The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Part 11

Not many n.o.ble strangers Can possibly refrain, When once they've ate our sausages From eating them again.

And it usually strikes them, If they have not yet found it out, That these sausages are splendid When they're mixed with Sauerkraut.

The only thing they rail at, When they fain would criticise, Is to wish the little sausage Were a little larger size.

At the princ.i.p.al hotels, such as the Grand, Strauss, Wurttemberger Hof, and Victoria, very good meals can be procured--the mid-day _table-d'hote_ prices varying from 3s. to 3s. 6d. Perhaps the best of these is the Victoria, which rejoices in a grill-room, and where the delicacies of the season are available.

There are American bars at the "American Bar," Karolinenstra.s.se, the Hotel Strauss, same street, and at the Wittelsbacker Hof in the Pfaunenschmiedsga.s.se.

The cafes are the Bristol in the Josephs Platz, the Central in the Karolinenstra.s.se, the Habsburg and the Imperial both in the Konigstra.s.se; but do not go to any of these under the idea that they represent the Cafe Anglais in Paris.

A very pleasant resort in the summer is the Maxfeld Restauration in the Stadt Park. It is in the open air, and an excellent band plays at 5 P.M.

on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. A fair dinner is provided, but it is better to order in advance by telephone.

Hanover

The Georgshalle is, and has been for the last forty years, the best cafe and restaurant in Hanover, but is now incorporated with Kasten's Hotel.

It was the usual and, for many years, the only place of resort where a simple and decent meal could be obtained. I am not talking of the _haute cuisine_, because it does not exist in this city.

Kasten's Hotel is good of its kind. The Kaiser has dined there on his occasional visits to the town. Private b.a.l.l.s and other entertainments are given there, and the wines are generally good.

The Tip Top Restaurant, in the Karmarschstra.s.se, is a comparatively modern, pleasant, and cheery _locale_, with a good bill of fare. On account of its proximity to the theatre it is much frequented for suppers after the play.

There are several Biergarten open in the summer where military and other bands perform, but nothing but ordinary refreshment is to be obtained here.

Leipzig

Leipzig has one good restaurant, the Restaurant Page on the Marktplatz,--at least it is the best in the town.

The Hotel Hauffe, in the Russplatz, is an old-established hotel, is well conducted, and has a restaurant where one can get quite a decent dinner if ordered beforehand.

There is also another, Friedrichkrause, Katharinensbresse, No. 6, but with these three the culinary capabilities of Leipzig are practically at an end. Of course there are a number of Bierhalle and Kellern to accommodate the students and music pupils, for which latter Leipzig is the home of instruction.

Frankfurt-am-Main

Frankfurt gives me the idea of having more wealthy people in it than any other town I know, and I do not think I am very far wrong in this. The Central Railway Station is the finest one can imagine.

It has at least four first-cla.s.s restaurants attached to hotels.

The Hotel d'Angleterre, or Englischer Hof, in the centre of the city, the Rossmarkt, is a fine old hotel. Our present king, when Prince of Wales, generally stayed there when pa.s.sing through. The famous German philosopher, Schopenhauer, dined there regularly for thirty years--from 1831 to 1860, though I cannot advance that as any great recommendation, for the ways and tastes of philosophers are usually somewhat erratic. I have no doubt, however, that the cuisine has materially altered since Schopenhauer's time.

The Frankfurter Hof, built about thirty years ago, is a larger establishment with all the modern improvements. It is much frequented by Englishmen and Americans, but rather lacks the quiet of the Angleterre.

It has a good cuisine, for M. Ritz, who has an interest in the hotel, has seen to that, and magnificent reception rooms where many b.a.l.l.s, parties, weddings, etc., take place. A band plays there during the greater part of the day, and it is advisable to get as far distant as possible from it when dining. In the restaurant one can obtain _a la carte_ a very excellently cooked dinner.

The Palast Hotel Furstenhof is of the highest cla.s.s and was only recently opened. It has beautifully decorated rooms, a good restaurant, a dining-hall, and an excellent American bar. Herr Schill the former head waiter of the Englischer Hof--his _nom de guerre_ is Mons.

Jules--a.s.siduously sees to the comfort and welfare of his guests. Like Mons. Ritz he has a large following of friends.

