The City of Light provided an escape from the puritanism and provincialism of the United States in the 1920s, and a precipitous decline in the value of the French franc made it possible for many to go.1 Before the First World War, approximately 15,000 Americans visited Paris each year. By 1925, the number of Americans tourists had increased to 400,000 annually, while the American expatriate community had grown to more than 30,000.2 The menus below, which eventually surfaced in the U.S. ephemera market, are loosely presented in chronological order. The address of each venue includes the arrondissement, or municipal district, in which it was located. Not surprisingly, most of these establishments were located in center of the city on the Right Bank.
Prunier
9, Rue Duphot
1st arrondissement
Founded in 1872, Prunier specialized in seafood, including oysters and caviar at which it excelled. This pocket-size menu has a place on the back for a mailing address.
An illustration by caricaturist Georges Goursat, known as Sem, graced the cover for most of the 1920s, as shown by the example below from November 1924.
Voisin
261, Rue St.-Honoré
1st arrondissement
Voisin is remembered in culinary history for creating dishes with exotic zoo animals during the Siege of Paris in 1870-1871, when food was scarce. In the 1920s, this restaurant gastronomique still attracted Parisian elites and international visitors. The menu below offers turbot, an esteemed flatfish, accompanied by a light and buttery mousseline sauce for 10 French francs. In July 1920, the exchange rate was about 12 francs to the U.S. dollar.
Toronto-born Mary Pickford, known as “America’s Sweetheart” in the silent film era, hosted this birthday luncheon in 1928 for her husband, actor Douglas Fairbanks, then hailed as “The King of Hollywood.” The bill of fare refers to some of his swashbuckling movies, such as the “The Mark of Zorro” and “The Black Pirate.” The menu below was autographed for film historian Georges-Michel Coissac.
La Tour d’Argent
15, Quai de la Tournelle
5th arrondissement
Said to have been founded in the sixteenth century, La Tour d’Argent (The Silver Tower) is renowned for its signature dish, caneton Tour d’Argent. The ritual of preparing this dish enhances its allure for gourmets. A Challandais duckling is partially roasted, after which the breasts and legs are removed. The remaining carcass is then pressed to extract its juices and blood, which are used to create a rich sauce.
Continuing a tradition that began in 1890, diners who order the pressed duck receive a postcard with the bird’s serial number. The card below was issued for duck number 89,396, which was served sometime between Emperor Hiro Hito’s duck (number 53,211) in 1921 and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s duck (number 112,151) in 1929.
12, Rue de Rome
2nd arrondissement
Many of the daily menus from this period were handwritten and reproduced on lithographed paper stock using a hectograph.3 Measuring at least 9 by 12 inches, these menus often exhibit an attractive and distinctive script, particularly in the early years of the decade, before the influx of visitors. All of the large menus bear fold lines from being packed away for a century. Tripes à la mode is one of the entrées on this menu dated July 27, 1922, which happened to be a Wednesday, when tripe was the daily special.
Restaurant du Havre
109, Rue St.-Lazare
2nd arrondissement
Restaurant du Havre was located adjacent to a covered shopping arcade called the Passage du Havre, and near the Gare St. Lazare, the large railway station where Americans typically arrived and departed on the Le Havre-Paris boat train. The organization of these menus reflects the sequence of courses adopted in formal French dining during the nineteenth century. This extensive lunch menu was meticulously penned in two colors and individually duplicated, a painstaking process that was repeated for the dinner service.
Café de la Régence
161, Rue St.-Honoré
1st arrondissement
Perhaps the oldest café in Paris, the Régence was patronized by almost all of the great literary and artistic figures of France in the nineteenth century. The menu below is printed askew, suggesting the café’s better days were behind it. Nevertheless, it was one of novelist Thomas Wolfe’s favorite places, where he could observe “the streams of traffic up and down the whole avenue d’Opéra.” (The population within the city limits peaked in the 1920s, making Paris more densely crowded than it is today.)
