The gourmet's guide to Europe

The Hotel des Reservoirs now has a rival in the newly-built Trianon Palace Hotel at the corner of . ■ the park. The restaurant of this hotel Trianon Palace r , . , . has a long open-air terrace, the views from which are agreeable, and on this terrace a 6-franc breakfast and a 7-franc dinner are served. I break- fasted there during the early days of the hotel’s exist- c Paris 5 5 ence, and found the service rather confused, but no doubt this has now been altered for the better. There is a little restaurant on the Isle de la Jatte which acquired a reputation for good Restaurant de breakfasts when the island was a fa- la Grande Jatte, vourite ground for duellists to settle Isle de la Jatte affairs of honour; and any one who wishes to see the Parisian counterpart of our Hampstead can dine on a platform amidst the foliage of the big Le Vrai Robin. trees at Sceaux-Robinson, and can pull son, Sceaux- up to his eyrie the basket, containing Robinson cold fowl and bottle of red wine and a yard of bread, by a rope. I am told that the Rond Royal at Compeigne has a pleasant restaurant at which to breakfast, but I cannot write from personal experience of it. The Bill and Tips I now come to the very important matter of prices. A Frenchman will tell one that it is possible by careful choice of dishes to obtain two good meals at a com- fortable restaurant a la carte for ten to twelve francs a day. My experience is that an Englishman who is in Paris to enjoy himself, going to the best restaurants, and neither stinting himself nor launching out into extravagance, spends about fifteen to sixteen francs on his breakfast and from eighteen to twenty francs on his dinner. For instance, the last time I dined at the Cafe Anglais by myself, this was my dinner : A half- dozen Ostend oysters, Potage Laitues et Quenelles , Merlans Frits , Cuisse de Poularde Rotie , Salade Romaine, some cheese, half a bottle of Graves ie Cru, and a bottle of St. Galmier. It was a very simple dinner, but I did not want an elaborate one, as I was going on to a theatre. This dinner cost me eighteen francs. When two people dine together the cost a head is 56 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe always less than for a single dinner, and in many of the restaurants one portion is quite sufficient for two people. This used to be the case in all, but now on many of the cartes du jour the mystic letters “ P. P.” follow the prices, which mean that the figures show what is charged per personne. Somehow or another a Frenchman and his wife always dine more cheaply than an Englishman and his wife. It is, I believe, because the maitre d'hotel will generally save the pockets of his compatriots if he can, but has not the same sympathy for the strangers who come to the restaurant.