, and even the hall-porter at the Grand could suggest nothing except an evening in a cafe where a band played. BULGARIA The Food of the Country — Restaurants of Sofia — The Union Club. The Food of the Country