The Gourmet's Guide to Europe Part 17

| Biscuits Glaces au Praline.

| Dessert a.s.sorti.

CAFe ET LIQUEURS.

M. Martin, who is the proprietor, will give you a dinner at any price from 4 pesetas upwards. He was caterer to the kings of Portugal and of Sweden when they were at Barcelona in 1888, and has furnished all the banquets given by the munic.i.p.al council since 1881. _Filet de sole Martin_, one of the dishes of the house, proves that he has the Parisian ambition to give a name to a filleted sole.

The Maison Doree which has lately been increased to double its original size, has as proprietors the MM. Pompidor, Frenchmen, who march with the times. It is in the Plaza Cataluna. It makes a speciality of a _prix-fixe_ breakfast and dinner on Thursdays and Sat.u.r.days, and it serves tea daily _a l'Anglaise_ from 4 to 6.

Port Bou

There is a little restaurant at Port Bou, kept by Francisco Jaque, where you are likely, if you are making a stay to see the Pyrenees, to be better looked after than at the station on the French side of the frontier. There are rooms to be hired there.

San Sebastian

Crossing the Spanish frontier on the western side from France, the first important town reached is San Sebastian. The great sea-bathing place of Spain is a town where one would expect to find some excellent restaurants, for the Queen-mother lives for a great part of the year in her palace on the sea-sh.o.r.e, and the Court is with the King whenever he is in residence there, which is generally in summer and autumn. A large hotel, with a good restaurant and all the latest improvements, is projected, and no doubt San Sebastian will soon be as well catered for as any French watering-place; but in the meantime it is as well for the casual seeker for a meal to go to the Continental, which overlooks the bay, and where a very fair breakfast is to be obtained for 4 francs in the verandah whence all the life of the place can be watched.

The Casino has a restaurant with a wide verandah which should be a delightful place at which to take dinner. I had been warned that I should not be well served there, but one day I thought that the view of the town and the garden, with its picturesque crowd, would make amends for any dilatoriness. This was the menu of the dinner that I partook of, and, though wine was included in the repast, to conciliate the haughty Spaniard in dress-clothes who came and looked at me as though I were an "earth-man," I ordered a pint of Diamante:--

Hors-d'oeuvre.

POTAGES.

Creme de volaille. Consomme Riche.

POISSON.

Langouste. Sauce Tartare.

ENTReE.

Salmis de Perdreaux au Jerez.

LeGUMES.

Tomates farcies Provencale.

RoTI.

Filet de Boeuf Pique Broche. Salade.

ENTREMETS.

Arlequin. Dessert.

I do not think that I ever had a worse-served 7 francs worth of food.

Once in my life, at a Chicago hotel, I saw a negro waiter shaking up the bottle of Burgundy I had ordered, just to amuse his brother "c.o.o.ns," and I felt a helpless exasperation as I watched him. The same feeling of voiceless anger was upon me as I watched the gentleman who was supposed at the San Sebastian Casino to keep me supplied with hot food, bring a dish from the interior of the cafe and then put it down on somebody else's table to cool while he strolled across the terrace to ask the military guardian at the gate how many people had paid for admission, or at what hour the band played, or what number had won the lottery.

Bourdette and the Urbana, both with French cookery, are the restaurants patronised by the Englishmen in San Sebastian who talk Spanish, and both are said to be fairly good.

Bilbao

It is curious that at the great northern town of Spain there should be no first-cla.s.s restaurants. The two best in the town are the Antiguo, in the Calle de Bidebarrieta, and the Moderno. Both of these boast what the Spaniards term _Cocina Francesa_, which only means that if you make a request, as the English always do, the cook will fry your food with b.u.t.ter instead of oil.

At Portugalete, the port of Bilbao, there is a restaurant, good, as Spanish restaurants go, attached to the hotel of the place, the proprietor of which is Dn. Manuel Calvo. The cook and the staff of waiters come from Lhardy's, the best restaurant in Madrid, and spend their summer by the seaside. The prices at this restaurant are high.

Portugalete is only a summer resort.

Northern Towns

At Santander, a little further along the northern coast, the best food to be obtained is found at the Hotel Europa; but the best is bad at Santander. At Burgos and at Zaragoza the two largest hotels in each place give the least indifferent food.

Madrid

The capital of Spain cries aloud for a Carlton, or a Ritz, or a Savoy, and is, I believe, soon to have a really large hotel with a restaurant managed on the lines which we are accustomed to in all the important European capitals. The Hotel de Paris, one of the two noisy and expensive hotels on the Puerta del Sol, has always had a reputation for its cookery, always remembering that the standard in Spain is not high.

There is a _table-d'hote_ lunch and a _table-d'hote_ dinner, of the latter of which I append a menu which is a fair specimen:--

Consomme Julienne.

Merlan Sauce aux Capres.

Filet de Boeuf Renaissance.

Galantine Truffee a l'Aspic.

Haricots Verts Sautes.

Cailles au Cresson.

Creme au Chocolat Glacee.

Desserts a.s.sortis.

The cookery of the house is French, but Spanish dishes can be obtained by an order given in advance. There used to be a manager at the Paris who was known as Constantino--what his other name was no one knew. He was a universal provider, and the Englishmen who knew him and who used to stay at the Madrid, never hesitated to ask him for anything procurable in the capital, from a ticket for a bull-fight to a genuine Murillo, quite sure that next morning they would find in the office what they had asked for the previous evening.

Lhardy's, in the Curera de San Jeronimo, is the typical Madrid restaurant not attached to an hotel. The appearance of the ground floor is that of a _charcutier's_ and pastry-cook's combined. The restaurant you will find on the first floor, where a _table-d'hote_ dinner and lunch are served. The annexed menu shows what the daily lunch is like:--

Potage Tortue a l'Americaine.

Turbot Garni. Sauce Crevettes.

Filets de Boeuf a la Vatel.

Bellevue de Perdreaux a l'Ecarlate.

Dindonneaux rotis au Cresson.

Salade Russe.

Glace Conde.

Dessert.

VINS.

Jerez.

Bordeaux.

Champagne Frappe.

Cafe and Liqueurs.