Gardanne
3, Avenue Kléber
2nd arrondissement
This menu was saved by a French-born restaurateur from San Francisco who was searching for the type of restaurant that might be successful in the United States during Prohibition. Huîtres Portugaises (Portuguese oysters) is a species found in the southwest Iberian Peninsula. It is closely related to the Pacific oyster, which is something the seasoned restaurateur from San Francisco undoubtedly knew. However, for many Americans, eating in France was a new body experience.
✶ “As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” — Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Maxim’s
3, Rue Royal
2nd arrondissement
The depiction of a bellboy holding hats on walking sticks was created by the caricaturist Sem at the turn of the century, when Maxim’s was transformed from a bistro into an Art Nouveau gem in time for the 1900 Paris Exposition. The iconic image became synonymous with the famous restaurant, which Americans most closely associated with French haute cuisine. The British presence in Paris was also significant, as reflected by the grilled kippers and pricey Colchester and Burnham oysters on this menu.
Établissement Duval
209, Rue La Fayette
10th arrondissement
Duval was a Parisian chain of inexpensive restaurants founded in 1854. By 1922, twenty-six locations were scattered across the city. This menu came from the branch near the Gare du Nord. Duval was closely associated with its women servers, whose uniforms, as depicted in the corner illustration, were reminiscent of those worn by domestic servants in the nineteenth century.
9, Boulevard des Italiens
2nd arrondissement
This popular Italian restaurant seems to have always been crowded. During its earlier years, Poccardi hosted prominent guests like actress Sarah Bernhardt, composer Claude Debussy, and novelist Marcel Proust, who died the month before this menu was issued, on the day after Christmas in 1922. Poccardi ranked second in 1927 when Paris Midi conducted a survey asking its readers to name their favorite restaurant.
✶ In July 1923, some Americans tourists brought their prejudices with them, insisting the restaurants where they dined be segregated. The restaurateurs did not go along with this demand for the most part, and the French government finally put an end to it, but not before there were clashes in nightclubs and other public venues when the visiting segregationists demanded the ouster of Black customers.2, 4
Wepler
14, Place de Clichy
18th arrondissement
Opened in 1881, this brasserie at the base of Montmartre hill has hosted many notable writers among its former guests, including novelist Henry Miller, who came to Paris in 1929 and stayed ten years. This menu offers everyday fare like omelette Lyonnaise (omelet with onion and parsley), raie au beurre noisette (skate with brown butter), and andouillette (coarse-grained sausage made with pork tripe).
10, Place de la Madeleine
2nd arrondissement
This brasserie was known for its above-average quality, below-average prices, and wide selection of hors d’ceuvres. “When I last lunched there, I watched with amazement the repast of a French family at the next table,” wrote one American observer. “After eating all the hors d’ceuvres in sight, they had a filet de barbue au Chablis with mushrooms and truffles, accompanied by a bottle of Mersault, a grilled chicken with several vegetables, accompanied by Margaux ’21, salad, foie-gras, a huge cherry tart, and as I left they were manifesting drowsy interest in the cheese and fruit.”5
Palais d’Orsay
Quai d'Orsay
7th arrondissement
This menu comes from a banquet in 1923 for American bankers at the Palais d’Orsay, which still contained a hotel. The six-page menu features a debossed and gilded cover, marbled endpapers, and a red-white-and-blue ribbon tie. By 1924, loans from U.S. banks were helping stabilize the postwar French economy.
Le Grand Vatel
275, Rue St.-Honoré
1st arrondissement
This “gloomy” Russian restaurant was named after François Vatel, the 17th-century chef who, according to Madame de Sévigné—a French aristocrat and unparalleled letter-writer—committed suicide when a seafood delivery was late. The proprietor, J. B. Fées, had previously served as head chef for a Russian nobleman. This bilingual bifold advertises the restaurant’s Russian and Polish specialties.
Thé Russe
5, Avenue de l’Opera
1st arrondissement
Thé Russe (Russian Tea) was a café and tea shop. By the mid-1920s, somewhere between 35,000 and 43,000 Russians of various classes were living in Paris, having fled the brutality of the Bolsheviks.
