Six
On working days my father loved to rise early and get breakfast for himself, usually preparing a tray for me also and sometimes one for Mother, before putting the final flourishes on his toilette. He was a very vain man and was always well groomed. His wardrobe, while not enormous, was very handsome, and he never set out on his morning walk to the office without a red carnation in his lapel.
Occasionally, instead of coming home for dinner, he would arrange to meet Mother and me in town, and we dined together in one of our favorite restaurants. At the age of four or five I had already begun to learn the art of restaurant dining: recognizing what was good and rejecting what was inferior. I soon grew very particular about where I ate. Going to a restaurant became an event for me, and I still feel that a good restaurant meal can be stimulating. Naturally if one dines in restaurants constantly, each meal cannot be a triumph. But if one is able to choose when he will dine out, it is possible to make eating away from home a special pleasure.
In addition to the odd weekday trip to a restaurant, we nearly always had dinner in town on Saturday nights, either the three of us or Mother and I alone. Very often Mother had taken me to the theater in the afternoon. (She believed in sharing her love of the theater with me while I was practically an infant. As I grew up, we remained at one on the theater and on music and food, but disagreed about almost everything else!) If we dined with my father, it was always at House’s Restaurant—in the early years—with a sally to Huber’s now and then. Father lunched at House’s nearly every day, so we were closely acquainted with the entire family of Houses and with their niece and nephew, the Feldmans.
This old, sprawling restaurant was primarily German in conception, but Mr. House had apprenticed in France and other countries and had a fine, general European approach to food. There was, of course, run-of-the-mill food on the menu, because this was a popular spot. But if you sat in the back room, delicious specialties came your way. We often took game to House’s to be prepared, especially venison, and they would do it with a rich red wine sauce and serve along with it tiny turnips and preisselbeeren. House’s didn’t have a bar, so one brought his own bottle of wine to accompany the meal-that is, until Prohibition hit Oregon, which was two or three years before it was felt in the rest of the country.
We often had duck or chicken at House’s or wonderful large porterhouse steaks, served with broiled or sautéed tomatoes and true country fried potatoes cooked in beef fat. The chef, Billy, was Chinese and a good friend of Let, so we had the best the house afforded. I shall never forget the other marvelous dishes that issued from Billy’s kitchen, and I recall especially his cole slaw. We used the recipe for years. It was different from the one Mother usually did in that it was marinated for several hours in a rather bland but herby oil dressing.
Billy’s Cole Slaw
Heat ½ cup olive oil in a sauté pan or skillet. Add 2 tablespoons flour and blend well. Add ½ teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons dry mustard, a dash of Tabasco and 6 tablespoons sugar. Blend these thoroughly and stir in ½ cup wine vinegar. Continue stirring till the mixture thickens. Add 1 cup heavy cream mixed with 2 egg yolks and stir until ingredients are well blended and sauce is smooth. Correct the seasoning and cool the sauce slightly.
For 6 people shred 1 large cabbage or 2 smallish ones and blend this with the sauce. Let the slaw cool. Chill it for several hours and toss it thoroughly, thinning it with a little more cream if necessary or adding ½ cup mayonnaise if you wish. Drain it well before serving.
There are many additives for this cole slaw. You may use any of the following: 1 cup shredded green and red pepper; 1 cup shredded pineapple; 1 cup fine-cut green onions; 2 cups shrimp; 2 cups crabmeat; 2 cups lobster meat; 2 cups cold salmon or canned salmon; two 7-ouncecans tuna.
When this cole slaw is prepared for a smaller group, the portion of sauce not needed may be stored in the refrigerator for several days. Use smaller proportions of cabbage and additives, naturally.
During the smelt run in the Columbia, we frequently went with the Hamblets to a restaurant called Richards’. Mr. Hamblet thought they did the finest job on these small fish, and the fish were exceedingly good, with a crisp skin and unctuous and flavorful flesh. They differed from the Eastern smelts in being much more oily. The Indians called them candlefish, for they dried them and used them as candles.
A few days after such a dinner at Richards’, Mother would go to House’s, for she secretly felt that Billy did better smelts, and I’m sure I agreed with her. Years later I discovered his trick. First he boned them, then he dipped them in flour and sautéed them in butter until they were crisp on either side. Billy’s cole slaw went with this and often a good tartar sauce.
This is a sauce that has suffered terrible transformations over the years, even though it is not difficult to make properly. Basically there are two versions, both with a mayonnaise base: one has chopped pickles, onion and capers in it; and the other, fresh dill, fresh chives, fresh parsley and a touch of garlic. Sometimes dill is not available, and dill pickle is substituted. This is fine if the pickles are good, but if they are the monstrous things made with dill oil one gets nowadays, they will be certain to ruin the sauce.
We used to be invited to a New Year’s Day dinner at the Houses’, and it was a feast indeed—foie gras sent to the Houses from Europe; roast goose with an apple and chestnut stuffing, which Billy did magnificently; and endless holiday specialties made by the Houses and Feldmans combined, including a huge box of springerle and anise cookies done especially for me. At that point in my life I loved them. It was a family party of about twenty, and I was usually the only child. I enjoyed the limelight, shone brilliantly and ordinarily ate myself into a state of enormous discomfort. I must say, my gourmand tendencies began early.
If Father was away, my mother many times took me to Falt’s Quelle Restaurant. Mr. and Mrs. Falt were good friends of hers, and their restaurant was considered very gay and slightly “fast.” There was music and a bar, and it was patronized by traveling men and their ladies and by certain ladies also considered “fast.” Mother was much criticized for taking me there, but I was enchanted by the beautifully dressed women, the clinking of glasses and the general gaiety. This was the first place, outside of our home, I ever saw food served with drinks. Plates of tiny round rolls filled with ham, smoked fish and meat pastes were passed among the drinkers. The glamour of Falt’s quickly made its impression, and after the first visit I knew that the gay life was for me. For our dinner there, we often had crawfish as a first course or Olympia oysters, followed by salmon, if it was in season, some other good native fish, or a delicate little filet, which was a specialty.
Mrs. Falt was French and devoted to good food. She had taste in clothes and jewels, too. Part of the year she spent in her house in The Dalles up the Columbia River with her maid, Mima, whom I doted on, and Mother and I often went to visit. This entailed an adventurous voyage on—before it was dismantled and sent to California—the old Bailey Gatzert, the fastest riverboat on the Columbia. We had breakfast or lunch aboard, and while the food was pretty bad, it was still exhilarating to tear up the river and pass through the Cascade Locks before continuing to The Dalles. We’d always have cooling drinks at Mrs. Falt’s, then for dinner she might serve tiny chickens cooked with cream and tarragon, or if she found good veal, she would have thin, thin scallops with lemon and salt and pepper. With either of these went tiny peas and new potatoes and a delicious salad. We might have a berry tart for dessert, flaky and buttery.
