In the days when this department's indulgence of folly and genius for chaos expressed itself in the form of a syndicated newspaper column, it was its custom every year or two to draw up a tally of New York's ten best restaurants for the pleasure, instruction, or fury of its readers. Bad feeling and hostility flowered on every hand whenever this essay in indiscretion was undertaken, and upon one occasion and inflamed by what, in the latter light of reason, seems to have been complete dementia, it even undertook to name the ten best restaurants in North America. Without exception they, too, were in New York, although this desperate decision haunted us for days with fragrant souvenirs of lunches in the Palm Court of San Francisco's miraculous Palace, gaudy gustatory devisings with Ernie Byfield in the Pump Room in Chicago, savory interludes at Count Arnaud's and at Roy Alciatore's Antoine's in New Orleans, riotous collegiate repasts at Locke Ober's Winter Place Wine Rooms in Boston, and unbelievable steaks awash with pure creamery butter on the diner of the City of San Francisco, the streamlined Taj Mahal of all mobile gastronomy.
It would be face-saving to insinuate that a repetition of this folly, practically unparalleled since Paris was fooling around with that golden apple, was suggested by an avid reader. Such is not the case, and this department embarks upon the venture against the best advice of almost everyone. Here, however, and alphabetically, are what it considers the ten best restaurants in New York; let the fish and chips fall where they may.
Baroque:
Long the favorite restaurant of this department, Baroque accommodates only seventy-five clients at a sitting and is one of the superlatively well-run houses of a city overflowing with good restaurants. It has been the dream child of its two very active partners, Frank and Joseph, ever since they opened seven or eight years ago, and it is doubtful if a single defective or even questionable order of food ever left its kitchens. Physically it is a little jewel of a place and the service is irreproachable. Frank and Joseph do a good deal of the waiting themselves supported by a staff that doesn't seem to have changed a face since the place opened. The quenelles of Kentucky ham
Périgourdine, the house specialty Wednesday, the green noodles on Tuesday, the oysters Mornay throughout the season, and its venison steaks whenever the management can come by them, are, in a word, out of this world.
Chambord:
There is nothing of subdued magnificence at all about Chambord and it displays its resources in the grand manner, furnishing forth pheasant in full plumage, plovers' eggs by the hamper, champagne in gold wine buckets, and most of its desserts in a blaze of vintage cognac. If it is the most costly restaurant in America, it is also the most gastronomically elaborate, and neither wars nor rumors of bad times have ever diminished its wholly admirable flow of pressed duck, terrapin stew, cherries Jubilee, truffled
foie gras and, in January of course, strawberries Romanoff. René Dufau, the presiding genius of this gastronomic subtreasury, can so hypnotize the guests with racks of baby lamb, chocolate soufflés, magnums of Perrier Jouet, and other enchantments, that they can even face the ultimate reckoning without demanding the traditional fright wig.
Chateaubriand:
This is a bit out of the way in East Fifty-sixth Street, over the other side of Lexington, but a faithful following of its proprietor, Maurice Chapuis, many of them well-upholstered French folk, make the pilgrimage noon and night. Maurice himself, a ranking local luminary of the
Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, is a careful, managerial restaurateur of the old school who leaves nothing to chance and watches every detail of his house with an eagle eye. The cuisine is in the classic French tradition with overtones of subdued magnificence.
Colony:
Still, as always, it is probably the world's finest restaurant where food, cellars, service, and the social chic of its clientele are severally and individually above reproach. Gene Cavallero, its proprietor, would probably have been terrified if, twenty-five years ago, he could have foreseen the social authority implicit in his least disposition of a table, but the fact remains that today the Colony is practically a closed corporation so far as patrons are concerned, and that it is the only restaurant in the world which does not derive prestige from its customers but instead bestows distinction on them by permitting them to eat and drink in its premises. There is a legend, nourished by
viveurs everywhere, that there is no food or style of its preparation that the Colony management cannot serve on a few minutes' notice. This is strictly apocryphal, but the variety of its menu—potential, not printed—is inexhaustible and its cellars have been dented by wine shortages only in recent years. The Colony family, which embraces Marco, the chief barman, and Charlie, the bar captain, incline to view strangers with suspicion, and justifiably so since the house has all it can do to serve its regular superplush, extra de luxe carriage trade.
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