The Cosy Tea Room
256, Rue St.-Honoré
1st arrondissement
Located across from the Louvre, the Cosy Tea Room served “American drinks,” which, in the parlance of the day, referred to cocktails. This must have seemed ironic to American visitors, since tearooms in the United States were largely patronized by middle-class teetotalers who supported the temperance movement. This menu also offers pancakes with maple syrup, a staple of the American restaurants in Paris.
Galleries Lafayette
40, Boulevard Haussmann
9th arrondissement
Opened in 1894, Galeries Lafayette is a department store known for its Art Nouveau architecture, which includes a magnificent stained-glass dome with intricate ironwork. This beverage card is from its tea salon.
Printemps
64, Boulevard Haussmann
9th arrondissement
The daily menu below comes from the tearoom of this department store. In August 1925, the exchange rate was 21 francs to the U.S. dollar, a 43% decline since 1920.
Colombin
4, Rue Cambon
1st arrondissement
This pâtisserie and café was situated near the luxury boutiques, such as Coco Chanel’s fashion house at 31 Rue Cambon, an address that became synonymous with her brand. The affluent “American colony” that resided on the Right Bank (wealthy Americans never refer to themselves as immigrants) generally disdained the Bohemians on the Left Bank and held outright contempt for the ubiquitous summer tourists.
Drouant
79, Boulevard de Strasbourg
10th arrondissement
Founded on a small square in the heart of the city in 1880, Drouant was an “old-fashioned house, a rabbit warren of dining rooms, large and small, upstairs and down.” Private luncheons and dinners were held in rooms on the upper floors, where this set menu most likely originated in 1925. The service follows the somewhat antiquated custom of beginning with both a thick and a clear soup—crème Saint-Germain (pureed pea soup) and consommé Sévigné (richly-flavored broth with diced vegetables). By the 1920s, Drouant also operated a plainer bourgeois restaurant on the Boulevard de Strasbourg, near the Gare de l’Est.
✶ In October 1925, Josephine Baker made her sensational debut at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre. Performing her danse sauvage wearing a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, Baker became an overnight sensation, taking Paris by storm.
Imperial
59, Rue Pigalle
9th arrondissement
This menu dates to 1922. However, in the late summer of 1926, L’Imperial became Josephine Baker’s Imperial for a few weeks, before she backed out of the deal and opened her own nightclub, Chez Joséphine, toward the end of the year.
L’Ane Rouge
28, Avenue Trudaine
9th arrondissement
“The Rabelaisian gusto of this menu is so infectious that it cannot fail in serving as an appetizer to the most jaded palate,” declared one guidebook.6 L’Âne Rouge (The Red Donkey) was the nickname of Rodolphe Salis, the ill-tempered founder of Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat), the first modern cabaret. When his brother, Gabriel Salis, opened L’Âne Rouge in 1889, he named it after his redhaired sibling and rival. The menu below includes tournedos Rossini—a beef tenderloin fried in butter, topped with a slice of pan-fried foie gras, garnished with black truffle slices, and finished with a Madeira demi-glace sauce.
La Rotonde
105, Boulevard du Montparnasse
14th arrondissement
Long before the 1920s, Pablo Picasso and other artists had moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse on the Left Bank, where they regularly gathered at La Rotonde. The café-brasserie also attracted tourists. “No matter what café in Montparnasse you ask a driver to bring you to . . . they always take you to the Rotonde,” wrote Earnest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises. The menu below features caricatures of some of its habitués, such as Japanese-French artist Tsuguharu Foujita (top right), who also appears in the foreground of the watercolor, Dancing de la Coupole, shown in the heading.7
✶ Paris hosted L'Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industrials moderns (The International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts) in 1925. The sleek and streamlined forms of the new style, now called Art Deco, would transform the look of the Montparnasse cafés, and various other parts of the city.
