. Paillard
retained the restaurant at the corner of the Chaussee d'Antin as his
property, and the company took possession of the Restaurant Maire and
the Pavillion des Champs Elysees. This, however, is mere history, for
the Pavillion serves its meals with all the quiet luxury of the parent
house, and I have a memory of a _Potage Creme d'Antin_ which was
especially excellent.

Ledoyen's has attained a particular celebrity as the restaurant where
every one lunches on the _vernissage_ day of the Salon. At dinner-time,
on a fine evening, every table on the stretch of gravel before the
little villa is occupied, and the good bourgeois, the little clerk
taking his wife and mother-in-law out to dinner, are just as much in
evidence, and more so, than the "smarter" classes of Parisians. The
service is rather haphazard on a crowded night, and scurrying waiters
appeal to the carvers in pathetic tones to wheel the moving tables on
which the joints are kept hot up to their particular tables. The food is
good, but not always served as hot as it should be--the fault of all
open-air dining places. The wine-list is a good one, and I have drunk at
Ledoyen's excellent champagne of the good brands and the great years at
a comparatively small price. Guillemin, who was cook to the Duc de
Vincennes, brought Ledoyen's into great favour in the fifties of the
last century.

The Bouillon Riche, just behind the Alcazar, with its girl waiters I
have generally found even more haphazard than Ledoyen's. Its food is
neither noticeably good nor is it indifferent.

The Ambassadeurs prides itself on being quite a first-class restaurant,
and it is one of the special experiences of the foreigner in Paris to
dine at one of the tables in the balcony looking towards the stage, and
to listen to the concert while you drink your coffee and sip your _fine
champagne_. I have kept the menu of one such dinner, very well cooked
and well served in spite of the crowded balcony and general hubbub of
the evening, on a Grand Prix night. What the amount of the bill was that
the host of the party had to pay I did not inquire, but I feel sure that
it was a very long one.

This is the menu:--

Melon.
Potage Ambassadeurs.
Hors-d'oeuvre.
Truite Gelee Maconnaise.
Ris de Veau Financiere.
Demi-Vierge en Chaud-Froid.
Poulets de Grain Rotis.
Salade de Romaine.
Asperges Froides.
Coupes Jacques.