I feel that this enchanting woman found solace in her exquisite food and wines For Mr. Falt, handsome and debonair, had a weakness for the women who frequented his tavern. Mrs. Falt died rather young, Prohibition came, Mr. Falt disappeared, and the restaurant—one of Portland’s most delightful landmarks—gave way to mediocrity.
Another restaurant we went to occasionally, as I have said, was Huber’s. This was a saloon and restaurant until Prohibition, when it was turned into a dining room. The décor was left intact—mahogany paneling, and art nouveau drawings, paintings and stained glass, and it’s a pity it hasn’t been preserved to this day as a perfect example of the period. Here, too, the chef was Chinese, and he wore four remarkable jade bracelets, one above each wrist and one above each elbow. He had supervised both the free lunch and the regular lunch in the days of the saloon and afterwards kept the restaurant running for many years with a small menu and an enormous patronage. Like Billy, he made wonderful cole slaw—creamy, sour and delicious. This and freshly cooked and cooled giant turkeys, ham, shrimp, oysters, chops and steak were all that he served. Most customers were content with the turkey, which I must say was as good as any I have eaten. But if you wanted a great treat, you combined shrimp or crab with the cole slaw and had one of the best versions of seafood salad imaginable. I think I have recaptured the flavors of the superlative cole slaw, and I sometimes do the seafood salad with much success.
Just once, when I was five years old, I was taken to the most famous—and in a way, the most notorious—place in Portland. Some friends of Mother were in town and gave a dinner there, and for some capricious reason she took me along. This was the Louvre, a palace of high living. There was dancing, and the cuisine, naturally, was French. Upstairs there were private rooms for dinner à deux, just like those in France—the type with a slit in the door through which the waiter peeked before knocking to announce the next course. That evening there were champagne and oysters and all sorts of wonderful things which contributed to elegant dining and great gaiety. If I was exhausted before the evening was over, it wasn’t my fault. Mother was out of her mind to take me there in the first place. But I was fascinated by the Louvre and can proudly say I knew the place which was, without question, the liveliest that Portland ever sported.
We were sometimes invited by friends or by my Chinese godfather to dinner or a late supper in Chinatown. This was given in a private room in one of the restaurants on Second Street, usually on the top floor where there were balconies. Beautiful hangings were used to screen off the room from the street. I was never permitted to stay for the entire party and was taken home after introductions and one or two courses. I have always regretted this, for superb food was served at those dinners that would have been of interest to me professionally in later years. I have talked about this with John Kan, the San Francisco restaurateur, whose uncle was an important figure among Portland’s Chinese population, and we attempted to reconstruct the menus that might have been served on those occasions. But I’m afraid that the recipes for some great specialties have disappeared for all time, along with the chefs.
The old Portland Hotel was a stately building designed by Stanford White and decorated in a most enchanting style. Beautifully arched windows embellished the main floor, the rooms and corridors were generously proportioned, and there was an enormous porch where one could sit and see Portland stroll by. The dining room was very long, as I remember, with windows on three sides, and there was also a lively grill. We often had tea with a friend of Mother’s, Mrs. Frohman, who had a shop in the hotel that offered lovely Oriental things and assorted gifts, and she also had two parlors in the hotel. We had our cup of tea with scones, rolls or toast from the hotel kitchen, and it was a delight to use the glittering silver service and be attended by the Negro waiters, who seemed to have been around from the day the hotel opened.
On state occasions we had dinner at the Portland, but Mother felt the food was rather bad, and perhaps it was. At any rate, she never did anything but criticize it, and I recall an evening when she sent some capon back to the kitchen, made the maître d’hôtel very uncomfortable and finally ate nothing at all. She said afterwards it was silly to order capon in a place like that, because you knew it was cold-storage and not any good; she should have had better sense, etc. Mother wouldn’t order roast beef in restaurants either, because she claimed it was always kept steamed and had that awful juice on it and wasn’t fit for eating. Consequently, she usually ate fish or a chop.
I always looked forward to Saturday lunches before the theater. They would be quick but exciting, because they were the prelude to a day of gadding about, to the theater (later, to the movies, as they became popular) and to dinner. We often went to the Royal Bakery near the theaters and ate one of their remarkably good clubhouse sandwiches, or chicken sandwiches, salad and tea and some of their extraordinary charlotte russe or marzipan cake. Or we went to Swetlands, where I especially liked the dessert, hot butterscotch on ice cream with toasted almonds. No matter what went before, if I had this dessert I was content with the world. Also, at Swetlands I could stock up on stick candy. And if I was around at the right moment, I would be given a few candied violets. I prized them and picked them out of every box of chocolates that ever came into the house. And I still love their flavor and crystalline texture. I had no taste for chocolate until I grew older.
Two restaurants in Portland, more than any others, advanced my life of good eating. Both had character and offered food which one cannot find any more in cities such as Portland was before the twenties.
One of these restaurants came into my life through a classmate of mine in high school, whose name was Chester Benson. Chester’s parents were divorced—his father was tremendously wealthy and a great figure in the development of Oregon—and he lived with his mother and brother not too far from us. Chester and I became good friends—we liked music and theater, and we liked to eat—and our mothers found a common ground of interest as well.
Mrs. Benson was a very good cook, and she made marvelous cakes and pastries for the pleasure of her two sons, and I was often given delicious snacks there and was sometimes invited for lunch. The boys’ birthday parties were famous. Mrs. Benson made elaborate preparations for them and would do huge poundcakes, ribboned inside with every imaginable color, heavily iced with royal icing and decorated with silver balls, ornate inscriptions and all sorts of furbelows. They were masterpieces of late Edwardian birthday cake art, and could someone re-create their charm today, he would make a fortune.
At Christmas Mrs. Benson made sugar cookies by the gross. They were crisp, buttery, thoroughly delicious and cut in every imaginable shape with an assortment of cookie cutters I wish I had now. On a certain Saturday before Christmas about twelve or fourteen children and several mothers were invited to the Bensons’ for an afternoon of cookie art. Icing of every shade was provided, together with brushes, and the children were given free choice of design. I remember that, between eating and painting, the afternoon was a great success. However, the decorated cookies made a somewhat startling exhibition. Some should have been preserved for the currently popular shows of children’s art, although others were better eaten on the spot.