Restaurant du Regent
100, Rue St.-Lazare
9th arrondissement
In the 1920s, to be modern often meant to be shocking, whether in the arts or in behavior. However, the advent of modernity appeared to leave French cuisine largely untouched, remaining much the same as it had been at the end of the nineteenth century, when Chef Auguste Escoffier simplified elaborate recipes and codified the five mother sauces. Two of the more expensive dishes shown below are oie nouvelle aux navets (young goose with turnips) and ½ poulet de grain au cresson (half of a young, grain-fed chicken with watercress), priced at 5 and 8 francs, respectively.
Volney
16, Rue Volney
2nd arrondissement
Located just a stone’s throw from the Palais Garnier opera house, Volney maintained “the best traditions in French cooking,” serving its guests in a well-appointed setting that included a garden for summer dining. Four dishes are emphasized in large font—saumon froid sauce verte (cold salmon with green sauce), sole meuniere (sole in lemony brown-butter sauce), navarin d'agneau printanier (lamb stew), and roast pork with apple sauce, which is described in English. By August 1926, the French currency had slightly recovered to 35 francs to the U.S. dollar.
✶ In 1926, the Michelin guide began to award a single star to the finest dining establishments, initially honoring 46 restaurants in the French provinces. Five years later, Michelin adopted a three-star system and would begin to recognize restaurants in Paris.
Lucas
9, Place de la Madeleine
8th Arrondissement
In 1924, Lucas was purchased by Francis Carton, who eventually renamed the restaurant Lucas Carton. This set menu from a private dinner in April 1926 features poularde de Bresse, a young hen of a special breed from the Bresse region, renowned for its exceptional flavor and tenderness. Lucas Carton would be awarded three Michelin stars in 1933.
Restaurant du Bœuf à la Mode
8, Rue du Valois
1st arrondissement
Established in 1792, this restaurant offered typical dishes like entrecôte Bordelaise (rib-eye steak with sauce made from Bordeaux wine, with pieces of bone marrow) and bœuf à la mode (beef braised in wine with carrots and onions). The restaurant's name, which could be humorously interpreted as “fashionable beef,” is represented by an ox dressed in a gown, shawl, and feathered hat. An old illustration of the interior is reproduced on the back of the menu.
Paris-Bar
271, Boulevard Pereire
17th arrondissement
“In spite of its name, this outlying establishment is not a bar at all, but is a curiously shaped restaurant, resembling a huge dining car and, suitably, is set into the embankment of the Ceinture Railway, near the Porte Maillot... I am told that ‘regional dishes,’ now served by so many restaurants, were here first introduced to Paris,” explained the guidebook Where Paris Dines.5 Established in 1912 by Charles Sébillon, who had previously managed Le Grand Véfour in the Palais-Royal, the restaurant was being run by his widow at the time of this dinner on New Year’s Eve in 1926-27. Among the special offerings are Marennes verte (oysters with a highly-prized green tint from the Marennes-Oléron Bay), becasse sur canapé (roasted woodcock on canapé), and faisan en cocotte (pheasant in casserole).
Hotel Lutetia
45, Boulevard Raspail
6th arrondissement
Calling themselves the “Second American Expeditionary Force,” 20,000 members of the American Legion sailed to France in 1927 for their ninth convention. This banquet was held in honor of General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief in the First World War. The cover depicts Charles Lindbergh flying over the coast of France, nearing the end of his historic transatlantic flight in May of that year.
Fouquet’s Grill Room
99, Avenue des Champs-Élysées
8th arrondissement
Highly-regarded for its “aristocratic atmosphere and excellent cuisine,” Fouquet’s maintained a restaurant, a grill room, and a Bar Américain (American Bar), which was a bar that served cocktails. Among the special items on this menu, priced at 25 francs, are grenouilles aux fines herbes (frog legs with fine herbs) and fraises des bois avec crème (wild strawberries with cream).
15, Rue Caumartin
9th arrondissement
Buffalo was a traditional brasserie, offering a limited menu available at any time of the day. Often linked with a brewery, these establishments originated in the Alsace region and emerged in Paris in the 1870s, following the Franco-Prussian War. Two menus, dated eleven days apart in 1927, reveal that the cover illustrations were part of a series. A food usually associated with brasseries, choucroute (sauerkraut), is served with ham or frankfurters, or as choucroute garni, a more substantial Alsatian dish consisting of sauerkraut cooked with a variety of meats and sausages.
