Postby dognose » Thu Apr 28, 2016 2:46 pm
Should it turn out to be the Imperial Restaurant, and I think it will, then it was a grand establishment indeed:
For certain very good reasons—of which the principal one is that the publisher of this book has a prejudice against bringing it out in six, or more volumes—I have not been able to describe fully every restaurant, great or small, which merits an article. The Imperial Restaurant in Regent Street, for instance, is sure to stand very high amongst the best restaurants that have ever been opened in London; but at the time of writing the workmen are still hammering away, and M. Oddenino spends his days in a little subterranean chamber near his cellars whence he pounces out at intervals upon carpenters and bricklayers. By the time this little book goes forth the restaurant will have been opened and the glories I have only seen in a half-finished state will be before the public. The kitchen of the Imperial over which M. Charles reigns is an exceptionally large and airy one, and M. Oddenino has built a bath-room for his cooks, a very important addition to a kitchen, but very often conspicuous by its absence. The grill-room in the basement, built so that air can penetrate to it from all sides, is designed on the model of the Francois I. room at Fontainebleau. It has on its walls oval frames supported by cupids, in which are pictures by modern Italian masters, and a high dado of oak panelling. There are in it two grills, one for fish and one for meat. The restaurant, on a level with Regent Street, is a copy of the Salle Henri II. at Fontainebleau, and with its copies of Boucher's pictures, its dome, and its exquisite marble mantelpiece, is a delightful dining-hall. The room has space for fifty tables.
Source: Dinners and Diners: Where and how to Dine in London - Lieut.-Col. Nathaniel Newnham-Davis - 1901
Trev.