Several years after we became acquainted with the Bensons, Chester’s father took over a hotel that had originally been built for someone else. It was named The Benson and was the first great luxury hotel in Portland, more up-to-date than the Edwardian luxe of the charming old Portland, with beautifully decorated suites, fine bathrooms and exquisitely appointed dining rooms. And it also provided Portland with its first famous chef, Henri Thiele, a Swiss who had trained in France. This man had a fawning manner and great ambition, but he was a great, creative chef.
Though Mr. and Mrs. Benson were divorced, the boys had charge accounts at their father’s hotel, and we were often their guests for dinner or lunch. So it happened that I became a frequent visitor to the hotel, learned to know and admire Thiele and experienced some new and utterly delicious dishes. For example, Thiele did beautiful paupiettes of sole, sauced and then garnished with our tiny Olympia oysters, and he did a marvelous crabmeat Newburg, which he served on toasted muffins or toasted brioche, made by him in the hotel bakery. And he did a mutton chop, cut across the saddle in the correct way, served with a stuffed potato, done to order, and an incredible cole slaw shredded into a thin film and flavored with a very tart French dressing containing a little turmeric and hot pepper.
Thiele soon discovered that the Beards loved food, and on occasions when Mother was invited to dine with the Bensons he offered the best of his creative skill. I will never forget the béarnaise sauce he made one evening—as tarragoned as possible and light and fluffy withal—which was served with a roast filet of beef, crusty and rare. The combination was perfection. But Thiele’s salmon dishes were his true forte and became the feature of the Columbia Gorge Hotel, which Mr. Benson later built for him. I can remember a whole baked salmon done with cream, and fillets of salmon stuffed with a salmon mousse and then poached in a court bouillon.
And Thiele’s Princess Charlotte pudding! I have tried for years and years to duplicate it, from the first days of The Benson, but have never achieved the same quality. It was rather like a fine bovaroise, but creamier, with praline in it and a supremely good cassis sauce over it.
I recall visiting Thiele’s pastry kitchens, where I saw petits fours turned out by a good pâtissier, ate some of the creams from the pot and learned a great deal about assembling these little cakes. And I shall never forget a puff paste tart Thiele made with coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts, a rich pastry cream and a melted sugar and nut topping.
Nor shall I forget his simple dishes, such as grilled liver with a sour cream sauce, very much like the Swiss suri leberli but more delicate. And he had a way with the tiny crawfish of the Coast that was sensational, for he combined its meat with avocado and a special sauce of highly seasoned mayonnaise and cream. Then there was the magnificent simplicity of Thiele’s steak, done with butter, shallots and pepper and served with his version of roesti.
I shall be forever grateful to the Benson family. Alas, the hotel is no longer owned by the family. It now sports a Trader Vic’s, instead of the subtle cookery of Thiele. But Thiele made its name. He reached his high point when he was under the direction of the Bensons. Later, he went into business for himself and became a mass producer without any of the finesse he had brought to his original kitchens. In my files I have a small announcement of the opening of his new business, when he pioneered the practice of sending out lunches to businessmen and office workers. For fifty cents one got three sandwiches, salad, hard-boiled eggs, fruit and pie or cake, and for fifty cents more one could have the addition of two salads, and half a cold chicken. No charge for delivery either. And that was as late as 1924.
The second great Portland restaurant, which still exists in different and more elaborate form, is located in Meier & Frank’s department store, run by the two families since the early 1850s. It is a landmark and has a personality unlike that of any other store in America. My father’s family traded there in bartering days. Mother had one of the lowest account numbers on the books and felt as much at home there as she did in her own house.
The restaurant began as a novelty and became for a long time the best eating place in all of Portland. It was as hard to get a table there as it is now at “21” in New York. The men’s grill has some regulars who have been going there for thirty and forty years or more—every day! This year Meier & Frank opened another fine restaurant in their new shopping-center store, which serves dinner and has a bar, grill and dining room.
One of the best chefs I ever knew was the chef at Meier & Frank’s for a number of years, Don Daniels. He was paid extremely well for a chef by those days’ standards and was worth it, for he produced food of rare quality—veal birds with a rich, creamy sauce, flavored with dill or tarragon; a beautiful salmi of duckling; and a remarkably good salmon soufflé with a hollandaise sauce. And he did superb clams, shipped from Seaside and Gearhart as fast as possible, which were sautéed meunière or with parsley butter and served with an excellent tartar sauce.
Don also served good caviar and wonderful salads, among them one which included chicken, walnuts and his own mayonnaise. His curry of crab was unforgettable, as was his little boned squab with a rice stuffing. Desserts were beyond belief. His Frankco is still one of the greatest frozen desserts ever created. It is made with the heaviest cream possible, whipped and then frozen at a very low temperature. Then it is scooped out in jagged crystalline portions. In my day, this came in maple, cognac, lemon and strawberry, according to the season, and it is still a major attraction at Meier & Frank’s. Don also made rich home-style coffeecakes with almond toppings and streusel, using butter by the ton. And there was a remarkable black bottom pie. It had a crumb crust and was really two different types of Bavarian cream on a chocolate base. If you cared for that sort of dessert, then it was your dish and a sublime one.
This man was unique, and fortunately the Meiers and Franks understood his genius. He had a true sense of the seasonal aspect of menu building and was one of the first restaurant men to feature seasonal foods when they were at their height. He had an established clientele who wanted the best and paid for it, and he ran the restaurant according to his own gastronomic pleasure. (They are the same ideas, on a smaller scale, which Joseph Baum applied so successfully to the Four Seasons.) I am glad I knew this man and grateful that, for a period of time, I could eat in his restaurant four or five times a week.
San Francisco, during my childhood and early teens, was my dream city. We spent a week or two, sometimes a month, there each year, making the trip usually on the Shasta Limited of the Southern Pacific. This train was my idea of true luxury, and two meals in the diner were heaven (and in those days my family considered Southern Pacific food well below the standards of the great cross-country lines). It was a treat to rise with the Siskiyous and the Coast Ranges rolling by and to breakfast on ham and eggs, sausage and eggs, or occasionally fresh mountain trout which had been taken on during one of the stops—all rather well prepared.