The plats du jour offer a slight variation in the cuisine. On the above menu, the evening specials are contre-filet róti pommes dauphine (roast beef loin with crisp potato puffs) and ris de veau Clamart (calf’s sweetbreads with peas); the ones below are aloyau pommes dauphine (sirloin with crisp potato puffs) and ris de veau financière (calf’s sweetbreads with a brown sauce made with truffles, mushrooms, and Madeira wine).
Emil’s
6, Rue Ventadour
1st arrondissement
Situated on a quiet little street, Emil’s was regarded as an excellent bourgeois restaurant, where one could dine “with a sense of repose.” Three dishes are highlighted in red—coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise (scallops with mussels and shrimp in cream sauce), poulet en cocotte Beaulieu (chicken in casserole), and fois gras à la gelée au Porto (goose liver garnished with jelly made with Port wine).
This charming bifold advertises some of the specialties, such as lobster Thermidor; Rouen duck in a rich blood sauce; and kidneys cooked in cognac, in port wine, or with a cream sauce.
Même Maison (Prunier)
16, Avenue Victor-Hugo
16th arrondissement
Même Maison (Our House) was a branch of Prunier, the well-respected seafood restaurant that now occupies this space under its own name. Located a five-minute stroll from the Arc de Triomphe, this upper-class restaurant was classified as an “Établissement de Classe de Luxe.” The Prunier family slogan, “Tout ce qui vient de la mer” (Everything that comes from the sea), is reflected on the menu below from June 1927.
Aux Trois Mousquetaires
88, Rue Richelieu
2nd arrondissement
Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers) is an apt name for a restaurant on a street named after Cardinal Richelieu, recalling the novel by Alexandre Dumas. This bill of fare was duplicated on lithographed paper stock, with lines for the menu items. While this format worked well when each menu was still being handwritten, it was difficult to duplicate the script on the pre-printed lines using a hectograph. This mid-September menu offers perdreau roti, marking the opening of the partridge shooting season at the beginning of the month.
1, Avenue Gabriel
8th arrondissement
Located at the luxurious Hôtel de Crillon, Les Ambassadeurs was an outdoor nightclub that operated in the gardens near the Place de la Concorde. The summer venue sponsored annual stage productions in years 1926-29. Cole Porter wrote the score for the Revue des Ambassadeurs in 1928, the year of this menu.9 The frothy variety show starred American performers like Clifton Webb and Morton Downey; the music was provided by Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians. As it happened, George Gershwin was at the piano on the opening night in early May. The musical revue began with a skit on a touring car filled with American sightseers riding up the Champs-Élysées. The show was a smash hit, rejuvenating Porter’s career.
✶ In 1928, George Gershwin composed “An American in Paris,” a jazz-influenced symphony that incorporated the sound of actual taxi horns he acquired in Paris earlier that year.
La Bonne Auberge
5, Rue Sainte-Anne
1st arrondissement
Located a few steps from the Théâtre-Francais, La Bonne Auberge was decorated in the style of a rustic inn. “Real French cooking in a truly French atmosphere,” enthused one guidebook. The house specialty was poulet Normande—chicken braised with apples, onion, apple brandy, and cream in the style of Normandy. By the 1920s, such regional dishes were broadly available in Parisian restaurants, although some of them may have been invented by chefs in Paris.
Auberge du Luxembourg
38, Rue de Vaugirard
6th arrondissement
This restaurant and small hotel faced the Luxembourg Palace and gardens. Some of the dishes on this menu are emphasized in large script, such as bouillabaisse (Provençal fish stew), coeur de filet Henri IV (filet mignon with Béarnaise sauce), and coq au vin de Bourgogne (chicken braised in red Burgundy wine ).
