Iced kvas is a common drink of the country, and in the Caucasus some very good wines are made. There is a champagne of the Don which often finds its way into bottles with Rheims labels on them. 384 Tdhe Gourmet's Guide to Surope St. Petersburg The first-class restaurants of St. Petersburg are all French in cuisine. I can only speak from experience of one of them. Donon’s, a red-faced Donon’s, Moika , mi- • ' , / , , , building in a courtyard entered through an arch. I was given quite an excellent dinner for about 5s., but my bottle of claret, cup of coffee, and liqueur of firie champagne cost three times as much as my dinner did. This, I am told, is the case in all the higher-class St. Petersburg ' restau- rants. The set dinner is generally priced at 2 roubles, about 4s. 4d. a head, and the profit is made on the wine. It is the custom to drink French wines, and the duties on these are enormous, the bottles being cross-gartered with official strips of paper, each of which represents a customs receipt. A bottle of French Vin ordinaire costs 4 roubles 50 kopeks, or 9s. 8d., and no bottle of Rheims champagne is obtainable for less than 10 roubles. A whisky and soda costs 1 rouble 50 kopeks, and in some places 2 roubles. Donon’s, so I am told, has fallen away somewhat from its old glories, and is not as fashionable as it used to be, but I did not miss the fashionable element and found the cookery quite good. L’Ours, the Bear, on the Bolschaya Kononschaya, is a very favourite and a very fashionable restaurant. L’Ours Its CLfisine is French, with a few of the Bolschaya best Russian dishes adopted into the Kononschaya HauU Cuisine^ The restaurant of the Hotel de l’Europe is an De l’ Europe excellent one, and is very popular with the upper classes of the Russian capital. Contant’s, on the Moika, has a garden which, in Russia 385 the great heats of the summer — for St. Petersburg can be very hot and very dusty — is a plea- contant’s, sant spot in which to dine. Contant’s Moika cuisine is French, and quite good. The restaurant was burnt down in 1906, but has been rebuilt, and is now flourishing. Pivato’s is a first-class restaurant. Its specialty is luncheons. Cubat’s, the accepted name of which is the Cafe de Paris, still remains the best Pivato’s, of all the St. Petersburg restaurants. Morskaia Cubat’s meteoric appearance in Paris, when he took the Hotel Paiva and tried to persuade the Parisians that the Russian cuisine was the high Caf^ de Parig art of the kitchen, was, like the efforts Bolschaya of the great men in other professions, Marskaya made before its time, and Cubat deserted Paris in disgust. Whether Cubat himself is still to the fore I do not know, but the restaurant remains an admirable temple of French cookery in a foreign land.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Iced kvas is a common drink of the country, and in the Caucasus some very good wines are made. There is a champagne of the Don which often finds its way into bottles with Rheims labels on them. 384 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe St. Petersburg The first-class restaurants of St. Petersburg are all French in cuisine. I can only speak from experience of one of them. Donon's, a red-faced building in a courtyard on the Moika entered through an arch. Donon's , I was given quite an excellent dinner for about 5s., but my bottle of claret, cup of coffee, and liqueur of fine champagne cost three times as much as my dinner did. This, I am told, is the case in all the higher-class St. Petersburg ' restaurants. The set dinner is generally priced at 2 roubles, about 4s. 4d. a head, and the profit is made on the wine. It is the custom to drink French wines, and the duties on these are enormous, the bottles being cross-gartered with official strips of paper, each of which represents a customs receipt. A bottle of French Vin ordinaire costs 4 roubles 50 kopeks, or 9s. 8d., and no bottle of Rheims champagne is obtainable for less than 10 roubles. A whisky and soda costs 1 rouble 50 kopeks, and in some places 2 roubles. Donon’s, so I am told, has fallen away somewhat from its old glories, and is not as fashionable as it used to be, but I did not miss the fashionable element and found the cookery quite good. L'Ours, the Bear, on the Bolschaya Kononschaya, is a very favourite and a very fashionable restaurant. Its cuisine is French, with a few of the Bolschaya best Russian dishes adopted into the Kononschaya HauU Cuisine^ The restaurant of the Hotel de l’Europe is an De l’ Europe excellent one, and is very popular with the upper classes of the Russian capital. Contant’s, on the Moika, has a garden which, in Russia 385 the great heats of the summer — for St. Petersburg can be very hot and very dusty — is a plea- contant’s, sant spot in which to dine. Contant’s Moika cuisine is French, and quite good. The restaurant was burnt down in 1906, but has been rebuilt, and is now flourishing. Pivato’s is a first-class restaurant. Its specialty is luncheons. Cubat’s, the accepted name of which is the Cafe de Paris, still remains the best Pivato’s, of all the St. Petersburg restaurants. Morskaia Cubat’s meteoric appearance in Paris, when he took the Hotel Paiva and tried to persuade the Parisians that the Russian cuisine was the high Caf^ de Parig art of the kitchen, was, like the efforts Bolschaya of the great men in other professions, Marskaya made before its time, and Cubat deserted Paris in disgust. Whether Cubat himself is still to the fore I do not know, but the restaurant remains an admirable temple of French cookery in a foreign land.

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