Sometimes we had the thrill of taking a boat trip from Portland aboard The Beaver, The Bear or The Rose City, which plied their way between Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was a two-day trip to San Francisco, and the excitement of a short sea voyage made up for the food. At best it was ordinary, but that only gave one greater appetite for the restaurants of San Francisco.
For two wonderful years, during the 1915 fair (the Panama-Pacific International Exposition) and part of the following year, the two great liners Northern Pacific and Great Northern sailed from Flavel below Astoria to San Francisco and back; and this really was luxury travel. A boat train left from Portland, raced to Flavel at great speed, and soon one was aboard. One of these liners, renamed the H. F. Alexander, became one of the fastest ships on the Atlantic during World War I. There wasn’t time for much eating aboard either ship—one had dinner and breakfast, and he was ready to dock. But the food was memorable. Dungeness crab and razor clams and Columbia River salmon starred, along with the best of California fruits and vegetables and a great profusion of imported delicacies, such as foie gras and occasionally good caviar. I still remember the whole Chinook salmon of enormous proportions in a wine aspic, served with an anchovy mayonnaise remotely related to some of the Provençal sauces. My father loved it, got the recipe, and it became an occasional treat, especially at the beach, where salmon flowed into our house as if it were a tributary of the Columbia.
I can also remember my first salade russe aboard one of these ships, and wonderful smallish cantaloupes, somewhat like the Charentais melons, served with delicious ice cream or with fresh raspberries and port.
I cannot describe the excitement of pushing through the Golden Gate in even such a small tub as The Beaver or The Bear. One had the feeling of having arrived in the Promised Land from afar. (I still succumb to the enchantment of San Francisco each time I go there.) We’d be off to the Palace or the St. Francis, and in later years the Clift. Then without stop there would be theater, music, shopping, visits and eating.
There were great restaurants in those days—Fred Solari’s on Maiden Lane, Solari’s on Geary Street behind the St. Francis, Marquard’s, Tait’s at the Beach and Techau Tavern, all of which have disappeared, victims of Prohibition or just tired and gone. But there is still Jack’s, a restaurant that has changed comparatively little in all the years I have been going there.* It has kept its fin de siècle décor and, it would appear, some of its fin de siècle personnel. They still serve the same delicious crab, oysters, abalone and fine fish and such specialities as calf’s head vinaigrette—and superb sand dabs. Mother once said, “If I’d been able to get fresh sand dabs every day and the best white asparagus from California throughout the season, I would never have sold the business.” This is one of the great fishes of the world and is usually prepared so badly it loses its essential character. This delicate member of the flounder family should be either filleted or cooked whole, and the cooking should be nothing more than the lightest sauté meunière. It should be rushed to your table from the pan without further embellishment. This is as tender and as delicious a fish as I have ever eaten anywhere, and if you have never tasted it, make a trip to Jack’s one day when you are in San Francisco.
Jack’s also produced some excellent squab and chicken, including a wonderful sauté sec, which still appears on their menu and is unbelievably simple.
Chicken Sauté Sec
Disjoint a 2- to 2½-pound broiler. Melt 6 tablespoons butter in a skillet, and when it is bubbling, brown the chicken pieces lightly on both sides over a brisk flame. Add salt and pepper to taste. When the chicken is browned to the state you desire, reduce the heat and add ⅓ cup white wine or very dry sherry. Allow the chicken to simmer until it is tender, turning it once or twice during the cooking. Serve it with sautéed potatoes or rice pilaf and a salad.
For some reason San Francisco has always meant squab to me. Once when the family had an apartment there, we used to shop in the markets a great deal and bought squab at two and three for a dollar, and exceedingly good ones at that. Often they were just flattened and broiled à la crapaudine, and sometimes they were stuffed with a savory mixture, roasted and basted with white wine and butter—delicious food to be eaten with the fingers, else one would miss some of its goodness. How many times have I watched diners in restaurants too proud to lift bones to mouth. How they massacred the tiny bird! And what miserable return they got. I must say, I have never seen anyone who truly enjoys food who didn’t use his fingers when necessary.
Down the alley off Union Square were two famous spots—Fred Solari’s and a small French bistro, which I found enchanting when I was young. It was of the meal-plus-wine prix fixe type of restaurant. The dishes were piled at the table in readiness for customers, and silver, glasses, and linen were also close at hand so that the waiters had a minimum of work before a meal. One was served a huge ironstone tureen of soup, good sourdough bread, an excellent bourgeois dish, a fairly palatable California wine, and cheese and fruit, or sometimes dessert, for about seventy-five cents at lunch and slightly more at dinner. The main dish would be a good pot-au-feu, a boeuf à la mode, a daube, or a poule-au-pot. Such hearty, inexpensive dishes would not be ruined if they continued to cook an extra hour while a meal was being served.
We also used to lunch often in the recently demolished Fly Trap. This was as plain as any restaurant could be, but the cooking always remained honest and flavorful. If you wanted good fish or crab, or good chops and steak, you found the Fly Trap had a special quality about it, and this was proven by the loyal patronage of some of the old-timers.
For elegant dining, I think that Marquard’s and Tait’s at the Beach impressed me more than any other place in San Francisco, with the exception of the Palace Court. Marquard’s had a buffet luncheon or hors d’oeuvre luncheon, which used to fascinate me as a child, for I loved the looks of the laden table and the idea of tasting a great many things. And Tait’s at the Beach embodied such glamour that I have never forgotten it. But the cuisine at these two places, alas, declined during Prohibition, and I am left only with the recollection of their luxurious air, which, after all, is not the test of a good restaurant.
The Palace Court was another restaurant that prided itself on great food in those days. And with its palms, rich draperies and carpeting and smooth, luxurious service, the hotel was comparable to the best European hostelry. Dishes emanating from its kitchens became classics, for the food, as old San Franciscans know, was impeccable. Game, fine fish and seafood—all the glories of the region—were featured. It was here I learned the joys of the alligator pear, the versatility of the artichoke, the pleasures of ripe citrus fruit. And two famous dishes served there have stayed in my memory.
Crab Legs Palace Court
This dish is still available at the Palace Hotel, though I’m sure not done as well as formerly. Serve as an hors d’oeuvre or as a luncheon dish.
For each serving make a bed of crisp greens. On it place a large slice of tomato. On this place a good-sized artichoke bottom with the inner choke removed and a few leaves left to form a cup. Fill this with salade russe (a salad of diced cooked vegetables blended with mayonnaise), top with large Dungeness crab legs, and decorate with thin slices of pimiento. Around the artichoke and the tomato press fine-chopped hard-boiled egg yolk, and serve with a well-flavored Thousand Island dressing. The same dish may be prepared with large lump Atlantic crabmeat or with lobster meat, but the Dungeness crab has a certain delicacy which seems to make the dish more delicious.