Viking
29, Rue Vavin
6th arrondissement
Viking operated as a café for about a year before expanding into a restaurant and hotel next door in 1928. Located a mere block away from the famed café-brasseries of Montparnasse, such as La Rotonde or Le Dôme, Viking was popular with Scandinavians, Americans, and Brits.
Chope Latine
58, Boulevard Saint-Michel
6th arrondissement
Chope Latine (Beer Mug) was an inexpensive brasserie located near the Luxembourg Gardens. After France adopted the gold standard in the summer of 1928, the currency stabilized at about 25½ francs to the U.S. dollar, remaining favorable for visitors.
Sam’s
3, Rue Taitbout
9th arrondissement
Situated on the corner of Rue Taitbout and the Boulevard des Italiens, Sam’s faced a branch of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York on one side, and the American Consulate on the other. Catering to homesick Americans—a common affliction at the time—Sam’s was owned by French brothers who had previously worked in restaurants in England and the United States. Described as “neither quite French nor quite American, but a mixture,” the establishment included an oyster bar, grill room, soda fountain, and an American Bar.
Chicago-Texas Inn
6, Rue Duphot
1st arrondissement
African-American chef Willis Morgan began his culinary career working in railroad dining cars before joining the U.S. Army as a mess sergeant. After the First World War, Morgan remained in Paris and opened the Chicago-Texas Inn in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. In the late 1920s, the restaurant moved to the Right Bank, where it was situated directly across the narrow street from Prunier, and just around the corner from the Ritz Hotel. The guidebook How to Enjoy Paris recommended this establishment, noting, “When the time comes that you are just plain homesick for some American cooking, when the very excellence of all the French chefs has made you feel you are a long way from home, go see Morgan . . . America has certain things to be proud of gastronomically.”10 The house specialty was chicken Maryland, a pan-fried chicken served with white cream gravy.
California Inn
320, Rue St.-Honoré
1st arrondissement
The cover is inscribed “run by Chinese,” which may be all that is known about this American restaurant, aside from the fact that it was located in a fashionable part of Paris, not far from the Cosy Tea Room.
Chez Flambaum
37, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre
9th arrondissement
Located near Les Folies Bergère , Chez Flambaum was Russian-Jewish restaurant in Montmartre. This dynamic Art Deco menu, which bears the Yiddish Hebrew term (כּשר) for kosher, includes foie haché (chopped liver) and carpe farcie (gefilte fish).
✶ In 1929, a travel guidebook advised Americans not to expect good food in Paris if they asked to be served in twenty minutes.
28, Ave. Victor-Emmanuel III (now FDR)
8th arrondissement
Formerly a game restaurant named Coup de Fusil (Gunshot), A l’Homard was a small seafood restaurant that also operated as a caterer, as evidenced by this menu and price list for the social season from September 1929 to April 1930. One of the dishes, homard à l’Américaine (lobster in the American style), consists of pieces of lobster that are cooked in white wine and Cognac with tomatoes, onions, and tarragon. The name of this dish is misleading, as lobster Thermidor and lobster Newberg were far more common in the United States.
Prado
10, Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis
10th arrondissement
Described as “not at all fashionable,” this large restaurant featured a 14-piece orchestra of Russian balalaika players. The Russian specialties include borsch and beef Stroganoff.
La Mére Catherine
6, Rue Norvins Place du Tertre
18th arrondissement
Established in 1793 during the French Revolution, La Mére Catherine (Mother Catherine) was named after its owner, Catherine Lemoine. Located a few cobblestone streets away from the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur atop Montmartre, this bistro was once patronized by revolutionaries, poets, and artists, including Vincent Van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This lunch menu is dated October 29, 1929. Later that day in New York, the U.S. stock market crashed in an event known as “Black Tuesday.” Although the decline in stock prices immediately impacted many Americans, the ensuing global depression did not fully reach France until 1931.