The Hotel Imperial was opened about two years ago, and although a little smaller than the Frankfurter Hof or the Palast has a most aristocratic _clientele_. Being close to the Opera House, its restaurant is much patronised in the season by people who during the _entr'acte_, or to pa.s.s over a more or less tedious act, prefer to partake of light refreshments and a cigarette on the terrace in the open air. There is an American bar there also. The _elite_ of Frankfurt, on the rare occasions when they do sup after going to the theatre or opera, generally order their meals at one of the restaurants of the leading hotels; but Frankfurt does not, as a rule, keep late hours.

The Palmen Garten is a pleasant summer restaurant a little way out of the town, on the Bockenheimerstra.s.se. It has a fine dining-hall, or you may sit at _al-fresco_ tables while the regimental band discourses excellent music. The cooking is good--German cuisine, but nothing high cla.s.s. It is a very pleasant spot to visit in the hot weather; on fete days one is treated there to the luxury of fireworks, etc.

Buerose ought to be mentioned as a quiet restaurant, where there is a _specialite_ of _hors-d'oeuvre_ and excellent oysters.

Lovers of good beer will find at the Allemania, if they ask for a Schoppen of the Royal Court Hofbrau, exactly what they have been craving for; and the Pilsener at the Kaiserhof Restaurant in the Goetheplatz is equally good. One has to sample several gla.s.ses of each before one can definitely make up one's mind as to which is the best.

Dusseldorf

The best restaurant in Dusseldorf is that of the Park Hotel on the Corneliusplatz. It is one of the best on the Rhine, and was opened in April 1902 on the occasion of the Dusseldorf Exhibition; it is a fine building, and has pretty grounds and ornamental water adjoining it. It is frequented by the highest German n.o.bility, but yet its prices are moderate.

Luncheons are served at 3 marks, dinners at 5 marks. Suppers for 3 marks are served at _prix fixe_, or one can order _a la carte_. The Moselle wines are exceptionally good. There is an American bar in the hotel. The restaurant, handsomely decorated in the style of Louis XIV., is opposite the Opera House and overlooks the Hofgarten.

It has no specialities in the way of food beyond the usual German and French dishes.

At the Thurnagel Restaurant, also in the Corneliusplatz, you are likely to find the artistic colony in session. The restaurant dates back to the year 1858. There is a good collection of wine in the cellars, and a word may be said in favour of its cookery.

The Rhine Valley

The Rhine valley is not a happy hunting ground for the gourmet. Cologne has its picturesque Gurzenich in which is a restaurant; its inhabitants eat their oysters in the saloon in the Kleine Bugenstra.s.se, part of a restaurant there; and there are restaurants in the Marienburg and in the Stadt garden, and the Flora and Zoological Gardens. At every little town on either bank there are one or more taverns with a view where the usual atrocities which pa.s.s as food in provincial Germany are to be obtained, good beer, and generally excellent wine made from the vineyards on the mountain side. Now and again some restaurant-keeper has a little pool of fresh water in front of his house, and one can select one's particular fish to be cooked for breakfast. The wines of the district are far better than its food.

Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Schloss Johannisberg, the Steinberg Abbey above Hattenheim, are of course household words, and the man who said that travelling along the Rhine was like reading a restaurant wine-list had some justification for his Philistine speech. One does not expect to discover the real Steinberg Cabinet in a village inn, and the Johannisberg generally found in every hotel in Rhineland is a very inferior wine to that of the Schloss, and is grown in the vineyards round Dorf Johannisberg. I have memories of excellent bottles of wine at the Ress at Hattenheim, and at the Engel at Erbach; but the fact that I was making a walking tour may have added to the delight of the draughts.