The other dish—another Palace original which restaurants elsewhere have copied—is oysters Kirkpatrick. The legend is that they were created for one of the staff at the old Palace. When Helen Brown did her West Coast Cook Book, the Palace sent her a recipe which she and I both think is not the original. Nor do she and I agree entirely on the one we first knew. The first one I ever ate, and the one which I had repeatedly, was this:
Oysters Kirkpatrick
For each person arrange 6 oysters in their shells on a bed of coarse salt. Loosen each oyster from its shell, dip it in catchup and return it to shell. Top it with fine-chopped scallions and a strip of partially cooked bacon. Bake at 400° just long enough to heat the oysters and crisp the bacon. Serve at once.
Sometimes a spoonful of grated Parmesan cheese was sprinkled over the bacon before it went to the oven.
Another famous recipe from the Palace, which has been subject to a number of variations since it was first created, was Green Goddess dressing for salads. This was much later than the oysters Kirkpatrick period and it was presumably done for George Arliss when he toured in The Green Goddess.
Green Goddess Dressing
Combine 1 quart mayonnaise—and it must be good homemade mayonnaise done with olive oil—with 14 to 16 coarsely chopped anchovies, ½ cup chopped parsley and chives mixed, 3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon (or 2 teaspoons dried tarragon, or more to taste), ⅓ cup tarragon vinegar, and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Beat ingredients together for a few minutes, correct the seasoning and allow the dressing to stand for several hours before serving.
After San Francisco, London was the next great city whose restaurants I knew. I made my first trip there on a small freighter, The Highland Heather, which sailed from the West Coast. The ship was British, and as I recorded earlier, the food was poor British. By the time four weeks had passed, my fairly well-trained palate rebelled. I bartered with the stewards to let me have all the cheese and English biscuits I wanted, and I tasted nothing else for the last ten days of the voyage except for a rather throat-searing curry the breakfast cook made with tinned fish. This was so highly spiced that it obscured the flavor of everything that accompanied it and so was rather good. I’m sure it was what the chef existed on.
If I were asked to name the greatest meal I ever had, I think I might answer the luncheon the day I disembarked at Southampton. After I had passed through customs and attended to my baggage, I made for the nearby railway station restaurant with an appetite unequaled in my life. I remember the meal in detail. It happened to consist of a thick pea soup with croutons, breaded lamb cutlets and the most tremendous bowl of cauliflower polonaise I had ever seen. Naturally, there were also those extraordinary British browned potatoes, with skin so tough they seemed safe forever from penetration by knife and fork. But everything tasted ambrosial, and I knew that never again in my life would I experience a more sensual enjoyment of food than at that moment. If the same meal were served to me now, I would probably hurl it through the window.
London in the early twenties was far different from today. Soho was really an international settlement, and few of its restaurants had succumbed to British influence. Some places, like the Rendezvous, had become frightfully posh with the West Enders and the theater crowd, but for the most part the small eating places remained unfashionable and delightful.
Among the great restaurants, one had Pagani’s, Scott’s, Oddenino’s, the Ivy, the Savoy grill, the Ritz, the Carlton and Claridge’s. The small, intimate, rather Bohemian-style tearooms, such as the Good Intent in Chelsea, were just beginning, and one ate well in some of the clubs.
I’ll always remember a remark made to me at Pagani’s. Helen Dircks, who was at that time publicist for the Palladium and afterwards one of the great advertising and publicity women in England, was my guest for dinner at the restaurant. At the end of the meal I hoped I wasn’t embarrassing her when I took the trouble to add up the bill before paying it. Helen said, “If you had paid the bill without examining it, I would never have gone out with you again.”
This woman was a great force in my London life. It was she who introduced me to the man who became my voice coach, and she who guided me to restaurants, theaters and interesting places. Her father had been one of the great drama critics—on a London daily—and Helen had had a remarkable childhood and youth among the literary and theatrical lights of the time. I had my first London dry martini with Helen at the Rendezvous, and with her and her husband, Ralph Goome, I was first introduced to Verreys, which at that time was an enchanting bar patronized by a cosmopolitan group of people.
I also became devoted to a small Belgian bistro near the Palladium where, when you were “accepted,” you were given a pigeonhole for your napkin and a fresh napkin each Monday. Here one ate quite good bourgeois dishes and, surprisingly enough, from time to time a typical English specialty. Once every fortnight a beefsteak-and-kidney pudding appeared on the menu, and it was the best I ever ate, by far. The pudding was steamed in individual molds and was always in demand by the regular customers.
Beefsteak-and-Kidney Pudding
For the Crust: Blend 1½ cups fine-chopped suet (it must be almost powdery) with 3 cups flour and salt to taste—about 1 teaspoon. Add just enough ice water to make a stiff paste of about the same texture as piecrust dough. Chill this for 30 minutes. Roll out enough dough to line 1 large bowl or several small ones, and reserve the rest to make a top crust.
For the Filling: Remove the core and fat from 3 veal kidneys and slice them thin. After dredging them in flour, combine 2 pounds chuck, cut in 1½-inch cubes, with the kidney slices. Add 1 clove garlic, 12 fine-chopped shallots, chopped parsley, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Place the filling in the dough-lined bowl and fill the bowl to 1 inch below the rim with beef bouillon. Roll out the remaining dough and place it over the pudding, allowing it to overlap the edge of the bowl enough to seal it. Wring out a cloth and place it over the bowl. Sprinkle this with flour and then cover all with aluminum foil, tied securely to make it leakproof. Place the bowl in a pan filled with hot water to within an inch of the top of the bowl. Bring the water to a boil. Boil a single, large pudding 3 to 4 hours and small puddings about 3 hours.
Boiled or mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts are excellent with this, and a good beer is a perfect accompaniment.
My coach, Tano, was a famous Italian authority on opera and song lore. He had been Caruso’s secretary and assistant in New York and had coached practically every great singer of the age. He was short, round, jovial, loved good food and often entertained delightfully in his home. He frequented several Italian restaurants in London where he was always welcomed with much fanfare, and one of his favorite spots was Gennaro’s in Soho. Gennaro, who had been a ballet dancer in Milan, was then enjoying his new role as restaurateur. He had lost his figure but not his grace, and I shall never forget the sight of him tossing his fourteen stone across the floor to present a long-stemmed rose to some glamorous lady client. The food at Gennaro’s was sensational—a far cry from the restaurant of the same name in London today.