108, Boulevard du Montparnasse
14th arrondissement
Opened in 1898, Le Dôme was the first rendezvous for artists and writers living in Montparnasse; its regulars were called Dômiers. The café-brasserie included an American Bar, where the Kiki cocktail was named after Kiki de Montparnasse (real name Alice Prin), a model, memoirist, and painter who embodied the liberation and decadence of the age. The menu below includes “American specialties” like corn flakes, hot dogs, and peanut butter sandwiches. For some members of the expatriate community, Le Dôme lost its cachet in 1928 when it was remodeled and expanded.
La Coupole
102, Boulevard du Montparnasse
14th arrondissement
La Coupole (The Dome) began with great fanfare in late December 1927. Larger than La Rotonde or Le Dôme, this café-brasserie was lavishly decorated in the Art Deco style. Twenty-seven artists, including students of Henri Matisse and Ferdinand Léger, adorned the columns and walls, with the column decorations still visible today. One of the lost wall murals is depicted in the watercolor shown in the heading.7 La Coupole was patronized by well-known artists, writers, and intellectuals, along with assorted hangers-on, and tourists trying to catch a glimpse of the avant-garde.
3, Place du Tertre
18th arrondissement
A la Mairie du Vieux Montmartre (At the Town Hall of Old Montmartre) was situated on a small square steeped in artistic history. The neighborhood scene by Pierre Rossignol, with the nearby Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur in the background, is rendered in the style of Maurice Utrillo, an artist who was born in old Montmartre in 1883. This menu, which is datable to 1929-1930 based on its provenance, was kept as a memento by a high-kicking dancer in a cabaret troupe touring Europe.
3, Rue Labie
17th arrondissement
Located in a quiet, residential neighborhood, this bourgeois restaurant featured wall murals depicting fauna. The nature of the establishment is reflected in the carafes of Sancerre, Vouvray, and Beaujolais, available for 10 francs. This bill of fare includes truite de rivière Bretonne (river trout from Brittany), pigeonneau à la Française (squab) and tournedos Rossini—the above-mentioned dish that would go out of fashion with the arrival of nouvelle cuisine in the 1970s.
In the fall of 1929, Janet Flanner, the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker, reported, “The Wall Street crash has had its effect here. In the Rue de la Paix the jewelers are reported to be losing fortunes in the sudden cancellation of orders, and in the Ritz bar the pretty ladies are having to pay for their own cocktails themselves.” The party was over.
These menus provide a representative sampling of the numerous restaurants frequented by Americans in Paris, shedding light on the dynamics of French public dining during this era. They reflect the growing presence of regional dishes and demonstrate how Parisian restaurateurs adapted to the influx of visitors. This adaptation is evident in the addition of grill rooms, American Bars, and dishes served à la Russe, à l’Anglaise, and à l’Américaine. Some even went so far as to open foreign restaurants to cater to their guests.
Notes
1. The conservative backlash in the United States was evident in the enactment of national Prohibition, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, the passage of restrictive immigration quotas aimed at “preserving the ideal of American homogeneity,” and the rise of Fundamentalism. Americans also traveled to Paris to obtain a divorce in the early 1920s. The more broadminded divorce laws in France made Paris the Reno of its day for Americans.
2. Mary McAuliffe. When Paris Sizzled, London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
3. The hectograph is a low-cost printing process also known as a gelatin duplicator or jellygraph. An aniline dye pencil is used to write the bill of fare on a transfer pad made of gelatin and glycerin. A distinctive purple dye was the most commonly used color. My thanks to Rich Dana, Special Collections and Archives at the University of Iowa.
4. New York Times, 2 July 1923.
5. Julian Street. Where Paris Dines, Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, & Co., 1929.
6. Therese and Louise Bonney. A Guide to the Restaurants of Paris, New York: Robert McBride & Co., 1929
7. Oscar Fabres (1894-1960), Dancing de la Coupole, 9 x 12 in., watercolor, signed and inscribed lower left, ca. 1929. Henry Voigt Collection.
8. New York Times, 17 October 1926.
9. Les Ambassadors, a cabaret at 50th Street and Broadway in New York, presented an unrelated production called “Parisian Nights” in 1928.
10. How to Enjoy Paris, Paris: International Publications, 1927.
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