Bavarian Strawberry Pudding

Rumpelmayer’s
New York City, 1935

In her memoir This Time Together, comedienne Carol Burnett reminisces about the summer of 1959 when the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress was enjoying a healthy run: “A few of us in the cast decided to splurge on Saturday night after the show and treat ourselves to a sundae at the most expensive ice cream parlor in New York City: Rumpelmayer’s, in the St. Moritz Hotel on Central Park South…I was flush with the excitement of being in a hit stage show and raking in $80 a week to boot. I could afford a Rumpelmayer’s treat.

“Rumpelmayer’s was a pretty posh ice cream parlor. You could spot familiar faces there anytime after the bows had been taken and the lights had dimmed on Broadway for the night. Some folks went to nightclubs and bars, but those who had a sweet tooth and who also wanted to be seen went to Rumpelmayer’s. I remember having peeked in a few months earlier and spotting Marlene Dietrich in a gorgeous gray pantsuit at the counter, elegantly digging a long-handled spoon into a whipped cream goodie.”

When Burnett got to Rumpelmayer’s with her friends, a “mean hostess” refused to admit her because she was wearing slacks. About to slink out after being harshly confronted, she suddenly remembered the image of Dietrich sitting at the counter. “She had been in slacks and nobody yelled at her,” thought Burnett, who quickly gained entry by pretending she had a wooden leg.1

The first Rumpelmayer’s appeared in Baden Baden, Germany around the turn of the century. The stylish café was franchised in London, Paris, and various French resorts before coming to the United States in 1930 with the opening of the St. Moritz Hotel. In contrast with the traditional style and quiet tones of the hotel, the café was decorated in bright orange, green, and blue by German-born artist and designer Winold Reiss.2 Author William Grimes describes in his book Appetite City how Reiss, “a wholehearted proponent of Viennese Modernism,” dramatically transformed the space in which people dined in New York. He imparted his distinctive style on a number of hotels and restaurants, beginning in 1920 with the upper-class Crillon, which featured the city’s first Modernist restaurant interior, and then moving on to more moderately-priced restaurants such as Longchamps and Lindy’s.3

During its sixty-eight years of operation, Rumpelmayer’s became a part of the city’s upper-middle-class rituals. By the mid-1930s it had become a trendy spot where New York’s debutantes liked to end their evenings.4 “Europeans accustomed to afternoon levity clustered around (its) elegant tea tables,” report historians Michael and Ariane Batterberry, “amidst a welter of beribboned bon-bon boxes, silver pastry trays, beady-eyed fox furs, and tiers of glassy counters guarded by giant stuffed toys.”5 For children, a visit to the ice cream emporium after a visit to the Central Park Zoo was a long-remembered treat. For many families, eating at the café became a holiday tradition, such as the place parents would take their children after seeing The Nutcracker each year.

The lunch and dinner entrees on the menu below, dated May 28, 1935, reflect the typical juxtaposition of dishes prevalent during the 1930s, ranging from American Chicken Chow Mein to Cold Sliced Capon with Foie Gras. What distinguished Rumpelmayer’s was its desserts—the assorted ice creams, sorbets, cakes, and puddings. The Bavarian Strawberry Pudding appears to be the special of the day, listed above the usual specialties of the house, each marked with a star.

 

Notes
1. Carol Burnett, This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection (2010).
2. New York Times, 14 December 1930.
3. William Grimes, Appetite City (2009).
4. John Mariani, America Eats Out (1991).
5. Michael and Ariane Batterberry, On the Town in New York (1973).