Gennaro served a cold hors d’oeuvre in summer which is worth repeating here. Mother, when she came over to visit me, declared it was the most delicious lobster dish she had ever tasted, and she couldn’t eat enough of it. I have used the recipe all my life, simple though it is.
Eggs Gennaro
For each serving you must have a large thoroughly ripe tomato. It should be depipped and drained, and most of the pulp should be removed. Into each tomato put a touch of chopped basil, a bit of salt and then a large medallion of lobster, which has been perfectly cooked and cooled. Top this with a cold poached egg, well trimmed, garnish it with fine-chopped lobster and parsley, and serve with a Gennaro dressing.
For the dressing combine 1½ cups mayonnaise made with olive oil, a touch of garlic (enough to perfume the dressing but not overpower the delicate flavors), 1 anchovy fillet chopped fine, 1 tablespoon basil and 2 tablespoons parsley chopped fine, 1 tablespoon capers chopped fine, and a dash of lemon juice. Allow the ingredients to mellow 1 or 2 hours before serving.
Gennaro prepared other fascinating Italian specialties with a Milan-Parma overtone, for he hailed from that part of Italy. And he would do particular dishes to order for the kind of patron who had to have his favorite food or die. Great Italian singers, from Battistini to Gigli, came to Gennaro’s, as well as singers from Covent Garden; and the Guitrys came whenever they were in London. It was an exciting experience for me to dine there with Tano, for he knew everyone. Strange and wonderful meals came through the kitchen doors, and I grew to appreciate the delight of really good Italian food.
There was a bistro, or albergo rather, near Soho Square where Tano sent me one day for lunch. I immediately took a fancy to it and to the wonderful family who ran it. The daughter, Lisa, was stout, full of life, and she enjoyed looking after the American visitor. She loved food herself and was well versed in its lore. The Ristorante del Comercio was tiny and gay, with checked curtains, tables and chairs painted green, and many bibelots and canned and bottled foods decorating the room. There was no bar, but one of the family would willingly run out for a carafe of wine or a pitcher of beer for you. Everyone who came to the restaurant seemed to know everyone else.
I first learned to eat raw artichokes there. Lisa had brought me a plate of magnificent ones, and I asked how I should have them. “Raw,” she said, “with a little dressing I make for you.” So she took a touch of garlic, rubbed it into salt, added oil, vinegar, freshly ground pepper and a bit of crumbled red pepper and then stirred and tasted until she had achieved the balance she wanted. “Now try,” she said. “Eat only the ends, and when you finish, I show you what to do with the fondo.” Thus I discovered a new way with artichokes, which I had eaten all my life in the usual manner. The tiny tip of green was tender and crisp, and the dressing enhanced it beautifully.
Another time Lisa said, “You know dandelion?” I said I did, and then she proceeded to fix the greens for me, the first of many occasions. She sautéed cubes of the rather fat smoked pork from Italy, added garlic and then the dandelion, followed by fresh mint and wine vinegar. It was sent to table still crisp and underdone, flavored superbly with the mint-garlic-bacon combination.
Another dish at the Comercio I shall never forget was the simple delight of veal scallops with lemon.
Scallopini alla Limone
Pound 12 scallops of fine white veal very thin and sauté them quickly in a combination of 3 tablespoons olive oil and 3 tablespoons butter. When they are nicely browned on both sides, add 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, add salt to taste and a grinding of fresh pepper. Just before removing them from the pan, add the juice of ½ lemon and turn the scallops once. Transfer them to a hot platter, and serve them with thin, thin slices of lemon and a few capers.
Each time I return to London I walk past the site of the Comercio and feel a deep sense of gratitude for the restaurant that once stood there. What happened to the family I will never know.
My favorite pastime for Sunday, or any other day, in London used to be tea at the Ritz. This charming experience cost only half a crown in the early twenties, which was within my budget for elegant diversions. But such a half crown’s worth!—a posh atmosphere, great comfort and delicious little sandwiches, toast, pastries and tea. Besides, there was the passing parade of the most fashionable people. As recently as last year I had tea at the Ritz, and it is one of the few surviving examples of a bygone era. The service, the appointments and the tea are still admirable, and make one long to return to a more gracious age.
In 1922–23 I could have lunch or dinner at the Ritz only when someone invited me, and I lived on the memory of it for weeks afterwards. The food was magnificent and the service impeccable. I once heard my mother say, “A sandwich at the Ritz is worth three meals in any other restaurant, no matter how poor you may be and how hungry!” Alas, this is no longer true. The service is usually good, but except for tea and a few things on the luncheon menu, the Ritz is a pale image of its former days.
My first visit to Paris in 1923 was a tremendously exciting event, and one dream I had preserved for a number of years was to dine at Maxim’s—no doubt because of the song from The Merry Widow and other alluring associations. This was to me the most glamorous place of all time, and I was prepared to spend my pittance for a good meal there. So one evening I reserved a table, put on my best suit, and went with a friend to the famed Maxim’s. A couple of hours later I left, disillusioned and miserable. For the food was mediocre and the service indifferent. I was quite bewildered, and it was a long time before I tried Maxim’s again. I have been there many times since, and only once have I felt that it measured up to its reputation. This was at a dinner in 1949 to honor a group on a wine tour of France, one of whom happened to be me. The food was superb, and Louis Vaudable did everything in his power to make the occasion memorable. The menu included pheasant Souvaroff, exquisite rougets and wonderful caviar, and the wines were chosen with great care.
The décor, the charm, and the ambiance of Maxim’s still dominate the food, I’m afraid. It is not a great restaurant, nor will it ever be, since it can survive on its own legend.
I discovered many other delightful eating spots in those days. I lived in a remarkable pension on the rue Jacob where the food was good bourgeois fare and exceedingly cheap—so much so that one felt he could afford to wander to a more expensive restaurant now and then. We ate good pot-au-feu, calf’s feet poulette, blanquettes and boeuf à la bourguignonne, with an occasional roast chicken or bit of game. With the francs saved here, I would often eat around the corner at another pension on the rue Bonaparte, where the food was excellent and they took transient guests for lunch. The hors d’oeuvre were delicious, the vegetables succulent, and I remember that in late summer we would sometimes have a marvelous cold daube or a jellied ham dish, which I have come to believe was a jambon persillé. Looking back, I am sure the chef was from Provence, because many of the dishes were typical of that region. They were consumed with gusto by a group of young Englishmen, Italians and Frenchmen who frequented the place. I seemed to be the sole American.