The Marcobrunn vineyards lie between Hattenheim and Erbach. The Hotel Victoria at Bingen has its own vineyards and makes a capital wine; and in the valley of the river below Bingen almost every little town and hill--Lorch, Boppard, Horcheim, and the Kreuzberg--has its own particular brand, generally excellent. a.s.smanhausen, which gives such an excellent red wine, is on the opposite bank to Bingen and a little below it. The Rhine boats have a very good a.s.sortment of wines on board, but it is wise to run the finger a little way down the list before ordering your bottle, for the very cheapest wines on the Rhine are, as is usual in all countries, of the thinnest description. Most of the British doctors on the Continent make the greater part of their living by attending their fellow-countrymen who drink everywhere anything that is given them free, and who hold that the _vin du pays_ must be drinkable because it _is_ the wine of the country. Our compatriots often swallow the throat-cutting stuff which the farm labourers and stable hands drink, sooner than pay a little extra money for the sound wine of the district. The foreigner who came to Great Britain and drank our cheapest ale and rawest whisky would go away with a poor impression of the liquors of _our_ country. Drink the wine of the district where they make good wine, but do not grudge the extra s.h.i.+lling which makes all the difference in quality. The dinners and lunches on the big express Rhine steamers are a scramble for food; but on some of the smaller and slower boats, where the caterer has fewer pa.s.sengers to feed, the meals are often very good. I have a kindly memory of an old head steward, a fatherly old gentleman in a silk cap shaped somewhat like an accordion, who provided the meals on a leisurely steamer which pottered up the Rhine, stopping at every village. He gave us local delicacies, took an interest in our appet.i.tes, and his cookery, though distinctively German, was also very good. In a land where all the big hotels fill once a day and empty once a day, and where the meals are in heavy-handed imitation of bourgeois French cookery, that old man with his stews and roasts, and pickles, veal, and pork, sausages big and sausages small, strange cheeses, and Delikatessen of all kinds was a good man to meet.

German "Cure" Places

First of course amongst the places in Germany where men and women mend their const.i.tutions and enjoy themselves at the same time comes

Homburg

The "Homburg Dinner" has become a household word, meaning that a certain number of men and women agree to dine together at one of the hotels, each one paying his or her own share in the expenses. During the past two years, owing to the desire to spend money shown by some millionaires, British and American, who are not happy unless they are giving expensive dinners every night with a score of guests, this pretty old custom seems likely now to die out. In no German town are there better hotels than at Homburg, and one dines on a warm day in very pleasant surroundings, for Ritter's has its world-famous terrace, and some of the other hotels have very delightful open-air restaurants in their gardens. Simplicity, good plain food well cooked, is insisted on by the doctors at Homburg, and therefore a typical Homburg dinner is a very small affair compared to German feasts over which the doctors do not have control. This is a dinner of the day at Ritter's, taken haphazard from a little pile of menus, and it may be accepted as a typical Homburg dinner:--

Potage Crecy au Riz.

Truite de Lac. Sce. Genevoise. Pommes Natures.

Longe de Veau a la Hongroise.

Pet.i.ts pois au Jambon.

Chapons de Chalons rotis.

Salade and Compots. Peches a la Cardinal.

Fruits. Dessert.

The hotels at Homburg are always quite full in the season. No hotel-keeper puts any pressure on his guests to dine at his hotel, and you may have your bedroom in one hotel and dine at another every night of your life so far as the proprietors care. All those who have the luck to be made members of the Golf Club take tea there, and eat cake such as is only to be found at school-treats in England. The restaurant at the Kurhaus goes up and down in public favour. Everybody goes to its terrace in the evening, and fas.h.i.+on at the present time has, I believe, ordained that on one particular day of the week it is "smart" to dine there. If the restaurant remains as excellently catered for as it was when I last visited Homburg, it is well worth including in the round of dinners.

Wiesbaden

At Wiesbaden you generally dine where you sleep, in your hotel. I myself have generally stayed at the Kaiser Hof, because I like to eat my supper on its creeper-hung terrace and look across the broad valley to the Taunus hill; but there are half-a-dozen hotels in the town, the Na.s.sauer Hof in particular, which many people consider the best hotel in Germany, having capital restaurants, serving _table-d'hote_ meals, attached to them. The Rose has a little terrace, looking on to the gardens, which is a pleasant supping-place. The old Kurhaus, a tumble-down building, is disappearing or has disappeared, and a new and gorgeous building is to take its place. The restaurant at the old Kurhaus always had a good reputation, and to eat one's evening meal, for every one sups and does not dine, at one of its little tables under the trees, looking at the lake beneath the moons.h.i.+ne and listening to the band, was one of the pleasures of Wiesbaden. It was fairly cheap, and I thought the food well cooked, and served as hot as one could expect it in the open air. I have little doubt that the new restaurant will carry on the pleasant ways of the old one. The proprietor is Herr Ruthe, who is caterer to several crowned heads, and who is always on the spot and delighted to be consulted as to the dishes to be ordered for a dinner.