The Gourm et's Guide.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14982, 1 June 1914, Page 6

The Gourmet's Guide.

Things ga_tronomical are treated of entertainingly in a book by LieutenantColonel Newnham _avios, under the title of the "Gourmet's Guide to London," which deals chiefly with the restaurants and taverns of the Metropolis, their peculiarities and historical associations. The question of what cohsfcifcutes tho typical British dinnerreaders will recall the recent discussion about breakfast—engages the attention of the author, who b of opinion that the dinner most often quoted as approaching most nearly to the ideal is that which a noted epicure of tho 'thirties. Lord Dudley, characterised as a dinner "fit for an Emperor," and which runs thus:—"A good soup, a small burbot, a neck of venison, duckling with green peas, or chickeu with asparagus, an apricot tart." Of J_onj don's noted: dining resorts, tho author discusses the Cheshire Cheeso with its famous pudding, tho Carlton which can boast of "tho greatest cook of the day," two little Soho restaurants, at one of which the waitress will ask the prospective diner with the utmost eolicitude, "Do you like eet?" the Cafe Royal, described; as "pleasantly conservative," and numerous others. Interesting chapters are devoted to oyster and chop houses. One of the latter, in Warwick street, was, we are told, a haunt of Dickens. "In one corner of the front room by a window stands Dickens's chair; for it is here,, co the tradition of the hou_e has it, that Dickens used bo come in his early days to write, and it was in this corner that many of his. 'Sketches by Boz' were jotted down on paper." The author tells an amusing story of the lato Ihiko of Cambridge. It is said that he, like his father, had a likiuc for pork, and at one time word went round the British army that at inspection lunches it was a wise move to provide his Royal Highness with pork chops. The hint was taken —a little too eagerly. By the end of a year the Duke was so surfeited with pork chops, that his once favourite dish had now become accursed in his eye-, and its presence on tho menu was far more likely to pavo tho way for a bad report than its absence would havo been before.