Paris, in the early twenties, was going through a Russian era, for White Russians were settling there by the thousands. It was natural that some of them should open restaurants. The Caneton in the rue de la Bourse was the one Russian-managed restaurant more talked about than any other and reputed to be elegant and blessed with a good chef. It happened that a friend from Portland arrived in Paris, someone I wished to impress, so I invited her to dine with me at the Caneton. I remember calling for her in a barouche, riding to the rue de la Bourse and being much struck by the décor and the maître d’hôtel’s effusive welcome. We started the meal with caviar and blinis—my first public adventure with blinis—served with a great crock of cream. Champagne appeared to be the drink to have, and we had it—through shashlik and kasha, vegetables and an elaborate dessert. It was a dinner I have never forgotten, nor have I forgotten the bill. It was a hundred francs—the largest restaurant bill that ever was, I thought at the time. I paid it, hired a barouche to take my friend to her hotel, then went back to my pension, feeling that life in Paris was frightfully expensive.
But within the next week or two I was rewarded for my extravagance, for someone asked me to tea at Rumpelmayer’s and someone else took me to the Boeuf à la Mode, where I dined magnificently. Rumpelmayer’s was so enchanting and offered such an array of pastries in those days—tiny éclairs, tiny mille-feuilles, beautiful frangipane tarts—I went on eating for hours, it seemed, and then I took a long walk through the Luxembourg Gardens to allow all the pastry to settle. The world took on new color each time I went to tea at Rumpelmayer’s.
There were other places similar to Rumpelmayer’s—Colombin and Louis Sherry at the Rond Point among them. But they have gone forever and with them the charm of small teashops and the art of producing great pastry. One had best learn the art of pastry-making for himself if he wants really good pastry. I often make little éclairs for a dinner party, or my favorite pain de Gênes or a fine poundcake. All these things are so delectable that I must refrain from making them too often.
One of the favorite tourist spots used to be Robinson, in the country outside Paris. While the food was never commendable, it was a stimulating experience to dine in the trees—for the restaurant was composed of little platforms built among the branches of a grove of chestnuts. One climbed to his perch, and his food was hoisted to him in a basket. There was music and a contagious air of high spirits. For impressionable young people who were in Paris for the first time, it meant really Living. I can remember going there with a group of friends on one occasion and getting separated from them during the course of a festive evening. I finally took the milk train back to Paris, and it was past dawn when I crawled into my pension on the rue Jacob. I recall sitting on the balcony outside my room and watching Paris wake up. The achievement of staying up all night seems to have eternal appeal for the young.
When Tano came to Paris, I was taken to the Tour d’Argent for dinner—this was before it moved up to the roof of the building it was in. I ate duck, and found the restaurant a supreme pleasure. I still think it is one of the greatest restaurants in Paris and one of the great restaurants in the world. Claude Terrail has kept the traditions intact and the food superb.
I only wish I had known in 1923 what I know now about Paris restaurants. I might have found many more interesting places, in vogue at the time, which have disappeared into history. I am unhappy every time I think that the great Montagné was cooking in Paris in that era, and I didn’t know it. But I am grateful that I was enterprising enough to explore among the smaller restaurants and learn the basic dishes of French cuisine, when I might have been spending my money in the fleshpots.
Today’s restaurants in Paris and the French countryside have changed a great deal, with the most marked change occurring since 1950. Tourists in increasing numbers, and especially those who can make demands because of wealth or position, have corrupted restaurant traditions and created chaos throughout the entire restaurant business in Europe.
In addition to this problem, there is the growing tendency to look upon working with one’s hands as an inferior occupation. No longer are there talented chefs emerging through the apprentice system to take the place of the fast-dwindling ranks of the great. And the Americanization of certain French food habits adds to the decline of a glorious art.
I am inclined to believe that the starring system put into effect quite honestly by Michelin, and adopted by every magazine in America and Europe, has contributed much to the ruination of good eating. And the excessive promoting of “must” restaurants throughout Europe, which magazines are prone to do, have turned many temples of gastronomic splendor into mere tourist traps. To achieve any status at all as a gourmet these days, one must go to Maxim’s or to Laperouse. And “doing” the three-star restaurants is one of the current fashions for travelers in Europe. This is a rather grim phenomenon to anyone who has for many years loved certain restaurants that happen to be on the list.
In 1961 I visited all the three-star restaurants in France and a great many of the smaller restaurants, and I trekked through the restaurants of England twice in that year. In addition to my far-ranging visits to restaurants, for over ten years I have worked as a consultant to restaurateurs in the United States. I have come to many conclusions as a result, one of the most significant being the conviction that this has become an age of family restaurants—a condition brought on by the shortage of chefs. Many of those who are working in this profession go into mass production when they reach the top, and their individual talents are lost in the anonymity of frozen and processed foods. The great restaurants tend to be those which have the family integrity for their inspiration and which cater to a comparatively small clientele. This trend is especially true in Europe.
My favorite restaurant in all of France is L’Auberge de Père Bise at Talloires, and certainly this is a family affair, of three-star magnitude. Marius Bise is the presiding genius and the man whose inventiveness and keen palate have made the restaurant what it is. But everyone else in the family is there, working to maintain the standard of perfection in food and service which Marius has established.
In another three-star restaurant, Oustau de Baumanière, one discerns the imprint of the patron everywhere. The menu remains limited. Obviously this restaurant would rather produce five or six main courses impeccably than a larger menu which allows no time for the refinement of details.
In a smaller way, the bistros one finds throughout France embody this same family idea. Often the patron is the chef, and la patronne is at the front of the house. This in itself almost assures one of good service and good food. Such restaurants as Aux Marronniers and Paul Chène have an honest quality about them, with an excellent choice of regional specialities, a polished style of cookery and pleasant, if not perfect, service. On my first visit to Paul Chene I remember being offered beignets of brandade de morue and a superlative boeuf bourguignon—not the stew version but a daube. I am not ordinarily fond of this dish, and when it intrigues me, it has to be unusually good. The beignets were so delicious and so delicate, one wondered why they didn’t fly off the plate. Paul Chène has just one star in Michelin. He deserves to be awarded two more.
I was first taken to Aux Marronniers by Naomi Barry of the Paris Herald. On that occasion we ate delicious brioche with langouste à l’américaine. Another time I had their incredible lobster pâté and on a third visit, the most perfectly grilled little chicken I have ever eaten, served with a richly tarragoned béarnaise sauce which was heady and stimulating. Such restaurants as this one are the hope of good eating.
Another restaurant in the family tradition, Chez Camille, reverses the usual order of things, for the patronne is the chef, while her husband manages the front of the house. Strangely enough, one of the great specialties here is the same chicken one finds at Marronniers, and very good it is, too. However, the mussels done in pots with a snail butter are sensational, and so is the gratin of mussels. I have sent many people to this small restaurant, and they have been enchanted with it.
One of the oldest examples I know of the family restaurant is that of Mme. Pannetrat of Aux Bonnes Choses in rue Falguière near the boulevard Montparnasse. Madame and her daughter and granddaughter are all part of the staff, which sometimes includes twenty people. This bistro is different from any other I can think of and serves some delicious food from the Périgord. Madame makes her own confit d’oie, buys good truffles, does an excellent poulet à la basquaise and also a heavy winter luncheon dish-confit with white beans—which I adore but dare not eat more than once a year.
In 1924, the year after I had visited the West Indies, Europe and other parts of the globe, I made my first trip to New York. I arrived in the city with no particular joy, having been quite content in Europe, and I was convinced that I could never come to love it. In this frame of mind, and without bothering to do much sightseeing, I went off to visit friends outside the city for a few days. When I returned something had happened to me. I suddenly saw the city afresh, and spellbound I began to wander along the streets of Manhattan, absorbing its grandeur, charm and excitement.
New York was much more European in feeling during the twenties than it is today. It was gay and wild, as were all the world capitals at that time. Money was plentiful, and the ways to spend it were legion. Speakeasies flourished, and they ranged from the very elegant to the joints where you asked for Joe. The fashionable ones became the great restaurants of today, and some of the joints became famous nightclubs. Patrons of the speakeasies had their own keys or knew the mode of entrance. I remember one club where a tiny ball and chain was the token of admission. Here drinks were expensive and good, and the ambiance was as elegant as the Plaza’s today. I believe there were more really great restaurants then than there are now. And one ate well in many of the small speakeasies.
Once I was captivated by the city, I began to search out the places whose names were familiar to me. One of these was the old Waldorf on 34th Street, where the Empire State Building now stands. I went there for lunch and took a table by a window, where I could watch passing traffic. Just as I began reading the menu and relaxing in the splendor of the dining room, I was struck by the most painful toothache I have ever had. By this time the captain was awaiting my order. I explained my predicament. He was sympathetic and promptly suggested that I permit him to choose my food. I did, and he brought me the most perfect oyster stew imaginable—creamy, rich and pungent. It salved my body and cheered my soul. This was my introduction to the Waldorf Astoria, and I have always savored my memories of it. What a glorious old hotel it was!
I also had great affection for Sherry’s small restaurant and pastry shop on 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, across from the old Savoy Hotel, where one lunched or dined on the porch in summer—an enchanting spot. Sherry’s had a truly Old World quality and offered good food and excellent service. The baked foods were superb, and I depended on its pastry and that of Dean’s, and of Henri on 46th Street, to remind me of Europe.
Another place I became attached to was a French restaurant and speakeasy on West 49th Street called Eugénie, where one could lunch very well for seventy-five cents and could have a gingerale bottle of wine for another seventy-five cents. Dinner, which included hors d’oeuvre, soup, fish, entree, salad, cheese and dessert, cost all of a dollar and a half, and the wine was not very expensive.
During my first days in New York I was taken to the Algonquin, which was frequented by theatergoers and actors—as well as by would-be actors. I aspired to the stage in those days and reveled in the sight of the theater greats and their admirers, who crowded into the rooms there as they do still. Frank Case, the owner of the Algonquin, was to have his best days later, but during this period the dining room was already exciting and provided delicious food.
Luchow’s in the twenties was magnificent—the food wonderful, the clientele fascinating always, and the atmosphere as charming as it is now under very different auspices. I have always found the little orchestra at Luchow’s a delightful and ludicrous divertissement as it pours out selections from Madame Butterfly or Rigoletto with its four or six pieces. I still make a sentimental journey there occasionally and eat the canapé with tartar steak and caviar, together with some sausages.
One cannot have lived in New York or Washington of the twenties and thirties without knowing Childs. Except for Horn and Hardart’s, it was probably the most unusual restaurant operation that ever existed in this country. Unhappily, it fell upon less successful days, but at its prime the Childs chain presented food typically American and thoroughly satisfying. Who could forget their butter cakes, which were made in the window on a long griddle, their famous wheat cakes, their incomparable corned beef hash, their chocolate layer cake? These standard items brought people back time after time. Everyone seemed undeterred by the antiseptic look of the white tile, an ugly trademark through the years. What astonishing people passed through the doors of some of the Childs’! The one on Fifth Avenue at 58th, the one in Times Square and the one that opened later in the twenties between 56th and 57th Streets were rendezvous, late at night, for everyone in the arts.
New York today is still famous for restaurants. Some, like “21,” the Colony and Voisin, have lived through Prohibition and the Depression and remained tops in their field. Others, such as Henri Soulé’s Pavilion and Joseph Bugoni’s Baroque, have appeared in the last twenty years and become outstanding through a consistent quality of excellence. Still others, notably the restaurants of Restaurants Associates—the Four Seasons, the Forum of the Twelve Caesars and La Fonda del Sol—have established revolutionary ideas in restaurant design and the presentation of food. But with very few exceptions, the average expensive New York restaurant is not as good as it was twenty or thirty years ago, because, for the most part, restaurateurs have lowered their standards; too many of their patrons are diners-out on expense accounts, who value a “chic” restaurant for its snob appeal, not for its cuisine. They no longer pride themselves on being purveyors of fine food and drink.
On the other hand much of the public has become more sophisticated in its eating habits, and these people expect the best when they go to a good restaurant. Wine lists and menus may be intriguing and well planned, the décor handsome, the service good. But it is what happens in the kitchen that makes a restaurant.
With all of my restaurant experience I have come to learn one thing, and I regret that it is so. There are great restaurants, good restaurants, and poor restaurants, but no restaurant is any better than the performance you can exact from it by knowing the chef, the maître d’hôtel or the owner. Alas, the restaurants are few where you can go unknown and unannounced and be served good food.
* Jack’s has since disappeared also.